Mullen spends extra time in defensive staff meeting Sunday to fix issues

OFFER: Purchase a monthly subscription and get the rest of 2020 for FREE when using promo code GT2020

Dan Mullen vowed to reevaluate his defense after the unit allowed 543 yards in a 41-38 loss to Texas A&M.

Less than 24 hours later, Florida’s third-year coach did just that. Mullen met with the defensive staff Sunday, taking longer than he typically does.

“I probably spent more time during a normal day with the defense,” Mullen said. “It’s my responsibility. I’m the head coach. I’m responsible for how we play and the performance of every phase of this team. Don’t expect me to be calling defensive plays out there.”

That responsibility belongs to defensive coordinator Todd Grantham, whose unit has allowed 100 points in three games — a total that wasn’t hit until the eighth game last year. He has more than a half dozen new starters this season as well as some players at new positions. Mullen’s meeting with him and his staff Sunday centered around those personnel changes.

“We went through personnel. We went through each guy,” Mullen said. “We went through, are we asking guys to do things they can do well? Where are we being mismatched? Right at this moment, where is their strength? Where is their weakness? And are we highlighting their strengths and protecting their weaknesses? We certainly looked at that … just making sure we were going through every detail with them.”

With Kyree Campbell unavailable, the Gators are missing seven starters from a 2019 unit that ranked No. 7 nationally in scoring defense and No. 9 in total defense. They’ve tried to compensate for those departures by cross-training players at multiple positions and even moving some guys to different spots, such as Amari Burney to inside linebacker and Zachary Carter to defensive tackle.

“We’ve been playing short-handed defensively,” Mullen said. “It helps we do have guys that can play different positions, but it also is challenging to make sure we get the exact people where they need to be at all times to make us as stout and as good a defense we can be.

“There’s a lot of new faces out there for us as well. Are we putting them in a position to make plays? … The easiest explanation is to not put Kyle Trask in a quarterback-run-based offense. What we’ve gotta do is make sure we’re moving the guys into the right spots to be able to make plays.”

Mullen credited A&M for making the plays it did. He said Florida’s defense wasn’t physical enough in the run game, with Isaiah Spiller rushing for 174 of A&M’s 205 yards.

Mullen saw better effort and coverage from the UF secondary, but said Aggies quarterback Kellen Mond was able to make some great passes and “threw guys open.” He’s the second signal caller to eclipse 300 yards passing against the Gators this season, along with Matt Coral of Ole Miss.

“We have guys in tight, tight coverage all over them and he threw them open and they were able to make plays, so that hurt,” Mullen said of Mond. “It’s still early in the season. Maybe we’ve played some unbelievable offenses already. I don’t know. We’ll see. Sometimes you get to the end of the season and you look back and you say, ‘OK, well we thought this but in reality it was really something else.’

“I thought we played much better in Game 2 defensively and then last week. Now did we make some mistakes? Absolutely. Do we need to be stouter at times? Absolutely. Did they make some great plays where we had a guy in great coverage and the quarterback throws a dime and they make a one-handed catch? Yes. We have a guy draped all over him and they make a leaping catch. That’s great offense, too. That's not bad defense.”

Florida faces another great aerial attack in LSU, which ranks No. 9 nationally in passing offense (370.7 yards avg.). Will that prompt the Gators to make some lineup changes on defense, specifically in the secondary?

“Tune in on Saturday,” Mullen said, “to find out.”