Mullen takes accountability for Florida's mistakes
If you're watching ESPN tonight and the Florida-Vanderbilt score scrolls by you'd assume things went well and the coaching staff was happy with the performance. If you watched the game you would have seen Dan Mullen yell at anyone within earshot as the Gators played a less than inspiring first half.
First, it was defensive coordinator Todd Grantham that drew Mullen's ire.
Florida's defense did not have a memorable first half. The Commodores ran 49 plays for 200 yards in the first half. In Vanderbilt's only other conference game this season — a 62-0 loss to Georgia — they managed just 77 yards the entire game.
"They were on the field the entire half with the exception of our first, I think, two drives were three and outs…Missed tackles. Giving up third-down conversions. Then in the second half, I saw us go back to where we were kind of those first two drives at the start to the second half where we completely slammed the door on them and played with an intensity. It’s not like they let them drive the length of the field. You look at the first half, defensively, they missed a couple of field goals and they had kind of a drop on an overturned play in the end zone. So in the second half, we made sure they didn’t have those opportunities.”
On offense, there were some miscues. Emory Jones took responsibility for some missed reads and there were more penalties — 8 for 80 yards after 15 a week ago. This is where Mullen stepped up to the plate Saturday after the game.
Where Mullen lacked taking responsibility and accountability for Florida's shortcomings last weekend in Lexington, he stepped up to the plate and shouldered the blame, as well as holding his coaching staff accountable.
"Overall it's on me and that's on the coaching staff, all of us, of making sure that we have crossed every t, dotted every i, that our execution is exact, it's not just, hey, looking at things as a whole but looking at it individually on every snap of the game," Mullen said. "And our job as coaches is to make sure we are up to our standard on every snap."
Florida's performance Saturday was enough to beat a Vanderbilt team that has been outscored 104-0 in its two conference games but will it be enough to win on the road in Baton Rouge next week or in Jacksonville against Georgia on October 30?
Florida has the potential to be a pretty good football team. They are better than their 4-2 record but they're not showing it on Saturdays. That isn't solely on the coaching staff. The players are the ones that have to execute plays, make tackles, and play the game but it starts with the coaching staff and it appears that Mullen is going to have a long talk with his coaching staff on Sunday to make sure every position group is doing what they need to do in order to make the necessary corrections before next Saturday.