It was on Saturday after getting clobbered by No. 1-ranked Georgia that Florida Gators coach Dan Mullen talked eloquently and emotionally about how he and his struggling team must now come together, grab the rope and start pulling in the same direction.
“As the rope slips, you can either drop it or grab tight, hold on, dig in your heels and start pulling in the other direction,” Mullen explained passionately. “Dropping the rope doesn’t fix anything. What fixes it is grasping the rope, holding on and squeezing as it’s burning. I will say something about me: I don’t drop the rope. I’m not going to let you rip it out of my hand. You can drag me around by my face if you want, but I’m going to squeeze it and not let any inch of that rope go.”
Two days later on Monday, Mullen depressingly dropped the rope.
He canceled UF’s remaining press conferences for the week.
The legendary Knute Rockne once said, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
Dan Mullen is now saying: “When the going gets tough, blame it on the media.”
If somebody is advising Mullen, they need to stop.
If nobody is advising Mullen, they need to start.
Unfortunately, the charming, disarming Dan has once again turned into the prickly, petulant Dan. He has become his own worst enemy by throwing gas on the flames of discontent within Gator Nation.
If I were Mullen’s public relations advisor, I’d tell him to rip a page from Florida State coach Mike Norvell’s PR playbook. Seriously, has anybody in college football had it tougher than Norvell over the last two seasons? Amid a global pandemic, he took over a dilapidated wreck of a program — a program bereft of talent and discipline — and has handled every obstacle and every loss like a true leader.
Norvell makes himself available to the media multiple times a week, answering every tough question after every tough loss without taking it personally. Norvell knows that part of his job as a high-profile college football coach with a mega-million-dollar salary is answering pointed questions if your team is losing. Norvell realizes he’s a big-boy football coach whereas Mullen is acting like a big-baby football coach.
Mullen needs to understand that being a great head coach is not just about being an accomplished play-caller and game-planner; it’s about being an astute manager and motivator. It’s about being a real leader; not just a cheerleader.
And when things start going bad, real leaders look in the mirror at themselves; they don’t look out the window for other people to blame. They don’t run from the problems or act like they don’t exist; they confront them and solve them.
For instance, Mullen doesn’t seem to want to accept the narrative that his recruiting is significantly inferior to that of Georgia coach Kirby Smart, who annually hauls in top-five classes loaded with blue-chip recruits. Although the various national recruiting rankings aren’t the be-all, end-all as to how much talent a team has on its roster, they’re at lease a good indicator.
Gator Nation is rightfully freaking out at the most current Rivals.com rankings that has Georgia’s recruiting class projected to be No. 1 in the country based on the current list of commitments. Meanwhile, the Gators’ projected class ranking is 35th; one spot ahead of UCF and one spot behind Purdue. The Gators projected class is ranked 12th in the SEC, behind the likes of Missouri, South Carolina, Arkansas and the two Mississippi schools.
When a reporter asked Mullen about his recruiting concerns on Monday, UF’s coach bristled and refused to answer the question. “We’re in the season right now,” Mullen said. “We’ll do recruiting after the season — when it gets to recruiting time we can talk about recruiting. Next question.”
Memo to Mullen: It’s always recruiting time.
Just ask Kirby Smart.
Just ask Nick Saban.
Just ask your old boss Urban Meyer, who used to text recruits on Sunday mornings from the pew at church.
An hour after shutting down the reporter’s recruiting question, Mullen shut down Florida’s media access for the rest of the week, fueling a firestorm of criticism on social media and among the mainstream media. Stories are now being written in national publications like The Athletic, quoting anonymous sources ravaging Mullen as a coach, recruiter and leader. And once this noxious negativity ignites among fans and media, it spreads quickly, it feeds on itself, breeds on itself, grows, multiplies and can alter the trajectory of a program.
Mullen could have easily made the situation better instead of worse. When he was asked about UF’s recruiting concerns on Monday, he should have looked directly into the video cameras and answered passionately and defiantly like this:
“I know there’s a perception out there me and my coaches don’t recruit hard, but that’s a bunch of B.S. We are busting our asses on the recruiting trail and we’re going to get this thing turned around. Yes, there are some things we can do better and we WILL do them better. This is the freaking flagship university in the most fertile recruiting state in the country. Academically, we are one of the top five public universities in the nation and, read my lips, we’re about to become one of the top five recruiting destinations in the nation.
“In a few months, we will open up our $90 million stand-alone football facility that’s as nice, if not nicer, than any in the country. Believe me, that’s going to be a real game-changer for us. I want all of you reporters to quote me on this and put this in your publications: The recruiting at the University of Florida is about to explode. You better believe the Gators are coming; and, brother, we’re coming hard!!!”
Mullen could have easily turned the negative question about recruiting into a positive message; an attention-grabbing message of inspiration for potential recruits and an angst-calming message of hope for disgruntled fans.
Instead, he decided to shut down UF’s remaining press conferences for the week.
Sadly, Dan Mullen dropped the ball.
But even more disappointingly, he dropped the rope.
