Tag: Randy Shannon

Which Florida school has the best non-head coach football recruiter?

Two Gators assistants are among the best recruiters in the state, according to The Athletic.

The path to a resurrection of the glory days in the Swamp runs through Florida football’s recruiting efforts, which has become the focus of the program since [autotag]Billy Napier[/autotag] took over for [autotag]Dan Mullen[/autotag], the latter who took a lackadaisical approach when it came to bringing premiere prep talent to Gainesville.

But the endeavor involves more than just Napier — the first-year head coach also brought in an army of coaches and staffers with him to assist in making the University of Florida a premiere destination for aspiring football players once again. Among those now on the payroll are some of the best in the business when it comes to turning raw talent into top-level athletes.

The Athletic’s Manny Navarro took a look at how all the Sunshine State schools compare to each other in his most recent mailbag. Read below his response to one reader’s query regarding the best recruiter from each program who is not the head coach.

If you go by the 2023 recruiter rankings at 247Sports, Miami offensive line coach Alex Mirabal (No. 7), Florida co-defensive coordinator [autotag]Sean Spencer[/autotag] (No. 14) and Florida State receivers coach Ron Dugans (No. 27) ranked the highest last cycle.

Most insiders, though, would tell you Mario Cristobal anchors Miami’s recruiting efforts. I did a straw poll of beat writers, scouts and analysts, and all of them agreed Cristobal is the guy. When I pressed for names of Miami staffers, tight ends coach Stephen Field, running backs coach Kevin Smith, linebackers coach [autotag]Charlie Strong[/autotag], defensive backs coach Jahmile Addae, defensive analyst DeMarcus Van Dyke and Mirabal all received some love. But there was no clear-cut No. 1.

At Florida State, offensive coordinator Alex Atkins received the most love with veteran defensive line coach Odell Haggins and co-defensive coordinator [autotag]Randy Shannon[/autotag] getting a shout-out.

At Florida, it was defensive backs coach [autotag]Corey Raymond[/autotag] who was the overwhelming selection.

While the Hurricanes appear to have the upper hand in this survey of assistants including former Gators coach [autotag]Charlie Strong[/autotag], between Spencer and Raymond — especially considering that Cristobal is considered the alpha and omega of Miami’s recruiting efforts — it appears that the Gators likely have the upper hand in this one.

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Looking back and regrading Florida’s Dan Mullen hire

This is pretty much the grade you’d expect Mullen to get. Or is it?

Florida football experienced both highs and lows under former head coach [autotag]Dan Mullen[/autotag], who was chosen to replace [autotag]Jim McElwain[/autotag] after putting up a 22-12 record in two-plus seasons before giving way to interim head coach [autotag]Randy Shannon[/autotag], who stumbled across the finish line in 2017 with a 1-3 record. Having served under [autotag]Urban Meyer[/autotag] on the two national championship teams, hopes were high in the Swamp that the former assistant and ex-head of the Mississippi State Bulldogs’ program would restore glory to the Orange and Blue.

Things went pretty well for Mullen over his first three years, earning a bid in a New Year’s Six bowl game in each of those seasons. However, the tide began to turn on him in 2020 beginning with the embarrassing loss to LSU at home — the infamous shoe-toss game — and his team’s multiple failures during the 2021 campaign led to his early dismissal and the worst finish in SEC play since 1986.

CBS Sports’ Tom Fornelli recently published an article looking back at all of the hires from the 2017-18 span, comparing the initial grade received with his updated assessment. The list included the Mullen hire and here is what Fornelli had to offer.

Record: 34-15 | Accomplishments: SEC East titles (1), New Year’s Six bowl games (3), bowl games (4)

How’s it going? It depends on who you ask. The Mullen hire made plenty of sense. He was the school’s offensive coordinator when it won national titles under Urban Meyer. He was ultra-successful at Mississippi State, a program that’s proven to be one of the toughest places to win in the SEC. The problem is that what Mullen was able to do at Mississippi State to win games wasn’t enough to win as many games as Florida desired. After going 21-5 in his first two seasons, the Gators slipped to 13-10 the next two, and Mullen didn’t show much desire to recruit at the level of rival Georgia. That was the final straw, and he was fired before the end of the 2021 season. While it’s seen as a disappointing tenure, Mullen’s winning percentage of .694 at Florida is still the fifth-highest in program history and was a significant improvement over Jim McElwain and [autotag]Will Muschamp[/autotag]. Grade: B- | Original grade: A

All in all, Fornelli’s assessment is extremely fair. Mullen never really seemed to maximize the talent on his team on the field, and off the field, there were constant rumblings from the players ranging from the head coach’s distant attitude to the food that they were served. Additionally, the importance of recruiting at a high level cannot be understated in the SEC, which became the bane of the Mullen regime.

Nonetheless, the former coach does deserve some credit for getting the Gators back into the game there for a few years — and make no mistake, they were pretty fun years. But overall, ol’ Dan does not deserve much more than a passing grade.

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Florida State promotes former Gators assistant Randy Shannon to defensive coordinator

Shannon has now served as a defensive coordinator at each of the Big Three Florida schools

Randy Shannon really has made his way around this entire state. The former Miami head coach has also made stops at UCF and Florida before spending the 2021 season at Florida State as a defensive analyst. Now, he has been promoted by head coach Mike Norvell to the defensive coordinator role replacing Chris Marve, who left to take the same job at Virginia Tech under new coach Brent Pry.

Shannon is a journeyman coach if ever there was one. A former player at Miami, he was promoted to the head coaching position from within in 2007 after the team fired national championship-winning head coach Larry Coker. He went 28-22 in his four years in Coral Gables before he was ultimately fired.

After two years off, he spent three years with TCU and Arkansas as a linebackers coach before taking an assistant head coach and co-defensive coordinator role on Jim McElwain’s first staff at Florida in 2015. The “co” was dropped from his title when Geoff Collins left to take the head coaching job at Temple after the 2016 season, and when the Gators fired Jim McElwain in 2017, Shannon stepped in to serve as interim. He guided the team to a 1-3 finish.

He then served as defensive coordinator under Josh Heupel at UCF from 2018-20, but when Heupel left for Tennessee, he wasn’t retained by new coach Guz Malzahn, and he then became a senior defensive analyst in Tallahassee.

Were the Seminoles to move on from Mike Norvell, Shannon would be an obvious interim candidate, meaning he could potentially become the first person to serve as the head coach at Florida, Florida State and Miami. Regardless, this is a hire for FSU that brings a lot of experience and knowledge of the state to the table.

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