It was a brutal season for Florida football fans in 2021, who saw their team completely tank in a season that began with New Year’s Six bowl aspirations… and possibly higher. After nearly dethroning the Alabama Crimson Tide in mid-September, the team went into a free-fall that resulted in the dismissal of once-heralded head coach Dan Mullen and his staff.
While the precipitous downturn was not quite expected, the cracks in the foundation began showing late last season starting with the LSU game. An early injury to linebacker and team leader Ventrell Miller as well as ineffective play from quarterback Emory Jones exacerbated the issue for the Gators as they ventured through the SEC gauntlet. Add a strong helping of former defensive coordinator Todd Grantham’s inept defensive scheming and Mullen’s obstinant ego, and one can see why this team finished 6-7.
The primary Achilles heel for the team was inconsistency, as The Athletic pointed out in its best and worst of SEC football in 2021. When one corps managed to get things together another would completely falter, and one never knew exactly which link would be the weakest from week to week. Here is how senior writer Dave Ubben described it.
Florida routed Tennessee and came within a 2-point conversion from tying SEC champion Alabama late in the fourth quarter. The Gators also lost by 23 to South Carolina, lost at LSU, lost at Missouri and lost a bowl game to UCF as a touchdown favorite.
No team in the league was more inconsistent.
But the criticism did not stop there. Dan Mullen got called out for one of the more boneheaded comments this past season in response to a question after the Georgia game about recruiting from the press scrum.
“We’re in the season right now. We’ll do recruiting after the season. When it gets to recruiting time, we can talk about recruiting, OK? Next question.”
Mullen also got a mention in relation to Missouri’s Eli Drinkowitz earning the quote of the year designation, in which he responded to Florida’s head coach press conference shenanigans last season when he dressed up as Darth Vader. This time around, Mizzou’s skipper invoked the light side of the force in response to his team’s overtime with over the Gators in November.
It is pretty obvious that 2021 was a year to forget for Gators fans and the national media appears to agree. Hopefully, the future will be much brighter with new head coach Billy Napier and his army of staff at the helm of the state’s flagship program.
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