Florida Football: Grading Dan Mullen’s coaching job in 2020

Dan Mullen has been the subject of a lot of criticism after a horrid end to the season, but let’s grade his 2020 coaching job with Florida football.

When the season began, Florida was just inside the top 10 and looked like a team that could make some noise in the SEC given the fact that they had a solid offense and what seemed like a decent defense.

The offense lived up to the hype but the defense was horrid for most of the season, especially against the pass, as Todd Grantham wore out his welcome in Gainesville.

Fans called for Dan Mullen to get rid of Grantham, especially after an argument on the sidelines during the Kentucky game which looked heated, but the head coach kept him around. The defense was the one thing that held the Gators back all season as they gave up at least 37 points in all four of their losses and at least 40 in three of those.

The fact that Mullen didn’t make changes during the season at defensive coordinator was the safe play and no one could have expected him to do so, but something should have been done in order to make sure Florida was competitive down the stretch.

Red flag No. 1 should have been the loss at Texas A&M in which the Gators’ defense made Kellen Mond look like a Heisman candidate after he struggled mightily to start the year. The last straw and second major red flag was the inexplicable home loss to LSU. The defense folded down the stretch against an inexperienced quarterback.

Overall, Mullen’s offense did take some major steps in the right direction with Kyle Trask playing like a Heisman candidate and he finished in the top five in voting for the prestigious award. Kyle Pitts, too, was one of the best players in college football while the rest of the offense, minus the run game, moved the ball with ease. If there was an added element of a run game, who knows how much this would have helped Trask — especially against Oklahoma.

Florida finished the season 8-4 with losses to LSU (very bad loss), Alabama (SEC title game) and Oklahoma (Cotton Bowl) to end the year. They were 8-1 heading into that stretch and the loss to LSU is what’s going to bring Mullen’s grade down a bit, along with the Oklahoma blowout.

The Gators were still successful as a top-10 team and were one of the only teams to give Alabama a serious battle this year, but Mullen can’t be happy with four losses.

Still, he gets a solid grade, but he knows that this could have very well been an A- or an A if he didn’t lose to LSU and forfeit all of his momentum.

Final Grade: B