Florida Football: 3 storylines to follow in spring 2021

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Nov 28, 2020; Gainesville, FL, USA; Florida Gators head coach Dan Mullen yells at defensive coordinator Todd Grantham during a football game against the Kentucky Wildcats at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Fla. Nov. 28, 2020. Mandatory Credit: Brad McClenny-USA TODAY NETWORK /

2. Dan Mullen’s trust in Todd Grantham

Todd Grantham has been around. He’s been one of the better defensive minds in football over the years and he joined Dan Mullen in Florida in 2018 and has been the defensive coordinator ever since. For some reason, though, the two just haven’t meshed well.

That was never more evident than in 2020 when Mullen had an outburst on the sidelines where he was caught on camera yelling at Grantham following a rough start against Kentucky.

Mullen and Grantham seemed to be working their way toward a breakup.

But everyone was surprised when Mullen decided to bring Grantham back after a disappointing 2020 season defensively. With all the talent the Gators have on that side of the ball, Grantham’s unit really under-performed and that had a lot of fans questioning whether he was the right defensive coordinator for the job.

Mullen has said he still has trust in Grantham and the defensive coordinator is going to change his approach in order to turn things around, but is there really a ton of trust there like the head coach says?

It’ll be interesting to see what defensive changes are implemented and if the group performs as well as it should or if the offense is still leaps and bounds ahead, even with a new quarterback.

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