having gone through the McL/Nord witness protection program at UF...Taven’s another diamond I think jags will find..==============================

entire time at UF but as soon as they left they flourished. Part of the problem we've had is that we've greatly underutilized our players. Our final rankings haven't come close to matching our recruiting rankings. Mullen doesn't need to get outperformance out of our players to succeed (though that would be nice). Performance in line with talent levels would in and of itself be a huge improvement. Though he hasn't coached a game yet, I'm confident this is the case. He certainly seemed to do so at MSU, and he was still very much learning the position during his tenure there. I am VERY glad Stricklin did not hire another guy who was gonna go through on the job training at UF. Mullen knew what he wanted before he even showed up. He came in with a plan and is executing on it. It's evident in all the intangibles--excitement, positivity (without being naively so), emphasis on process and the championship attitude, emphasis on being a physical team, competition AND teamwork (a key balance), embracing the fans and the media, transparency, etc. Now, a key test will be when we lose games. He needs to not lose his cool yet also of course not be okay with losing. We're gonna have quite a few challenges given the lack of experience at a number of positions (QB, LB, kicking).

Eventually he's also going to need to improve our recruiting results if we're going to get back on top and compete for championships. I believe he's building the proper base for it (by re-building our brand), but he doesn't have forever. His transition class was decent, though that was largely due to Mac. We're way behind our competition for 2019 currently. Still lots of time before signing day, so anything can happen. I'm of the opinion that the top players simply need more than a year, or even two, of focus to be able to land them nowadays. So as important as the bump class was in prior years, I think it's been delayed a year. It takes time to form relationships. That said, 2019 needs to shape up better than it is currently, and 2020 needs to be special. Mullen has definitely done a solid job recruiting QBs (three commitments so far, and all are a great fit for his system), which is an area where we've really struggled. I think that's very important for other recruits to see. There will be PLENTY of competition among the QBs over the next several years, and there will be a lot more experience. Hopefully Mullen can start landing some stud offensive linemen, because he's already got a solid base of playmakers. One or two solid linemen plus a QB who can run his system and we will look like much, much different on offense than we have.

Last year was rock bottom. Things are looking up indeed.