For the first time in more than four years of doing this, I’m staring at a blank page and struggling with where to begin.
I’ve been fairly critical of Dan Mullen in his time at Florida. The recruiting has been substandard compared to previous recent coaches not named McElwain. He has shown that he doesn’t understand the basic economics of supply and demand. And he’s recently spent an awful lot of time focusing on Georgia.
The problem is that based on recent events, he needs to spend that energy focused on Florida.
There’s no doubt that Mullen is a brilliant on-field coach. He took a team that looked broken and defeated under Jim McElwain and transformed them into a top-10 team that whipped Michigan in the Peach Bowl. He turned Mississippi State from a laughing stock into a team that could compete every once in a while with the big boys in the SEC West.
He said many of the right things when he came to Gainesville.
Relentless effort and bringing back the Gator Standard are marketing genius. They have galvanized a fan base licking its wounds from death threat accusations from its previous coach.
The offense began to score points consistently, and not just because of a running game. The development of QB Feleipe Franks in 2018 was a welcome sight for those who’d spent much of the previous three years at times wishing that Clarabelle would actually get a shot behind center.
But the entry into the transfer portal of Chris Steele is different.
It’s different because it doesn’t really have anything to do with football. Instead, it speaks to the character and integrity of the program. It speaks to being able to trust Mullen and his staff.
According to multiple reports, Steele was uncomfortable rooming with QB Jalon Jones and expressed a desire to change living situations. How forcefully that was done and whether his reasons were fully explained to Florida staff is currently unclear.
But what does appear to be clear from Gator Sports’ report is that Steele and his family were unhappy about having to wait until the summer for the move to take place in January, his first month on campus.
That means that Steele was forced to live in an uncomfortable situation until April, when allegations of sexual assault (no charges) led Jones and the program to mutually part ways.
Now Steele is gone, apparently because he and his family didn’t feel that the staff – the one that likely promises all parents that they will take care of their sons – took good care of him. Quite honestly, that’s a reasonable response with the request and subsequent assault allegations.
It’s also a big problem for Florida.
From a football perspective, it’s a problem because Mullen just lost the best prospect he’s ever brought to Florida as head coach. Steele was going to contribute early and often, and was insurance in case Marco Wilson struggled coming back from his ACL injury.
But from a program perspective, it’s a much larger problem.
All we have right now is the initial reason for the transfer as Mullen has not addressed it. Maybe there were good reasons a dorm change couldn’t be made.
Maybe this is a situation where the dorm change should have been made for Steele and it fell through the cracks because of an oversight by the staff. Maybe the staff didn’t ask enough questions when Steele made his request and didn’t think it was a big deal. Maybe Steele wasn’t clear enough about what he wanted or why he wanted it. Or maybe they decided they wanted to show their highly ranked guy that he wouldn’t receive special treatment now that he’d signed his letter of intent.
Regardless of the reasons though, it’s clear that Steele no longer trusted the staff to act in his best interests.
It seems foreboding that 5-star 2021 recruit Bryce Langston decommitted from the Gators shortly after the Steele news broke. Every single recruit’s parents are going to hear the exact same refrain from opposing coaches: you can’t trust Mullen to take care of your son.
It’s good to remind ourselves that everything is a matter of degrees. This does not appear to be a Penn State, Baylor or FSU situation where there are questions about cover ups of awful behavior.
But that also doesn’t mean it’s ideal. Hopefully it’s an isolated incident of a miscommunication between a player and the staff.
But until Mullen addresses this, all we have is the story as it is being currently told. And that story is not a good look for Florida.