You’re gonna miss him when he’s gone.

Ah, the good times with Dan Mullen…

Two weeks later after a 38-14 bounce-back win at home over Tennessee, UF lost the lead and fell behind in the third quarter at Kentucky when a field-goal attempt was blocked and returned 76 yards for a touchdown. The Gators dominated the stats for total yards (382-224), first downs (21-13) and time of possession (36:18-23:42), but 15 penalties for 115 yards, including eight flags for false-start calls, allowed UK to capture a 20-13 win.

Then in a 49-42 loss at LSU, Florida was -4 in turnover margin and the Tigers ran for 321 yards on 45 rushing attempts. LSU would finish the season ranked 13th out of 14 SEC teams in rushing yards, but Dan Mullen still didn’t fire defensive coordinator Todd Grantham after this atrocious performance.

In fact, Mullen didn’t pull the trigger on a pink slip for Grantham until after 40-17 loss at South Carolina as a 20.5-point road ‘chalk.’ By then, it was Mullen’s future that was in serious doubt. Even if the Gators had won out in their three remaining games, it still might not have been enough for him to see a fifth season.

The defense was even worse the following week in a 70-52 win over Samford. When Florida lost 24-23 to Missouri in overtime one week later, Mullen was gone before lunch the next day. The Gators beat FSU 24-21 in the regular-season finale, but they lost 29-17 to Central Florida at the Gasparilla Bowl.

UCF and South Carolina were the only UF opponents who had more total yards than the Gators, but penalties galore and a -9 turnover margin led to four one-possession losses.

Florida was +1,235 in net yardage for the season.

That, my friends, is hard to do.  And Billy Napier ought to be eternally grateful for the low bar set by the Portal Master™.  How many wins this season will it take for your Daily Gator to proclaim “Florida is back, baby!”?  I’m setting the over/under at nine.