GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A copy of Monday's
Gainesville Sun sports section was folded over on the counter inside the break room. As the hot coffee from the Keurig dripped into my cup, I glanced at the headline on the cover.
Above a photo of Gators head coach
Dan Mullen, two words in bold ink stared back: May Misery.
Sometimes two words are all a headline writer needs. Whether your office is at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium or 3,000 miles away, if you are passionate about the Gators, the month of May can get off your lawn already.
When Mullen took over the team in November 2017, the Gators caught a huge wave of momentum and rode it all the way into the top 10 of the national polls at the end of last season. The Gators went from four wins to 10 in his first season.
Feleipe Franks had the best season by a Gators quarterback since Tim Tebow. They finally beat Michigan for the first time and then signed their highest-rated recruiting class in years.
Mullen's first 18 months on the job was an extended honeymoon the program needed in the wake of Jim McElwain's exit.
And
then May arrived, and well, the headlines turned so acrid (e.g.
Jalon Jones) it reminded me of the
Treon Harris dilemma of 2014.
By the end of last week, you wondered if there was any way to move the Gators-Miami season opener up to May 24 instead of Aug. 24. Since that's not happening, the best alternative seems a return to normalcy, whatever that is this time of year.
Of course, the college football offseason is hardly normal as
SBNation.com pointed out recently in its
step-by-step guide to eight loaded months of nothing. Much of that nothing often includes the kind of headlines that have stalked the Gators of late.
Still, the Gators take a step forward this week when Mullen returns to his spring speaking tour with stops in Tampa and Orlando. The stop at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on Thursday marks exactly 100 days until the Gators and Hurricanes kick off there in late summer.
By that time, Florida fans everywhere hope the headlines of spring have faded.
UF Athletic Director
Scott Stricklin appeared on WRUF radio host Steve Russell's "SportsScene" show Tuesday afternoon. Surprisingly, much of the show focused on the Gators' facility upgrades and other topics as Russell took questions from listeners either too fatigued by recent news or simply too busy to spend much time on the internet.
Florida's recent run of negative headlines was broached, however, by Larry.
While Stricklin reminded listeners he couldn't get into specifics due to student-privacy laws, he spoke around primary offseason concerns such as Jones being investigated for an alleged sexual assault – no charges were filed – and the subsequent fallout of freshman defensive back
Chris Steele leaving the program. Steele announced Tuesday on Twitter that he has transferred to Oregon. Meanwhile, defensive back
Brian Edwards was arrested last week for simple battery/date violence for a heated confrontation with his girlfriend of two years and his status with the team remains uncertain.
"The fact of the matter is sometimes you have young people and young people make mistakes. You have to have accountability when that occurs, and there's typically in those situations there's a campus or university protocol and we followed that to the letter,'' Stricklin said. "We don't get involved. But when young men make mistakes, they have to be held accountable. Your hope is that over a period of time it gets to a point where you get the right people in your program and young men pay attention to what's happened to others who stepped out of line before them and they make good decisions.
"Obviously, we have had a couple of guys this spring that have not done so, but they're also going to face the consequences of that and we're going to continue to educate and hold those young men accountable so that in the future we can eliminate those issues as much as possible."
Mullen will face more questions about the recent headlines when he speaks with the media and fans in Tampa and Orlando over the next two nights. While recent events have put the Gators in the spotlight for unwanted reasons, other programs are likely to step from the shadows over the summer.
It's an unfortunate part of the offseason that coaches and administrators dread, and fans across the country either fear (when it's their school) or relish (when it's someone else's school).
In the big picture, the Gators are well-positioned to immediately withstand the impact of recent issues in a football sense. The continued development of the offensive line remains the top concern on the field heading into next season, so for those ready to hit the panic button, perhaps a trip to the beach could help.
Beyond 2019, the Gators have ample time to rectify whatever concerns they have on the depth chart and in recruiting. That will be up to Mullen and his staff as they continue to rebuild the program to their vision.
On a personal level, it's always disappointing to see young people with such a golden opportunity make poor decisions that can impact their lives in permanent ways and on such a visible stage. And then you factor in the drama of social media and message board fodder, and after a while, it all seems like a caricature blaring from an interstate billboard.
That element gets lost far too much these days, but these are the times in which we live.
May is only at halftime. The second half can't get started soon enough.
