D14 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2021
BY ANDREW GOLDENWith one regular season game
remaining in a disappointing year,
Florida announced Sunday that it
had parted ways with football
coach Dan Mullen. The announce-
ment came a day after the Gators
lost at M issouri, 24-23, i n overtime
— their fourth straight loss a gainst
Football Bowl Subdivision oppo-
nents — which dropped them to
5-6 overall and 2 -6 in SEC play.
Special teams coordinator/run-
ning backs coach Greg Knox will
serve as interim coach against ri-
val Florida State in the regular
season finale Saturday; each team
needs a win to be bowl eligible.
Florida Athletic Director Scott
Stricklin said a t a news conference
Sunday afternoon that he made
the decision that morning to let
Mullen go and met with him just
before noon. Stricklin s aid h e gave
Mullen the o ption to c oach against
Florida State but he declined.
“I just told him I felt like we
need to go a different direction for
the Gators in our football pro-
gram,” Stricklin said. “He under-
stood. It was actually a very pro-
ductive conversation.”
Mullen leaves Florida with a
34-15 record in four seasons after
coming from Mississippi State,
where he served in the same role
from 2009 to 2017. Under Mullen,
the Gators were 21-14 in SEC
games and went to three New
Year’s Six bowls and the confer-
ence championship g ame in 2 020.
But Mullen, who was Florida’s
offensive coordinator from 2005
to 2008, has been the subject of
scrutiny this season for both the
team’s play and his recruiting.
Mullen fired his offensive and de-
fensive coordinators after a 40-17
loss at South Carolina on Nov. 6.
Mullen tweeted a statement
thanking the school’s leadership
for “the privilege” of leading the
Gators. “The program has a bright
future ahead,” he added.
Stricklin said t here is n o timeta-
ble for choosing the next coach,
but he said the school is going to
use all of its resources to find the
right person.
[email protected]
Florida opts
to part ways
with Mullen
after ugly loss
Eleven seconds
remained before
halftime in Salt
Lake City on one
of those clear and
crisp November
Saturday nights
primed for something wild.
Oregon’s Australian punter took
a snap and let it boom 46 yards
slightly leftward.
We The People were about to
make our annual bummer of a
farewell to the Pac-12, playoff-
wise.
As befits the Pac-12, the ball
flew toward some really fast
dude with some really cool
name. With 0:05 on the clock, it
landed in the gut of Utah’s
Britain Covey, who fielded it at
the 22 with three Oregonians
churning toward him in an
unfettered triangle.
It’s a ritual by now, our
farewell to the Pac-12.
Covey skirted those guys, of
course, and streaked to his left
to the other side of the field. By
the time he reached his own 28,
the clock had drained out and
the crowd at one of the beautiful
football cathedrals, Rice-Eccles
Stadium, had birthed another
roar. Covey would take a
thrilling tour up that left
sideline with one mildly broken
tackle along the path. He would
score among a convoy of friends,
credit those blockers by name
after name and say: “What’s
really cool is if you go look at
that film, it looks exactly like
practice. I’ve got about six guys
finishing through to the goal
line with me at full speed.”
No. 23 Utah (8-3) went ahead
28-0 on its way to a 38-7 win.
No. 3 Oregon (9-2) went kaput
for real, and goodbye again, Pac-
12.
These goodbyes, sorrowful by
now, come when the frantic
hodgepodge of the Pac-12 finally
has left all 12 teams with at least
two losses, the benchmark of
elimination from the College
Football Playoff. They cement
the fact that national college
football keeps getting more
regional and that this is
suboptimal for national college
football. They leave the Pac-12
without a playoff team for five
seasons running now, leave it to
its solace in having by far the
most beautiful terrain and by far
the best collection of collegetowns, which is saying
something given that another
league has Madison, Wis.
In 2017, goodbye came N ov.
10, when Washington (8-1) lost,
3 0-22, at Stanford.
In 2018, it came N ov. 23, when
Washington State (10-1) lost,
2 8-15, to visiting Washington.
In 2019, it waited for Dec. 6,
when No. 5 Utah (11-1) went to
the Pac-12 championship game
and the playoff doorstep, felt the
moment too steeply and lost,
3 7-15, to Oregon. “We still have
that nasty taste in our mouths,”
Utah junior linebacker Devin
Lloyd said Saturday night, “but
we were completely confident in
this game.”
Yeah. That’s how it works.
In 2020, the league didn’t play
many games as it led the nation
in the careful consideration for
other humans.
And in 2021, here we were,
well into November.
Oregon had arrived in Utah
not only at 9-1 but with the best
win anybody had this season,
the 35-28 wow at Ohio State on
Sept. 11. Anybody straying down
to that field afterward would
have seen Oregon players posing
merrily with a supersized Duck
— always a sight — and maybe
even the wee rubber duck left
tauntingly upon the Ohio State
field. It left hope that glided
across the autumn, hope that
the Pac-12 could turn up in the
chosen four. Now, that had been
extinguished in a stomping that
included a clinching punt return
that happened when Utah didn’t
even have a return set up. “But
Covey is a dangerous guy,” Utah
Coach Kyle Whittingham said of
his leading receiver, “and I know
I’d think twice about kicking to
him.” (He’s also one of the 55
grandchildren of the late
Stephen Covey, author of the
smash-hit book “The 7 Habits Of
Highly Effective People.”)
Now the playoff has a better
chance of including the national
cause celebre of No. 5 Cincinnati
(11-0), which just gave a good
SMU team an uncommon
annihilation (48-14). Now it has
a great chance of including that
losing team from that rubber-
duck day, No. 4 Ohio State (10-1),
which looked like very fresh hell
to counter in its 49-0 halftime
win over No. 7 Michigan State
(56-7 by the end), its receiverszigzagging madly where the
Duck (and duck) once exulted. It
even might have No. 6 Michigan
(10-1), if Michigan can send its
Buckeye-beleaguered people
reveling through the Ann Arbor
streets Saturday afternoon. One
of the two Oklahomas, once-
beaten each, might have a bicker
after they finish bickeringSan Diego State, and it won’t
have the Pac-12.
“It should burn,” said Oregon
Coach Mario Cristobal, whose
team had taken, on Oct. 2, one of
those inexplicable losses that
helps define college football, at
Stanford, which has reeled since.
“It should hurt a ton. Guys are
competitors. It’s hard because
we’ve taken a lot of pride in
being resilient and being able to
bounce back from adversity.”
Now they went out with a
mauling, rushing for only 63
yards, allowing first-half drives
of 63, 80 and 77 yards and
allowing third-down
conversions at a rate (11 for 14)
that would drape many a college
town in gloom. Utah blocked
like all idealism. Running back
Tavion Thomas extolled the Utes
linemen with, “They made it
easy to see the holes, read, trust
my instincts and just go.”
Oregon boarded a well-
funded plane home, a glum
plane, an annual Pac-12 plane of
glumness. “Any coach, any
trainer, anybody on that plane
that feels giddy doesn’t belong
on that plane,” Cristobal said,
although college football has not
yet gone so mad that some giddy
sort gets hurled out from 30,00 0
feet.
Rivalry week comes now.
Sumptuous contempt will dot
the land from a hopeful Ann
Arbor (Ohio State at Michigan),
to a hopeful Stillwater
(Oklahoma at Oklahoma State),
to a bummed-out Auburn
(Alabama at Auburn after three
straight lousy losses took
Auburn from 6-2 to 6-5 under a
first-year coach who looks
overmatched, lastly a 21-17 dud
at South Carolina). Cincinnati
will go to East Carolina on
Friday night hoping to ply its
usual resistance to
overconfidence.
And Oregon will welcome
Oregon State, up from 2-10 in
2018 to 7-4 in 2021, the fourth
season under the helming of its
former quarterback Jonathan
Smith. That game has gobs of
allure, but it just lost its playoff
allure, which would have driven
more eyes toward the Pacific
Northwest. Eyes are always
better served with variety, and
besides, the Pacific Northwest is
gorgeous.
[email protected]among themselves Saturday in
Stillwater. If No. 2 Alabama loses
to No. 1 Georgia on Dec. 4, it
might even have a two-loss
Alabama, and wouldn’t that stir
up some gunk?
It just won’t have Oregon, and
it won’t have Pac-12 South
champion Utah after Utah’s
losses in September at BYU andRECORD PTS PVS- Georgia (62) 11-0 1550 1
- Alabama 10-1 1450 2
- Ohio State 10-1 1428 4
- Cincinnati 11-0 1388 3
- Notre Dame 10-1 1258 6
- Michigan 10-1 1250 7
- Oklahoma State 10-1 1210 9
- Mississippi 9-2 1049 10
- Oklahoma 10-1 1010 11
- Baylor 9-2 977 13
- Oregon 9-2 864 5
- Iowa 9-2 722 14
- Michigan State 9-2 698 8
- Texas A&M 8-3 683 16
- BYU 9-2 675 15
- Houston 10-1 572 17
- Pittsburgh 9-2 507 19
- Wisconsin 8-3 485 20
- Utah 8-3 478 25
- Texas San Antonio 11-0 475 18
- Wake Forest 9-2 404 12
- San Diego State 10-1 257 23
- Louisiana Lafayette 10-1 236 21
- North Carolina State 8-3 196 24
- Kentucky 8-3 91 NR
O thers receiving votes: A rkansas (7-4) 67, Clemson
(8-3) 56, Mississippi State (7-4) 42, Penn State (7-4) 22,
Appalachian State (9-2) 20, Purdue (7-4) 10, Coastal
Carolina (9-2) 9, Air Force (8-3) 9, Oregon State (7-4) 2.
Ducks’ defeat was also a loss for the Pac-12 — and the sport itselfOn
Football
CHUCK
CULPEPPERCOACHES’ POLLRECORD PTS PVS- Georgia (62) 11-0 1550 1
- Ohio State 10-1 1434 5
- Alabama 10-1 1423 2
- Cincinnati 11-0 1416 3
- Notre Dame 10-1 1262 6
- Michigan 10-1 1246 8
- Oklahoma State 10-1 1209 9
- Mississippi 9-2 1060 10
- Baylor 9-2 1046 11
- Oklahoma 10-1 1001 12
- Oregon 9-2 849 4
- Michigan State 9-2 778 7
- BYU 9-2 771 14
- Texas A&M 8-3 628 16
- Texas San Antonio 11-0 583 15
- Utah 8-3 561 24
- Iowa 9-2 538 18
- Wisconsin 8-3 517 19
- Houston 10-1 516 17
- Pittsburgh 9-2 445 20
- Wake Forest 9-2 344 13
- San Diego State 10-1 273 23
- Louisiana Lafayette 10-1 246 22
- North Carolina State 8-3 141 25
- Arkansas 7-4 105 21
O thers receiving votes: C lemson 101, Mississippi State
44, Penn State 26, Appalachian State 24, Kentucky 10,
Purdue 3.
AP TOP 25CHRIS GARDNER/GETTY IMAGES
“It should burn. It should hurt a ton,” Coach Mario Cristobal said
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