Dan Mullen: Florida players starting to take more accountability

It wasn’t the type of win that most teams would necessarily celebrate, but a win is a win – and that’s certainly been the case for Florida’s struggling football program this season. Although the Gators were playing an FCS school in Samford last Saturday and gave up 52 points, they still put up 70 points of their own and got the job done.

Though they’re just 5-5 on the season with a 2-5 mark in SEC play, the Samford win – despite it coming against a FCS school – gave the Gators some momentum heading into their final two games of the regular season, especially after Florida battled back down 42-28 late in the second quarter.

During his Monday press conference, Florida head coach Dan Mullen credited his team for staying together and playing until the end against Samford – and, most importantly, recording the win.

“It was a real simple job about we over you of what we needed to get fixed,” Mullen said. “The you is either blaming you or waiting for you to do something instead of ‘Hey, why don’t we just all do our job and go execute and make plays?’ It’s a lot more fun that way. That’s what I talked about with them at halftime.

“I think a time in that game – and I talked with our guys about this – from everything that’s gone on for our season and how we’ve been and how it’s gone and you’re losing 42-28, you could’ve packed it in – very easily packed it in,” Mullen continued. “Probably a lot of people in the world would do that. But the resolve our guys showed to just buckle down and really dominate from that point forward was pretty impressive of the guys, and that doesn’t happen without really good leadership – not just saying the coaches’ leadership from within, but the accountability to themselves and their accountability to their teammates as a team.”

Looking at the Gators’ final stretch in 2021

Following the Samford win, which snapped a three-game losing streak, Florida now heads into its final two games of the regular season – at Missouri this Saturday and at home against Florida State on Nov. 27.

At 5-5 on the year, Mullen and the Gators will need to win at least one of their final two games in order to become bowl eligible. Florida should have a legitimate chance to win both games, but it’s certainly hard to predict what it’ll do after its performance against Samford.

Florida and Missouri will kickoff at 4 p.m. ET Saturday on the SEC Network.