Dan Mullen came under a bit of scrutiny by Gators fans when he decided not to play backup quarterback Anthony Richardson in the loss to Alabama.
Richardson, the SEC’s fifth-leading rusher despite only playing bits and pieces of two games, practiced on a limited basis throughout last week, and both of his MRIs came back negative following his hamstring injury at South Florida the week prior.
He was cleared to play by the team’s doctors, and he did a backflip during pregame warmups, which prompted some people to accuse Mullen of being overly cautious with Richardson during the biggest game at UF in at least a decade.
If Richardson had played and broke off another 80-yard touchdown run, it may have changed the outcome of the game.
But there was also a chance that they could’ve lost Richardson for a much longer period of time if he had played, so Mullen opted to be patient and wait until he is fully healthy before throwing him back out there.
“He was cleared to play in the game, but there’s a big difference between ‘I’m cleared to play in the game. I’m not going to be 100 percent, but I can’t make the injury worse’ and ‘I’m cleared to play in the game. I’m not 100 percent, and this one- to two-week injury could turn into a six-week injury,’” Mullen said. “Those are always big differences.”
Mullen is optimistic that Richardson will play against Tennessee on Saturday, but, once again, Richardson’s long-term health will be at the center of whatever decision they make.
“We’re going to test everything out again this week,” Mullen said. “Through the week, [it will] be a very similar approach [as last week]. He’ll probably do a little bit more at practice.
“We did an MRI on Friday, [and] it came back much better than we thought it would be but not still at 100 percent. In meeting with the medical staff, there was a pretty solid feeling [that] if he didn’t play in the game … that he would be 100 percent by this Saturday.”
Maybe Richardson not playing cost the Gators the game against Alabama, and maybe it didn’t. But, by him sitting out, the Gators are guaranteed to see him back on the field sometime soon.