The Gators held their first scrimmage of the fall inside the Swamp on Sunday night, which made for a toxic Sunday night and Monday morning on social media and message boards.
Reports stated that the defense won the day and the offensive line struggled mightily. Whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist determines what you make of that news.
If you want to be positive, it’s nice to hear that the defense is playing at a high level following the historically awful 2020 season. Offenses usually take a little more time to find a rhythm than the defense because of all of the timing and chemistry required, and that’s especially the case when you experienced heavy turnover like the Gators did after last season. Dan Mullen will still find a way to score enough points.
However, you can also look at what took place on Sunday night as a bad sign for the offense. If the offense can’t consistently beat this defense, how in the world are they going to play well against Alabama or Georgia?
While fans freak out and try to talk each other off the ledge, Mullen takes a much calmer approach to scrimmages. He doesn’t worry about which units won or lost the scrimmage. He views scrimmages as another opportunity to evaluate individual players and decide which players work well together. The coaches aren’t creating a game plan to try to beat the other side of the ball. This is a period for self-improvement.
“If you sit there and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to run the quarterback to make sure we’re going to win the scrimmage’ or ‘We’re going to run this blitz, and we’re going to blitz and do this and do that just to try to win a scrimmage,’ that’s not what it’s about.,” Mullen said. “It’s about the complete development and evaluation of the team.”
Mullen also said the plays he calls on offense during scrimmages aren’t always great matches for what the defense is doing, and that’s by design.
“I just think it depends on what you’re doing within installation from a day-to-day deal,” he said. “‘Hey, we’re installing this’ or ‘They’re installing that, and we know strengths and weaknesses.’ There are certain things that you’ll install offensive wise that are going to be really good against the defensive plan they have in that day and vice versa, and you use that to teach why it’s good and why it’s bad.”
Fans and players also like to talk about who the starters were in the scrimmage. While way more than 11 guys are going to play on each side of the ball, they still announce the probable starters prior to games and release a depth chart each game week, so it’s still an honor to play the first snap.
Mullen, though, doesn’t want his players to worry about starting.
“Worry about if you are ready to go play and you’re ready to go be in the rotation,” he said. “And a lot of that is finding where we’re at at different positions within the rotation to go do things, and are guys performing and executing the offense, defense and special teams where we need to be to get ready to go play games?
“It’s just part of the big picture of the evaluation, but it is a good part because you’re in the stadium. All of a sudden, if guys do really, really well practicing and every scrimmage they really struggle, is there an issue when the lights come on? And then if guys perform at a high level in the stadium but not so much in practice, why is that, and how do we get them to improve as a practice player for consistency purposes?”
Since Mullen views scrimmages as a chance to evaluate his players as individuals more than an overarching exam of what the team’s strengths and weaknesses are, he was willing to divulge some information on some of the key performers on Sunday night.
As always, everything Gators football revolves around the quarterback. Mullen said Emory Jones made some explosive plays but also made some mistakes on plays that they expect him to make. Becoming a more consistent decision-maker is one of the biggest points of emphasis with him.
At the same time, two of Jones’ biggest strengths are his abilities to improvise with his legs and make plays off of his instincts rather than following the play-call to a T every time. They don’t want to take his playmaking skills away from him, so they’re trying to help him find the right balance between doing what the play calls for and letting his natural abilities take over.
“He’s going to miss some things here and there, but he’s going to make some explosive things on the other side of it, if that makes sense,” Mullen said. “All the sudden, you’re like, ‘Boy, we’ve got to hit that 90 percent of the time.’ And he might be in the 80 percent of hitting something, but there’s other things he can do that are so electric and that he can create that you don’t want to kind of box him in.
“There’s times I don’t want him to get through the progression. A lot of times in camp, you have that fine line, like, ‘Make sure you’re going to stand in the pocket. You’re not allowed to run. Go through the progression.’ Then you’ve got to flip it around the other way for him, which is like, ‘Go, bruh. If they’re in this coverage, and they give you a lane, you’re going to run until you get to the band.’ There’s that aspect to it, but I think if you go through the scrimmage last night, I thought his decision-making was really good.”
Mullen also said quarterback Anthony Richardson played well, both with his arm and his legs.
“He had a huge night last night,” he said. “Did really well, made a lot of great decisions, very accurate. I think he threw three touchdown passes. Obviously is a dynamic runner as well, making good decisions. I feel very comfortable with both guys, which is a good thing.”
As for the guys Jones and Richardson threw the ball to, Mullen spoke highly of redshirt sophomore Ja’Markis Weston.
“He had a good night last night,” he said. “He had a touchdown catch, did a good job … learning to be a return specialist guy as well and getting comfortable doing that. So, you’re continuing to see the growth in his steps and what he’s continuing to do to build and to become the type of player I know he can be. He’s got a lot of potential, and we just want to continue to grow and nurture that potential into performance on the field.”
Perhaps the biggest offensive star of the night, though, was running back Lorenzo Lingard. The former five-star recruit who transferred in from Miami prior to last season made several highlight-worthy plays and continues to look like his old self after a pair of major knee injuries derailed his Hurricanes career.
Lingard was also mentioned as one of the top performers after each spring scrimmage as well, and Mullen expects him to contribute more than he did in 2020, when he carried the ball five times for 32 yards.
“I think people look and say, ‘Hey, OK, run Lorenzo to the left and just tell him to run left and hand him the ball and go run,’” Mullen said. “There’s a lot more to the running back position than that. You’ve got to be able to catch. You’ve got be able to protect. You better understand the blocking schemes, or you’re going to make the offensive line look silly.
“So, I think there’s an awful lot that goes into the running back position just beyond talent, and I think Lorenzo’s a guy that has obviously worked really hard at his talent, has played hard and I think has really had a good training camp. But I think now the light came on also of him understanding the other aspects of what is needed from the running back position to be able to play at an extremely high level.”
With the first scrimmage behind them, Mullen is excited for what’s in store for the final two weeks of training camp. They’re done installing plays. Now Mullen will get to see how his team executes in different situations and how they’ll apply what they’ve learned so far.
“A lot more situational football where we get to go apply everything, through all the installs, get to apply it into situations, watch guys make plays, see how they continue to grow, see [them] continue to develop,” Mullen said. “Moving along, excited where we’re at, excited [about] the attitude, the mindset the team has. I think we’re in a pretty good spot, and guys are working hard. I know we’ve still got a lot of work to do, but we have a couple of weeks left before we’ve got to kick it off, so we’ll get there.”