Normally, the bye week serves as a chance for Gators fans to catch their breath and recharge for the final month or so of the regular season.
The bye week provides you with an opportunity to catch up on that TV show that you haven’t been able to watch since football season began, finally read that book you’ve had sitting on your desk for two months or perhaps go on a family vacation.
Instead, there wasn’t anything relaxing about this bye week to anybody in Gator Nation. The extra week provided extra time for fans to express their frustration and pose some legitimate questions about the future of the program under coach Dan Mullen.
How did the Gators get gashed so badly on the ground against LSU? Why is defensive coordinator Todd Grantham still employed? Who will be the starting quarterback moving forward? If the season continues heading downhill, could Mullen find himself on the hot seat?
With linebacker Shemar James, UF’s top-ranked pledge at the time, decommitting and several other top targets trending elsewhere, is a coaching staff that isn’t great at recruiting to begin with losing credibility with recruits?
Perhaps most serious, though, were the allegations that Mullen has lost his competitive fire. Those concerns initially started popping up after Mullen was caught on camera smiling after the Kentucky loss. You combine that with his decision to hang onto Grantham and quarterback Emory Jones for the time being, and people want to know what is happening.
Sometimes a certain video clip tells the story. pic.twitter.com/CHsKG4RaaU
— David Soderquist (@SoderquistGC) October 19, 2021
However, Mullen made it clear on Monday that he’s still the same guy who wants to kick your butt in thumb-wrestling. He’s just as frustrated as everybody else is about being 4-3, and he’s determined to right the ship.
“I don’t know that there’s anybody more motivated to win than me,” Mullen said. “I know the Gator fans everywhere will sit there, and probably every person on this screen is like, ‘Well, oh boy, I want the Gators to win way more than he does.’ I don’t think that’s the case.
“I’ll tell you what, the coaches, players, people within the program that put in the work every single day year-round want to win football games.”
Mullen said that his guys have approached practice the right way since the LSU loss. They understand that they can’t change the outcome of that game, and they’re working hard to try to beat Georgia this week.
“I think our guys [have a] very positive attitude,” Mullen said. “As we always focus on: ‘Are we going to be a better team at the end of the year than the beginning of the year? Are we constantly improving to get better?’ That’s kind of how we judge things in the program of how guys are doing. I think our guys have had a really good attitude this week in the bye week. I think guys were ready for a little breather to go catch their breath over the weekend, but I expect everybody [to be] really excited to be back out at practice today.
“We only have so many opportunities to compete each year. We work year-round for 12 opportunities to compete. If you do well in those 12, they give you 13, 14, maybe even 15, depending on how you do in those 12 opportunities. And so, the motivation and the desire to go win each one of those is huge because you have so few opportunities to do it. That’s kind of the perspective that you keep on it from every year within coaching. You compartmentalize it, motivate and get yourself fired up for the game that you’re about to go play.”
Redshirt senior defensive end Zachary Carter said that he looks at himself as one of the leaders of this team. While the goals that they set for themselves prior to the season are out of reach, they have a duty to still represent this university as well as possible.
“We want to win championships here, SEC Championships and national championships,” Carter said. “Obviously, we can’t get to that this year. But when you look at it, it’s just me as a leader, I’m thinking, ‘All right, we’re not really playing for championships right now, so what are we playing for?’ And when you think about it, we’re still playing for a lot. I mean, just the Gator Standard in general. It’s bigger than this year. I want to help finish off strong so those guys next year can start off strong.”
Little clarity at QB
As expected, the quarterback position was one of the biggest topics during Mullen’s press conference. As expected, he’s keeping his plans for the Georgia game close to the vest.
Emory Jones started the first seven games, but Anthony Richardson replaced him starting with their second drive of the second half against LSU and led them to touchdowns on four consecutive possessions.
Jones was still listed as the starter on the unofficial depth chart that was released on Monday morning, but Mullen said that his focus is on preparing both of them to play extensive snaps if needed.
“We get both guys a lot of reps,” he said. “It’s probably a little bit more even than a lot of places, where the one gets a lot of reps and the twos get minimal reps. The quarterbacks, we try to keep them pretty evened out so they’re both ready to play. You’re a snap away from those guys getting on the field, so you kind of do that with a lot of positions across the board. You roll them through to get the reps to get them ready to play.
“We’re going to keep playing them the same way. We plan on playing both of the guys like we have.”
One of Richardson’s biggest advantages over Jones is his ability to throw the deep ball. He completed four passes of greater than 20 yards against LSU, and he threw touchdowns of 75 and 41 yards in limited action against South Florida earlier in the season.
The offense seems to challenge defenses from sideline to sideline and from the line of scrimmage to the end zone with Richardson in there, while it feels like they play in a 20-yard box at times with Jones.
Mullen said that the disparity in deep pass attempts between them can be explained by the way defenses have played them.
“I think probably more defenses load up the line of scrimmage when [Richardson’s] in there, blitz a little bit more when he’s in there,” he said. “It’s kind of the different looks that they play you in.”
Mullen said that he was generally pleased with what he saw from Richardson on the bayou and not just because of his physical abilities.
“He got into the flow of the game, managed the game, made some good decisions, missed a couple of reads here and there we have to continue to improve on,” he said. “It was great, especially being on the road in that environment to be able to get into it and be able to handle everything with the crowd noise, with the pressure, with all the things that came with it. I think he handled the situation pretty well.”
Mullen thinks that fans and media get too caught up in who the starters are. After all, that only tells you who was on the field for the very first play, which can differ based on the situation. He thinks it’s more important to take note of who’s out there when the game’s on the line in the fourth quarter.
Regardless of what Mullen decides to do this weekend and beyond, he wanted to make it clear that winning the next game is the only thing that will guide his decision. He’s not going to go with Richardson just because he’s younger, has more time to develop and could be a key part of the offense for years to come.
“It’s about this week of guys getting better and how they play this week on the field, how they practice, how they prepare and who … we feel is going to be in the best position to help us win,” he said.
Mullen noncommittal on defensive scheme
As the defense struggled mightily in 2020, Mullen was asked what it would take for him to change defensive coordinators. He responded by saying that he would make a change if he felt like they weren’t schematically sound.
In other words, if the issues can be entirely fixed with better fundamentals and technique, there’s no need to change play-callers, in Mullen’s mind.
So, naturally, that comment was brought back up by a reporter on Monday. Mullen replaced both defensive back coaches after last season, and yet, they gave up 49 points and more than 300 rushing yards to one of the worst offenses in the SEC in LSU.
Does Mullen think they have a scheme problem now?
If Mullen is displeased with Grantham, he’s doing a good job of hiding his emotions.
“You look at it as a whole and the big picture of things in what we do,” Mullen said. “To me, our biggest thing to me I want to see is consistency, and that’s out of every aspect of our program. We had a lot of new faces on the field this year, and, obviously, injuries added to more of that. You want to get some consistency of play. I think [that] is the huge part of that we’re always looking for on offense, defense and special teams.
“I think we’ve seen that at times, and then there’s other times where there’s some glaring inconsistencies that jump out there that have hurt us at different times during the season.”
So, the short answer is to stay tuned.
Florida to increase recruiting budget?
According to a report from athleticdirectoru.com that was released on Monday, the Gators ranked sixth in the SEC and 14th overall with just under $1.3 million spent on recruiting during the 2019 fiscal year.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but that’s right around where the Gators finish in the recruiting rankings each year under Mullen. The two teams that have recruited the best, Georgia and Alabama, spent the most money during 2019, with Georgia spending a whopping $3.7 million.
Mullen said that their recruiting budget is something that they’ll evaluate but noted that the administration has diligently worked to improve their facilities in recent years.
“Obviously, that’s a much bigger question than even just beyond me,” Mullen said. “It gets into budget with the whole administration, too. That is something that we’ll discuss with them and look at it. I think one thing we know [is] we’re not very wasteful here that way. I’ve never believed that the solution to every problem is just throw as much money at it as possible. It’s ‘Are we doing what we need to do for our program, and are we doing it as best as possible?’
“If we’ve got to put more money in, then we need to go do that. We’re working on that with facilities right now of trying to get caught up facility-wise and raising money to get facilities caught up to where they need to be within the league. Our facility’s coming along great and should really catch us up in that area. So, we’ll continue to evaluate where we are and what we need.”