The quarterback position at UF will always be one of the most talked about and debated positions in college sports.
This is one of the most coveted and prestigious jobs in the country, and there’s a ton of expectations and pressure that come with that.
The Gators’ legacy at the position leads to a bunch of crazy hot takes at times. Remember two years ago when some questioned whether Dan Mullen made the right decision by starting Kyle Trask over Emory Jones after Feleipe Franks got injured?
Still, you can expect to hear about the Gators’ quarterback situation about 10 times more than normal this week.
Jones, a redshirt junior, looked really bad at times in the win over Florida Atlantic. He threw two ugly interceptions, made some poor decisions and misfired on some passes over the middle of the field.
Meanwhile, redshirt freshman Anthony Richardson electrified a crowd that had been somewhat lulled to sleep by racing for a 73-yard touchdown and leaping over a defender.
Immediately, Richardson became the most talked about player on the team on social media. He has a bunch of fans that want to see him be promoted to the starting role.
Mullen emphatically shot down any chance of that happening after the game, and he offered more details of where Richardson is in his development on Monday. He said that Richardson probably graded out a little bit better than Jones against Florida Atlantic because of the bonus points that players are awarded for explosive plays.
If you remove Richardson’s six explosive plays from the equation, they were fairly equal. Mullen understands why fans are ecstatic about Richardson’s playmaking ability, but he also sees a ton of areas that he needs to improve in. He doesn’t want to rush his development.
“He made some great plays,” Mullen said. “Hey, I was here in ’06, and there was enthusiasm, huge enthusiasm for Tim Tebow, and he played about six, seven plays a game. But those six, seven plays are a lot of enthusiasm.
“Anthony knows the offense. It’s just getting the reps and the experience of the decision-making and making all the reads and checks within the offense. You go watch the film, he made spectacular but missed some very, very simple checks within the game plan. It’s just that comfort and then that comfort of being able to execute it within a game. So, obviously, you can make that [developmental timeline] work however you need to make it work sometimes, but it’s the best when you can let guys learn it the right way and build a really solid foundation.”
So, Mullen will continue to give the majority of the snaps to Jones and bring in Richardson every now and then to gain that comfort level within the offense.
Mullen is obviously no stranger to playing multiple quarterbacks. As he mentioned, he was the offensive coordinator at Florida when Chris Leak and Tebow both saw action. He got Jones involved in his game plans the past three seasons even though Franks and Trask were firmly entrenched as the starter.
One of the biggest keys to making it work is to communicate the plan with the players ahead of time, he said. Otherwise, the entire offense could get out of rhythm and the quarterbacks might feel uncomfortable if they have to look over their shoulder after every play.
Mullen said that the coaches do a great job of making sure the players aren’t surprised by what transpires at quarterback during games.
“Coming into this game on Saturday, ‘Hey, we’re going to get Anthony in the third series of the game unless something weird happened,’ and we did that. And then, ‘OK, he’s going in the fifth series.’ Then it was ‘We want to get him a couple more series in the course of the game,’ which I think we did.
“I think our guys kind of knew the plan going in. So, I think that helps. And if you do an alternating thing, I think it’s [a] somewhat useful deal to be able to talk to the quarterback and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to run this play. This is what I think they’re going to do. Go do it.’”
Richardson showing off his versatility
While Richardson won’t be the starting quarterback against South Florida this week, you can still expect to see him all over the field, including a couple of places that you might not have noticed against FAU.
When the Gators lined up for a Hail Mary on the final play of the first half, Richardson lined up out wide and was Jones’ intended receiver on the incompletion.
In the fourth quarter, he was a member of the hands team when the Owls attempted an onside kick.
When a Hail Mary is successful, very rarely do you see one guy rise above the defense and come down with the catch cleanly. Usually, a completion happens after the ball gets batted around in the air a few times and a receiver wins the fight for the football. The play is very similar to rebounding in basketball.
Tight end Kyle Pitts served as that big-bodied rebounder for them last season. With him now getting ready to make his NFL debut with the Atlanta Falcons, the 6-foot-4 Richardson seemed like a natural replacement. He’s physical, he can jump high and he played wide receiver early in his career at Eastside High School.
“If we went out on the basketball court and he’s going to be our best power forward, that’s the guy you kind of want to put at that spot right there to go try to jump up and make the play,” Mullen said. “So, it’s something we came up with in training camp, put him in that position. And again, it’s just one of those things, ‘How are you utilizing the personnel on our team as much as possible?’.”
Injury update
One of the biggest positives from Saturday’s game was that the Gators made it out of the Swamp without suffering any more major injuries.
UF played without four reserve defensive tackles against the Owls, which made figuring out the rotation challenging for the coaches. They’ll get at least one of them back this week, as Mullen said that Lamar Goods is expected to play.
Jalen Lee is questionable to play against South Florida.
“He’ll be right there on the edge of being ready for this game on the defensive line,” Mullen said.
Jaelin Humphries and Chris Thomas are expected to miss another week or two, according to Mullen. Thomas was seen in a walking boot and on crutches on Saturday.
The only bad news is that defensive back Kamar Wilcoxson will miss the entire season. They had initially hoped to get him back later in the season, but he underwent surgery to repair a torn meniscus last week.
Gators not taking Bulls lightly
On paper, the Gators’ game at South Florida shouldn’t be much of a challenge. The Bulls went just 1-8 in 2020, and their one win was against The Citadel out of the FCS. They were blown out 45-0 in their 2021 opener by NC State.
They play their home games inside of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Raymond James Stadium. It’s hard for them to create much of a home-field advantage there given that the number of seats far exceeds the demand for tickets. Gators fans will likely outnumber Bulls fans at this game.
But Mullen is expecting to get USF’s best shot. A bunch of their players either played with or against UF’s players in high school. Many of them probably think they deserved the opportunity to play for a Power Five school like Florida, so this game represents a chance for them to exact some revenge on Mullen for overlooking them.
South Florida has been hyping this game up as the biggest game on its schedule for a while now, so the crowd may be a bit rowdier than usual.
“They played a very, very good team in NC State, a team that might be one of the best teams in their conference, last week, so I think you got to see that,” Mullen said. “And then you read the stuff in the paper, this is like the biggest game they’ve had there, and their players have been circling it for years. And so, you look at that, it’s going to be a different type of team that we see this week maybe than we saw from them last week.”