A Florida Gators Loss, Yes, but Mullen and Jones Proved Something

Emory Jones hushed a lot of doubters in his performance versus Alabama. Photo Credit: Chris Spears

In the three quarters following a rush to judgment first quarter that saw the Florida Gators fall behind mighty Alabama, 21-3, perhaps we learned that Dan Mullen not only knows how to coach football, but his trust in Emory Jones just might be warranted.

Sure, the Gators lost the game, 31-29, and when Mullen and his staff watch the film they will be kicking themselves for the number of mental breakdowns that gave Alabama an 18-point cushion after the first 15 minutes; but this was a winnable game. It was winnable particularly because Mullen never panicked, and he never lost faith that Jones could get the job done even if it was his first Southeastern Conference start against a team that many in the national media have already handed one of the two spots in the national championship game.

Consider this: In the first quarter, Alabama outgained the Gators 172-81, scoring on all three possessions. The Crimson Tide made it look easy the way they marched down the field on scoring drives of 75, 75 and 38 yards. With the exception of a drive that ended in a field goal to answer Alabama’s first touchdown, the Gators were the proverbial lost ball in the tall grass whether it was on defense or with Jones holding the ball forever in the pocket instead of taking off.

The Gators were down 14-3 when Jones was hit as he threw on a third-and-10 at the UF 25, causing him to overshoot Xzavier Henderson along the sideline. Alabama’s Jalyn Armour-Davis intercepted at the Florida 38, leading to a six play, 38-yard touchdown drive that was as easy as a hot knife through room temperature butter. The once-raucous Gator Nation became as quiet as the invocation at a funeral.

When Florida’s ensuing drive stalled at the Bama 37 when Jones’ fourth-and-four pass was batted in the air by Alabama’s Brian Branch, fans on the West Side let out a cascade of boos. They sensed a blowout was coming and let it be known they were fed up with Mullen and fed up with Jones. They wanted Anthony Richardson in the worst way, but Mullen wasn’t about to risk his electric redshirt freshman with the tender hamstring. This, after all, is just one game and there are seven consecutive SEC games to go including one next weekend in The Swamp with Tennessee (2-1), a 56-7 winner over D1AA Tennessee Tech on Saturday.

“Today, he [Richardson] wasn’t going to be 100 percent, but if he played, he could have definitely made it worse,” Mullen said.

Translation: It’s a long season and further injury to a hamstring damages the Gators’ chances to stay in the race for the SEC East Division championship.

While the fans were all but begging for Anthony Richardson and the Gators were waiting on the fork that would officially pronounce them done, Dan Mullen must have found his worn out copy of “Football Coaching for Dummies” and Emory Jones found his sea legs.

How else can you explain the turnaround in the next three quarters? How else can you explain why the Gators outgained Alabama 358-152 and outscored the Crimson Tide 26-10 the rest of the way? Florida outgained Alabama 439-324. The Gators ran for 258 yards for the game, 213 in the final three quarters. Jones, who was 4-7 for 36 yards with a pick in the first quarter, was 13-20 for 145 yards the rest of the way.

Sure, games are four quarters so what happened in the first quarter does count and it has everything to do with why Florida lost but those final three quarters tell us why it’s way too early to give up on this team. You may have rushed to judgment after the first quarter, but you shouldn’t do a repeat by giving up on the Gators after losing to Alabama by two points.

Jones is the poster child of the turnaround because he went from an indecisive passer even with plenty of protection to one who found receivers and delivered timely passes at critical points in the game. The Gators gave up only one sack and that was on Jones, who should have improvised and run. He was indecisive and that’s why Alabama got to him, but for the most part, Jones knew exactly what he was doing, where he wanted to go with the football and did a good job of getting it there. He still needs his mental alarm to go off, telling him it’s time to tuck and run since no one is open, but we used to say the same thing about Trask in his first year as a starter.

Jones ran the option well enough to keep the Alabama defense off balance. Once he got outside the tackles on the option, he picked up nice chunks of yardage (he was 19-80 rushing for a touchdown) when he cut upfield. When he pitched instead of ran, he hit the running backs in the hands. There was nothing close to a bad pitch. He really only had to scramble one time and that was for 14 yards on Florida’s final scoring drive.

That’s not to say he didn’t make mistakes in the final three quarters. He did. The most blatant was on the two-point conversion attempt that would have tied the game at 31-21 with 3:10 to go in the game. It was an option play that Jones rode Malik Davis into the line instead of pulling it out and trying to swing wide. Option plays are tricky, and some of the blame might fall on Davis, who seemed to hold onto the ball when Jones put it on his belly. Even after the first quarter there were a couple of passes that Jones completed when there was an open receiver farther down the field.

“I still made a couple of mistakes out there that I wish I could get back and I missed on a couple o throws that I don’t usually miss,” Jones said. “Those are the type of things I am trying to eliminate every week. I am getting better and I saw a lot of improvement.”

In many ways, it was like watching Jones grow up before our very eyes. The quarterback of the first quarter can get you beat. The quarterback in the last three will win a lot of games for you.

Overall, however, this was the kind of performance that Mullen has been expecting out of Jones. He’s said all along that Jones extremely talented, the kind of quarterback who can play at the highest level. Because of four interceptions in those first two games against inferior opponents while Richardson was putting up Star Wars numbers, everything but Mullen’s sanity has been questioned.

How in the world, they ask, can Dan Mullen be so blind when everyone in the world can see clearly that Emory Jones can’t play quarterback very well and Anthony Richardson is like Tebow with speed and more zip on his passes? In the week leading up to Saturday’s game, more than one prominent member of the national media let it be known that Florida had absolutely zero chance against that vaunted Alabama defense if Anthony Richardson wasn’t the starting quarterback.

Considering Richardson not only didn’t start but didn’t play, maybe the proper question at this point is how’d that prediction work out?

For some reason, Dan Mullen gets doubted a lot. People doubted him in 2006 when he turned a hybrid offense of Chris Leak the thrower and Tim Tebow the runner into one good enough to win a national championship. As the head coach at Mississippi State, he signed Dak Prescott as a quarterback when Nick Saban thought he would make a dandy linebacker. When Prescott turned out better than anyone expected, the fans wanted him to become the full-time starter, but Mullen held off until his fourth year in the offense. That turned out okay.

Fourth year in the offense? Does that sound like Kyle Trask?

Does that sound at all like Emory Jones?

We were on the verge of nuclear winter in the eyes of a whole lot of Florida fans when Mullen figured out how to coach again (sarcasm here). That’s about the same time his faith in Emory Jones began to pay off in a very big way.

Can you imagine what might have happened if Mullen had spent the previous two weeks trashing Jones for his indecision and interceptions while pumping up Richardson? Do you think for even a second that Jones could have performed at the level he did against Alabama if he wasn’t 100 percent sure Dan Mullen had his back?

When you come back from almost down 21-3, which is all but belly up, and make Nick Saban sweat, you obviously know how to coach and you obviously have a quarterback who knows how to play the game. Dan Mullen definitely knows how to coach. Emory Jones definitely has skills.

And while on the subject of knowing how to coach, perhaps it’s time for some folks to get off the John Hevesy is clueless wagon. Florida’s offensive line, which is supposed to be a true weak link, was downright nasty against what is considered the best front seven in all of college football. Florida AVERAGED 6.0 per carry while running for 258 yards on a defense that was giving up just 79 yards per game for an average of 2.31 per carry. Florida ran for four touchdowns. In the first two games, no one had scored on the ground against Bama.

The Gators allowed one sack, which happened when Jones had enough time to order pizza. He should have taken off running because he could have gained at least six or seven yards. Alabama was credited with only four quarterback hurries, which is to say the Crimson Tide rarely got pressure and they tried with three, four, five and sometimes six pass rushers.

There will be Florida fans who will spend way too much time criticizing Mullen for what happened in the first quarter and they’ll insist that if Emory Jones continues to start at quarterback it is because he’s way too loyal. They aren’t at practice every day. They aren’t in the meeting rooms. They don’t know how much of the playbook Anthony Richardson knows. They don’t know how many of the checkdowns at the line of scrimmage Richardson can go to on a split second. Mullen knows what Emory Jones can do, and right now, he’s the quarterback who gives the Gators the best chance to win. That could change in the future, but having a very competent Jones and an electric Anthony Richardson is a fine problem to have.

This was not the outcome either the Florida fans or the Gators wanted, but once they got past that first quarter, they showed they not only belonged on the same field with Alabama, but they are certainly capable of playing with and beating the Crimson Tide. Close, they say, counts only in horseshoes and hand grenades, but on this night close was important. It was important because close meant that rather than hang their heads when a blowout seemed inevitable, the Gators fought back and made Nick Saban and Alabama sweat it out.

“We didn’t pay out best game the first two games, and today we came out there and we still didn’t play our best game, but I think we showed that we have a lot of fight in this team,” Jones said.

The Gators do have a lot of fight in them, and they have seven more SEC games, all of which, including Georgia, are winnable. Dan Mullen, Emory Jones and the Gators lost a battle Saturday evening but they didn’t lose the war.