As Spring Concludes Early, Dan Mullen Hands the Florida Gators Back Into the Hands Of Players
Sunday begins one of the more stressful times for any football coach; when he releases his players back into the world, away from practices, supervision and daily structure. When he must trust he and his staff have helped ingrain a precedent and standard into their team that will be kept over a long offseason.
That’s where Florida Gators head coach Dan Mullen currently finds himself; required and prepared but never actually ready to turn the next five months over to his team. While meetings can happen in some capacity and Director of Strength and Conditioning Nick Savage can still work guys out, coaches can’t engage in football actives with the players. They must set those themselves.
Now comes the time to trust the leadership on the roster to keep the ship moving forward. So as the Gators wrapped up spring practice with their final scrimmage on Saturday, their head coach left them with this message.
First, take a week off. Rest, physically and mentally. Refresh their motor, everything. Then comes the challenging part.
“Everybody then has to understand their very different levels of where they’re at,” explained Mullen on Saturday, following the concussing of the final scrimmage.
“We’re going to have a great offseason of May, June, physically getting bigger, faster, stronger, and a huge offseason. But everybody’s at different levels, and one of the most critical things is learning how to develop. You can have guys say, ‘Hey Coach, I’m going to come in and watch film every day.’ Great. Well, what are you watching? Are you able to watch film and realize when you made a mistake and how to correct that mistake? Do you know what to see? Or am I just kind of watching it to watch it? It’s so critical for each individual to learn how to develop, where they’re at in their career, and what are the big things they need to go work on.”
As such, Mullen and staff aren’t sending their team off with one particular message or plan. Instead, each player has his own.
“I mean, you’ve got a guy that’s going into a fifth-year senior, so I mean, you take Zach Carter, like, what he’s working on might be very different than what [sophomore] Gervon Dexter is working on. Even though there are some similarities and they’re working on the same things, they’re also working on some different things. Maybe I’ve [Gervon] got to work on some of the specifics and I’m working on some more general things that Zach already has kind of mastered.
“It’s understanding where you’re at and what you need to do and how you need to learn to develop, because we’re not around them all the time. There’s so much personal development going on, but if you don’t know how to do it, if you’re not in there watching film and you don’t know how to watch the film and what you’re specifically looking for, you’re not really developing. Like I told our guys, you might as well be watching SpongeBob Squarepants or watching The Replacements. I don’t know if you’re getting much out of it.”
While each player has their own path for further development this summer, coaches will of course ask for responsibility to be taken by those who already know the lay of the land. Considering two classes of guys will be entering their first on campus offseason—due to COVID-19 sending everyone home during this time last year—Mullen is leaning on not only veterans, but those that learned from past leaders.
“Zach Carter, the guys up front, the whole defensive front, you gotta take control of that. You’re look at Kaiir [Elam] in the secondary, you have to make sure those guys are communicating and getting the work in donig what they’re supposed to do. Ventrell Miller at linebacker. You’re looking at guys like Big Stew [Stewart Reese] and Ethan White, Richard Gouraige on the offensive line of making sure they’re getting the work in they need to get in. Emory obviously a lot.
“You look at certain positions, the running back position has so many veterans, those guys kind of there’s not one guys teaching the young guys how to do it because you have so many veteran guys that know what to do, does that make sense.. Emory and Anthony have to get the tight ends and receivers and all that, they got to work on the same page. So it’s kind of the veteran guy at their position group pulling all the other guys along, saying, this is the work we need to do.
“Kyle Trask last year getting everybody on the same page to do it. Emory watched how he did it, so now it’s his turn for him to go show those guys how to do it, and then Anthony learns and then shows them how to do it. It’s kinda that effect that goes all the way through the groups.”
As other schools open their spring practice this weekend, the Florida Gators are winding down, a month early and with more time to reflect. And after a proper rest, the next step in the 2021 season begins. It’s one of the more stressful times for any football coach; when he releases his players back into the world, away from practices, supervision and daily structure…and trust them to build a team and to shape the 2021 Florida Gators.
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