Buddy Martin Blog: Mullen Finally Has His Own Man At QB. Why He And Emory Jones Are Going To Succeed

Emory Jones says he learned patience from watching Kyle Trask. (Photo by Tim Casey, UAA)

“He can take his’n and beat your’n. Or he can take your’n and beat his’n.” – Houston coach Bum Phillips on Don Shula.

The mark of an excellent football coach is the ability to adapt to his talent. On that count, Florida’s Dan Mullen gets double checks for all the boxes. He’s been highly successful with numerous quarterbacks that he has inherited and developed as well as those he has signed and groomed. And Mullen has had quite an impressive list of pupils – from Alex Smith, to Chris Leak, to Tim Tebow, to Dak Prescott, to Kyle Trask. Which brings us to: What about the Next Man Up?

Mullen is blessed with his very own, homegrown, trained and nurtured quarterback in Emory Jones, who possesses ample talent and a new mental outlook. They’ve known each other since Emory was in junior high. EJ has been on the headsets for three years, watching studying and taking a few meaningful snaps almost every Saturday.

At SEC Media Days in Hoover, Ala., Mullen told the story of how Jones reached out to him on the first day Dan announced in 2017 he was going to Florida: “He texted me, ‘I want to be your quarterback.’” People forget that Jones was a highly recruited quarterback who was willing to wait until he was ready. “And when his time came he was ready.”

Pardon me while I chuckle a bit at those self-anointed expert forecasters who dismiss the Gators’ chances of winning the SEC East because they think they are afflicted with empty cupboard syndrome. Yes, losing Kyle Trask, Kyle Pitts, Kadarius Toney and their 5,770 yards from last season is a matter of concern. But the quarterback position is in the capable hands – and feet – of fourth-year veteran Emory Jones.

What exactly does that mean? It is a testimony to Mullen’s coaching acumen that he not only mentored this 6-2, 210-pound, four-star from Franklin, Ga. after wresting him away from Ohio State and possibly Clemson, but hung on to him for three seasons when the Transfer Portal was calling.

There is a temptation to call it newfound “maturity” but the truth is that sitting the bench for most of 2020 was no doubt both painful and temporarily discouraging to Emory who was a non-starter and saw limited action for three season. But he accepted it as a life lesson. “I’ve been waiting for this time right here,” Jones said last spring as he prepared as a starter. “It has been hard, but it’s all been for a reason.”

Another way of looking at his apprenticeship. At same time, it’s also inaccurate to say Florida’s redshirt is “inexperienced.”

There were plenty of times when the game was in doubt and Jones found himself subbing for Trask on key drives. Most of all, Emory saw the virtue of patience being modeled right in front of him by the ultimate Next Man Up. And now he has the Kyle Trask blueprint.

“Just how he (Trask) conducts himself every day, how he walks around the building, how he takes notes in the meeting rooms and how he translates everything from the classroom on to the field,” Jones told Edgar Thompson of the Orlando Sentinel last spring. “I just really learned all that from him and then obviously it’s him being patient waiting on his time to come. I definitely learned a lot out of that just watching him.”

Maybe “maturity” is the right word after all, because it’s one of the strengths Jones will need if he’s going to become the leader that Mullen expects – as he expects from all his quarterbacks.

"I've been trying to take a different approach this offseason," Jones told The Draft Network's Trevor Sikkema." Just trying to go in and be the best leader, the best teammate I can be, be the hardest worker in the building just being there all the time I can and be the last one out. I've been just trying to earn the team's respect, just trying to make everybody better every day."

Once we see Jones step on the field as The Man, we’ll be better able to judge his leadership. One thing to note, however, is that former Offensive Coordinator Brian Johnson trained his backups like they were starters, giving all three an equal number of snaps in practice with the No. 1s. So whether or not he was a starter, he was respected like one. His arm maybe be slightly stronger than Kyle’s, but Emory lacks that golden touch and will have to govern his zip on the ball. He’s got plenty of talented receivers, though nobody to match the talents of Pitts and Toney. Do not sleep on Jacob Copeland and Justin Shorter, however, not to mention Trent Whittemore Jr. and Xzavier Henderson.

Given the remainder of offensive talent that those experts seem to overlook in their evaluation, I’m of the mind that this offense might not drop off much as some predict. One reason is that it will get more help from the defense, which can only be better even just getting properly lined up on time. Think what a couple of defensive stops could have meant last season in the losses to Texas A&M, LSU and Alabama. We won’t talk about the Opt-Out Cotton Bowl loss to Oklahoma.

Those losses should not detract from the remarkable turnaround that Mullen brought to Gainesville in late 2017. The state of Gator football when he got there was abysmal and teetering on the edge of oblivion. After averaging 10.5 wins a season, there was a hiccup at the end of ’20 That resulted in an 8-4. A double-digit win 2021 season could restore the confidence of Gator Nation and put things back on track.

There are three circle games on the 2021 schedule – Alabama, LSU and Georgia – but what’s lost in all the critics’ banter about last year’s three-game slump to finish off the 2020 Covid-restricted season: Though those losses seemed cataclysmic, they were not lethal.

Adaptability to playing talent isn’t the only strength of Mullen. His keen analysis of changing dynamics is superior. By jumping into the pool of Transfer Portal talent early, he found a way to offset any (perceived) recruiting deficiency. Now he’s got the challenge of the Name/Image/Likeness and from what it looks like, Mullen has a pretty good idea of what’s coming.

And as soon as the new expanded playoff is invoked, my guess is that most years Mullen’s Gators will be in it.

This is the year when Dan Mullen’s stock will go back up. And that starts Monday when he stands before the SEC Media Days crowd in his new Jordan kicks and starts laying out the plan. Lucky for him, Emory Jones already has the blueprint.