NOTEBOOK: Florida Gators Open Fall Camp. Mullen Previews Gator Expectations, Cox, Bowman and More
It’s taken 18 months, an uncertain season, a generational offense, a disappointing defense and a global pandemic, but things are finally starting to feel normal again for the Florida Gators. Fall camp starts on Friday, as preparations begin for the 2021 season—a season that, as of now, promises to be a return to normal life and possibly a much more well-rounded team than the 2020 Gators who spent all season in the Top 10 before ending with an 8-4 final record.
“You can’t even really explain the two,” said Head Coach Dan Mullen on Thursday, trying to put words to an exasperating situation. “Last year was a very different situation in every aspect of the program. The mental and emotional stress and toll it took on you was very hard. You don’t know if you’re playing a game or who is playing until Friday night or Saturday morning, just from week to week with offseason preparation being thrown out.
“I think one thing you look at is a lot of football players and football programs, you’re used to a very scheduled, regimented approach on how you prepare and how you do things, how you get ready, and how you go through a game week, when all of that is interrupted by massive amounts of uncertainty, that’s really hard.
“I think our guys, you can’t complain, you’ve kind of had a regimented offseason leading into training camp right now for us. But there’s a lot of guys in our program that haven’t learned a routine or schedule yet because they haven’t been a part of it. You look at guys going into their third season. Fifty percent of it is not natural, so it’s still a learning process.”
Mullen met with local media on Thursday to preview what he expects out of the Gators this fall camp and season. Who is he expecting the most from this fall? How does he feel about Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC? What will the Gators COVID protocols be this season? All of that and more in these six takeaways from Mullen’s first press conference of fall camp.
Team Will Return to Hotel
In the first big return to normalcy, the Gators will stay in a team hotel for this fall camp. It’s an annual move that was abandoned last fall amidst COVID-19 concerns.
Staying at the team hotel during camp helps keep guys locked in to the team during the annual bonding period. Classes have yet to begin and the only thing they focus on is football. Losing that time last season hurt many a team, Florida included.
While returning to the team hotel for the next two weeks is crucial to development, it will still come with COVID protocols in place, due to the ongoing Delta variant.
“We're going to have some protocols that we put in place,” explained Mullen.
“I think everyone's a little bit more educated about it now moving forward. Last year you kind of, I mean, I wasn't ever used to wearing a mask my entire life. How you pay attention to all these different protocols that are in place, I think there's a lot more familiarity with it right now.
"When you look at what our protocols, how we're going about it within the ability to wear a mask, when we're wearing them, what situations, indoor compared to outdoors with what we're doing matching the number of guys and looking at how we're managing guys that have been vaccinated compared to non-vaccinated. I think we're just a lot more educated on how we adjust within what we're doing to keep everybody as safe as possible."
COVID Vaccinations Are Up
Speaking of handling those vaccinated versus not, there is a serious competitive advantage to having most of the team vaccinated for COVID-19. The oft accepted threshold for herd immunity is 85% and that is the number the SEC is pushing teams to reach. No games will be reschedule this season due to COVID outbreaks. Instead, teams will be forced to forfeit.
“We have a very high percentage of our organization as a whole that has been vaccinated. We're not at 100%, but an extremely high percentage within the organization has been vaccinated.
"I'm very confident with our medical staff. I think Paul Silvestri has done an awesome job. His whole medical staff has done an amazing job within their preparation, within their knowledge, of keeping everybody within the setup of where we need to be within training camp. As far as where I think everything will be down the road? I'm getting ready to coach some football. There's some people that would have better answers on that stuff."
Mullen was pushed on where exactly the Gators numbers sit and if it’s over that 85% threshold. He remained adamant that things fluctuate, presumably with what protocols might be and case numbers rising, and how that might change the threshold number required. But if a person is vaccinated, that itself doesn’t fluctuate. So the coach was pushed on that point. He wouldn’t commit to a number, but did say, “I think we're probably over it at this point, to be honest.”
Fixing Defensive Issues Is Key
Between SEC Media Days and other appearances, Mullen has talked ad nauseam about the 2020 defense at this point. More pointedly, what went wrong. The Gators fielded not only one of their worst program defenses in years, but one of the worst defenses in the country. In fact, the Gators were 83rd overall in total defense.
“I think there are a lot of different things. And almost game-by-game issue of what I could go point out,” explained Mullen. “I think there were several different things that reared their head at different times during the course of the year. You know, and for us, you know, there's times last year we played great defense. And then there's times we didn’t. So there was, you know I mean an inconsistency is one of them. And then, why was there inconsistencies?”
Mullen infamously kept Defensive Coordinator Todd Grantham, but replaced both secondary coaches. The secondary players will be young and the front seven will be full of veterans.
“I think we've addressed a lot of different situations that we feel a lot more comfortable moving forward,” predicted Mullen. “Whether it's from our flexibility within our packages, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of our players, playing more together as a team, keeping guys out of bad situations, you know, and finding ways to play at a consistent level within.
"Leadership coming from our coaches and from our players and that mesh, all of those things combined, I think we're in a better place. And then a better understanding than where we were last year because I think different things would rear its head at different times that we didn't know until kinda afterward. It's easy to look back, you know, but one of the keys is making sure that we're doing it in real time and fixing issues in real time.”
Bowman and Cox Should Be Full-Go
Outside linebacker Brenton Cox and running back Demarckus Bowman are two of the bigger names Mullen has recruited out of the transfer portal. Cox was forced to sit out a year after transferring from the Georgia Bulldogs, as the NCAA denied his waiver to play immediately. He finally took to the field last season and was faced with double teams as the rest of the defensive line lacked physicality.
He was victim to a foot injury this offseason, leading to wide speculation as to his availability. But Cox has recently began posting videos of himself working out, showing someone ready to play.
“We expect him to be back,” revealed Mullen. “I don’t know if we’re going to let him go 100% right on day 1 [of practice], but he’s going to be out there practicing right away and building him up. Right now with the time he’s missed, building him up, getting him back ready to being 100%, in not just the foot injury but his training and conditioning and all that stuff.
“I expect big things out of him, because I thought he had a really solid year last year. Now a second year in the system, more experience, more a veteran guy, an older guy, having to learn, look at what he did well importantly last year and how to build off that. I have tremendous respect for Brenton, because you look at a guy, highly profiled recruiting guy, people had all kinds of questions about him. He’s come in here and I think been SEC Academic Honor Roll since the day he stepped on campus. Handles his business at an extremely high level in the locker room, in the classroom, and on the practice field.
“I mean the effort and what he was able to do the year he knew he couldn’t play, to come out everyday, work, get better, be a team guy, give the team a good look and excel in the classroom, I think shows a lot of the character and the type of person that he is and really why he fits being a Florida Gator.”
Clemson Tigers running back transfer Demarckus Bowman is cleared to play, per Mullen at SEC Media Days. His progress to be ready for the fall is still in process, but coming along according to Mullen.
“I mean he looked good in the little bit in spring but we’ve gotta see how he picks things up and how he learns. Obviously, that hurts, being a first year player when you kind of miss a whole installation — this is kind of now almost like he’s going through the installation and learning it all for the first time because he missed the installation in spring.”
Gators Will Lean On Running Backs
Speaking of the running backs, Bowman rounds out an incredibly deep group for the Gator this year. Five deep and all insanely talented, the running back unit will undoubtedly be a strength of the team. Coupled with a mobile quarterback in Emory Jones, the Gators are poised to become a ground game team.
But how in the world do you get one ball to five guys? Lean on them all equally.
“I think one of the things that those guys have done is really bought into what we do of, one, our job is putting guys in position to do what they do well on the field. I wouldn’t be shocked to see us with multiple running back packages this year, with more than one on the field at a time a little more than we’ve done maybe in the past. Just utilizing our talent and our depth of what we have at that spot.
“But also those guys really buying into the program and understanding how big a role they can make in special teams. When you get into play count of the ability to stay healthy, the ability to stay fresh by rotating a bunch of guys through, and our guys have really bought into that. When you look at our running back stats as a whole position group, they’re pretty good and maybe not one guy gets all the stats, and everybody else gets nothing. It’s allowed us to be pretty successful over the last several years, and guys having the opportunity here as well as the opportunity beyond here because of how we’ve done things.”
Texas and Oklahoma
Shockwaves reverberated through the SEC and college football two weeks ago, when it was announced the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners would be joining the SEC.
Since made official by both schools, the Big XII and the SEC, the process is in full swing. It will undoubtedly change the landscape of the Southeastern Conference, as well as all of college sports. Mullen thinks it’s a great move though, as the SEC welcomes two more teams who fit the personality of historically the most successful and passionate fanbase in athletics.
“I think you look and the tradition in the Southeastern Conference of the schools, you want to say, I mean, just that the power academically, the power athletically that the conference has. The competitive nature of being a championship-level conference. The number of championships over the last 20 years now, really I guess going back to really 2006. The streak of championships in this league is pretty special.
“And then you're looking at two academic schools, two schools with very strong football traditions. Two excellent football programs. Very passionate fanbases that really fit what this league is all about. And so makes sense. I think I've said this, college football in the next couple years will look differently than maybe what it's looked like in the past. That's just going to be another step of it, and exciting to have those two great schools and great football programs coming into our league.
“I don’t know if there’s really a league in college football that could compete top to bottom with the SEC from top to bottom before those teams coming now, and now it’s going to be even a stronger footprint of teams. I guess if you throw them into it, you’re going back before 2006 with Texas - they won 2005? - so now with them and with Oklahoma that won in 2000, so you’re really looking at since the turn of the century now teams that are going to be in this league have been some of the most powerful teams in college football. You look at OU’s run of going to College Football Playoffs over the last several years. I know the term is, there aren’t mega-conferences yet, but if you look we’re as close to being to that now, and then you add those two teams and certain it is the strongest conference in college football.”
BONUS: Coaching In the Snow
Missouri and Florida infamously got into a halftime brawl during the 2020 game, in which Florida won 42-17. On the last day of SEC Media Days, Missouri Tigers head coach Eli Drinkwitz raised eyebrows and drew chuckles when he took a shot at Dan Mullen during his time on camera. Asked about the Gators visiting Columbus, Missouri in November, Drinkwitz said, “I’m praying for snow. Dan is going to complain about everything anyways.”
Mullen is a New Hampshire native who got his start in coaching up and down the East Coast. He then really got into the swing with Urban Meyer at Bowling Green and Utah, both places that get pretty cold in the winter.
In other words, he’s used to coaching in the snow.
“I mean I’ve done it,” laughed Mullen when asked about the possibility on Thursday.
“It’s cold. I mean I’ll give you a funny snow story. We’re coaching, we’re at Utah at BYU for the Mountain West Championship — a game we won 3-0. I think it was 3-0. It was, right? It was our first year at Utah (2003). I’m on the sideline trying to signal plays. You’ve got these big gloves on and you’re trying to signal plays. Alex (Smith) is like, ‘it’s hard to see’, well you better figure it out because I’m not taking the gloves off. Figure out what I’m signaling to you. I remember kind of the blizzard, it was coming out sideways, freezing cold. Mike Sanford’s up in the box as the OC and he says it looks like it’s kind of calmed down, gotten a little nicer down there on the field for us to open things up. I was like why don’t you come out of the box to see what it’s like down here on the field. You think it’s a lot nicer down here but it’s still about 10 below zero with snow coming sideways.
“Played one in Wyoming the next year, which was I mean as many clothes as you can have on. We had a 10 am kickoff at Air Force one time. It was a 10 am kick and you couldn’t see the field with the snow covering it. The last high school game I ever played was on a grass field and you can’t bring the truck out there but there was 10 inches of snow the night before and you had to go play in it. Snow is fun to go skiing in, to play backyard football in, but I don’t know that I need to be out there coaching in it. That’s why we live in Florida.”
In other words…how soon can the Missouri-Florida game get here? It’s suddenly become much more interesting.
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