Transcript: Dan Mullen Following No. 6 Florida Gators Loss to LSU Tigers
Florida Gators Head Coach Dan Mullen addressed the media following the No. 6 Gators 37-34 loss to the LSU Tigers on Saturday night.
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Opening Statement:
“I want to thank everybody, our fans. It was a very different season here in the Swamp. I thank all our fans for everything they did this year, showing out and supporting this team and trying to create as much of an environment as we’re allowed to create today. The energy that they created. But they did a good job. As we saw earlier today, our thoughts and prayers are with Keyontae and his family and everything that he’s going through right now. We see that with everybody in our basketball program, really our whole Gator family. That shows there’s a lot more than just games out there in life. So our prayers are with him and his family.”
Disappointed with the season ending this way?
“It is what it is. We have to play next week. What we can control is going for an SEC championship and we’re doing that next week. Tonight’s game is what it is, we have to get prepared for next week’s championship game.”
Could you see the field? We couldn’t?
“The fog … yeah, I could see it.”
What did you see with Marco?
“I didn’t see that. I don’t know. I mean, I guess that’s a penalty. I have no idea what happened. I didn’t see it. So, you guys probably, did you guys see it? I don’t know.”
He threw a shoe?
“They called a penalty on it, so ... “
Kyle Trask first-half turnovers, rallied team?
“Obviously, you just look. All the things we did, you can’t win doing what we did tonight, no matter what’s going on, no matter who you’re playing. We lose the turnover battle. We turned it over three times, minus-three turnover ratio. We don’t score touchdowns in the red zone. We can’t make key stops when we need to defensively and we lose the special teams part of the game. It’s not a very complicated deal. Give our guys credit, kept battling, kept fighting. Though our guys played hard. Give them credit, they kind of seemed to make the plays they needed to make to win and we kind of made every play you needed to lose.”
Were you guys unmotivated?
“No we were motivated. The fact that we come over and turn the ball over three times in the first half doesn’t help.”
Can you do anything with this defense? This has been God awful all year.
“Yeah, well, you look at it on the night, we made some good stops. We just did things you can’t do. We had a missed assignment to give up an easy touchdown. We get the stop at the end to win the game, pretty much, and get a personal foul. A stop at the end of the game, where we’re going to go have the opportunity to go win it. We’ve gotta keep working. We gotta get better. We’ve gotta make better decisions. Out there on the field, you just gotta keep playing harder.”
Why elect for the FG at the end instead of a pass to the end zone?
“I would never, that’s something we practice all the time. I give the offensive guys credit to get us in that situation. Our goal is to get the ball to the 40, the 45 yard line because you didn’t have much time. We got it well within Evan’s range. We expect that to be a pretty consistent field goal for him. We had an easier one than they did and we just missed it.”
Kyle Pitts not playing
“He was injured. He didn’t practice at all this week, didn’t practice one day this week, went out there, was going to try and warm up. He really wanted to play, but not practicing, not being able to play, not being 100 percent we just didn’t think that it was the right thing to put him on the field.”
Are you confident in Grantham? At what point do you evaluate more?
“Not really. We played pretty good defense for a good part of the year. We made some critical mistakes. We’ll watch it and as you continue to evaluate you evaluate the whole picture and whole package of it all. You know? We’ll do that. I’m pretty confident with Todd...If I look like we're unsound or poorly coached.”
Three consecutive three-and-outs?
"It set us way back. You guys are questioning the defense. They stopped them after those drives, so that's a question for the offense right there. This game tonight's on the offense."
Missed red-zone opportunities?
"It was huge. Here's how you win: play great defense, win the red zone, win the turnover battle and win special teams. There you go. If we score touchdowns in the red zone, we win by three scores."
Struggles against freshman quarterbacks?
"It doesn't really matter. Quarterbacks are quarterbacks. True freshman, freshman, senior, junior. It has nothing to do with it."
Pretty good game from Max Johnson?
"Yeah, give him credit. I thought he played well. Didn't make a lot of mistakes. Made some runs, made some good throws."
If you beat Bama, should you be in CFP Playoff?
"I don't have a vote on that. I'm not in the room, you know what I mean? I know we've played 10 games, OK. So I guess probably the best thing to do would have been to play less games because you seem to get rewarded for not playing this year in college football. But I tell you what, I give our guys a lot of credit. The competitors our guys are, that they want to go out there and compete every single week. That we've faced a lot of injuries, we've faced a lot of adversity, we've played short-handed a lot of games. And we have no control. We have no control over anything but whether or not we win next week. That's all we can control. We win next week, we're SEC champs. I can't control more than that. That is all we control, and I guess that's a good question for the committee. That's their deal with what's important. But I tell you what, I'm proud of our guys of how they faced through everything, played a 10-game SEC schedule, played beat up, played short-handed a bunch of these games this year. I'm really proud of our guys and how they've battled to go do that. So we'll worry about the SEC Championship Game next week. And beyond that, whatever anybody wants to vote us to do then we'll see what is next."
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