Transcript: Dan Mullen Reviews Loss To No. 1 Alabama and What He Found Out About His Team
The No. 11 Florida Gators fell 31-29 to the No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide on Saturday night. After the game, Head Coach Dan Mullen met with local media to review the loss, share what he learned about his team and where they go from here.
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INTRO
"I want to thank all the Gator Nation. Hopefully eveyone travels home safe. The rain held off until postgame so … but it was to see the Swamp alive, unbelievable atmosphere. The fan, they certainly did their part. The margin for error in this game is so small. The Gator Nation certainly showed up today and did their part. I thank them for what they did today.
"It was a fun game to be a part of. You love these games, been 10 years since you’re had that game here in the Swamp. I’ve talked about it moving forward we want to play them more often. Be honest with you, I hope we play them really soon, like later this season. I want that opportunity. Our fans, it was great SEC football.
Main takeaway?
“When you play in big games, the margin for error is going to be so small. You look at the turnover margin, we had one they had none. We gave up some first downs on penalties, pass interference calls, they’re judgment calls that can go either way. But we gave up too many first downs penalty-wise to allow them to keep some drives alive, especially early on a couple of errors weren’t good. As you said, missed extra point, we had a missed assignment on the two-point play. You’re going to go back and watch you’re going to see little things. But our guys, I like the attitude of this team. I like the effort this team has. I think it’s going to be really interesting to see our response in practice this week, I really do. Because I never doubted the effort that our team was going to give or the attitude our guys had. Our guys expected to win the game today coming into it. I know they’re disappointed. You play in championship level game the margin for error is going to get extremely small. I hope our guys and coaches, everybody we have to point those out and embrace that at practice this week. We have to come together as a team that way and that positive energy of eliminating every little error at practice within our preparation and have it show out in our performance next week against Tennessee.”
Down 21-3, look liked game over?
“I think early on they kind of came out, hit some plays on us, a couple of mistakes, but once we settled into the game. As I told you, our guys expected to win the game. We just dug ourselves an early hole we had to dig ourselves out of. We did, just came up a play … there’s just so many things you could point to during the course of the game that could flip it one way or the other. We have to find a way to make those plays to always flip it in our direction.”
How close AR15 playing?
“It’s one of those deals, when you have a hamstring it’s not like a sprained ankle. When you look at injuries that hey he can go on, it’s not going to get worse, he might not be 100 percent but he’s not going to make it worse during the course of the game. His is he’s not going to be 100 percent and if he plays he definitely can make it worse. That was one we talked about going into the game. We did an MRI yesterday. He was actually ahead of where we thought he would be, which was really positive for next week with him. But it’s one, going into the game we talked about, I don’t share the plan with you, but he knew he was going to go in back-up mode only and be a dropback passer, stand in the pocket only, not running around, hand the ball off to quarterback. Fortunately Emroy stayed healthy. I thought Emory stepped up his game this week, had a pretty good darn game. It will be great hopefully as this week goes get Anthony back 100 percent as well.”
YOU TOUCHED ON EMORY, BUT HOW CRUCIAL WAS LAST DRIVE?
"Huge. I mean just, you look at the team and the attitude of the team to just take us -- last couple drives -- the 99-yard drive. I mean you just can't flinch in game situations. These guys didn't flinch today. They just kept battling, kept battling, kept battling, put us in a position to we were right there with an opportunity to be within two points there at the end of the game."
TAKE US THROUGH TWO-POINT PLAY... YOU SAY MISSED ASSIGNMENT?
"Yeah, a couple. There was two. I'm not going to get into specifics of the play, but we had a guy line up wrong and then a guy go the wrong way."
GOING TO BE RUNNING PLAY, THOUGH?
"Possibly. Well there was a couple options within the play, so. Yeah, I'm not going to get into the specifics of what the actual play call was and what our design on that play was and draw it up for you."
PLAYED THESE GUYS AS CLOSE AS ANYBODY LAST TWO TIMES WITH TWO REALLY DIFFERENT OFFENSIVE APPROACHES... WHY IS THAT? WHY YOU SO MUCH TROUBLE FOR THESE GUYS?
"I don't know. I think one thing a lot of teams play Alabama and I think they sometimes don't think they're going to win the game, maybe? I mean our guys certainly expected to win the game. Played that way. We did last year, we did this year. I think that's maybe a big part of it. Where we're headed as a program I think, I talked about it when I got here: I want a team that can compete for championships on a consistent basis. And to do that you're going to have to go; to compete for championships you're going to have to go beat Alabama. As everybody said last year, 'What's the margin?' Last year it was six points, this year it was two. And hopefully we get one more shot at them and get an opportunity to compete for another championship as we move forward. But you know, that's what we want to be as a program and that's what our guys, how we prepare and we expect heading out there on the field."
NO MORAL VICTORIES, BUT IN GAME LIKE THIS, CAN YOU PROVE WHAT YOU JUST TALKED ABOUT? YOU COME HERE TO COMPETE, WIN, PLAY FOR TITLES?
"Absolutely. I do think, you know, you come into the game, I don't know if they knew where they were at and we knew where we were at coming into this game sometimes after the first two games of the season. You've got Game 1, you're learning new things. They're certainly a very different team than they were last year. We're a very different team than we were last year, even though we played nine months earlier or whatever it was. Two different kind of teams lining up against each other today. After the first two games you still have some questions. I think we have the opportunity to be a pretty good team this year. There's a lot of things we've got to fix up and we've got to get better at, but I think we have an opportunity to be a pretty good football team. I mean give them credit, they're an excellent football team. Obviously Nick does a great job within the program and continuing to have guys play at an extremely high level. But I thought, you know what? I thought we had a good plan offensively and defensively and I thought our guys executed really well, for the most part."
NO POINTS GIVEN UP IN SECOND QUARTER, WHAT DID YOU TALK TO DEFENSE ABOUT AFTER FIRST QUARTER?
"Just to relax. Just make tackles, do your job, don't try to make plays. I think sometimes guys, you know, you get in big environments, guys try to make plays. What you have to understand; and explain this the right way, because I know what my thought is, I've got to make sure I explain it to you the right way. Is do your job within the scheme call, whether it's offense, defense, even defensively. Go out there. We make the call. Execute the defensive call. And if you do that within that scheme you're going to have the opportunity to make plays if you do what you're supposed to do. Just don't get out of it and say, 'OK, I'm going to try to do something different and make a great play over here.' The plays will come to you. I think our guys, we got them to relax a little bit and just go out there and execute. And they did. I think we really executed clean moving forward in the game."
(What can be taken from this game defensively)
“Yeah I think the guys believing in what we’re doing defensively. I thought Todd and his staff had a great scheme today. They really did a good job putting the guys out there in position to make plays on the field. I thought on the back end we have a very young secondary going against a bunch of talented guys. I thought those guys really stepped up and got up there and played well. A couple of penalties here and there, bang-bang plays. I liked the aggressiveness and I liked the confidence our guys played with.”
(Offensively what changed after the first quarter?)
“I don’t know, why? Were we much better after that? Probably better play calls. No. I think getting into the flow of the game. Our guys settled down. I thought we were moving the ball. I thought we moved the ball, we had a three-and-out there early but I think our guys settling down and making plays, being comfortable and making plays and the trust, executing and doing their job. I think coming into the game, one of the big things, you wanted to be able to run the ball. We were able to run the ball. Very rarely do you see that big a disparity when you play Alabama in the rushing attack. We came out, had more than 100 yards more than they did. There’s little things we gotta fix. We gotta finish drives and get points at the end of drives there, put ourselves in the lead. I would have loved to get that lead and heard the Gator crowd with the lead.”
(What does UF need to do better on 3rd down defensively?)
“You’re gonna look at it and there’s gonna be a bunch of things. We had a missed tackle or two in there. We had a penalty or two in there. I think those things. Let’s give them credit. They have some pretty talented players too, offensively. In that type of game it’s all the little things like that that it comes down to. We were 7-of-13, we need to be a little better on third down but four of them, I think, were penalties. Just little things like that that we need to get cleaned up.”
(What can this game do for Emory?)
“I think, for him, I think it gets him just relaxed. In the first couple games you learn a lot. I mean, I haven’t called plays with Emory as the primary quarterback before. He hasn’t been out there on the field. He’s come in in situations but he came in, when you’re the started you’ve gotta come in and manage everything. There’s a lot on your plate. I think him getting comfortable now. Kind of surprisingly he was just relaxed and comfortable with everything happening out there on the field, way more than he was the last two weeks. Which, you know, hey, you’re playing Alabama’s defense and I’m kind of relaxed and comfortable. I think he’s just kind of now getting into the flow of this is how we gameplan, this is what we do, this is how I apply the gameplan to who we’re playing. I think you saw him being a much more comfortable guy out there. Even his interception, his interception was a great read. He’s getting hit. He’s trying to get it out right on time. He made the perfect read going to the guy as he’s getting hit the ball sealed on him as he got hit right as he was releasing. I’m going back in the game and I didn't see many … if you look over the first couple weeks I thought he played pretty good with some drastic errors. I think everybody freaks out because some of his errors the first couple weeks were, like, bad. It was, ‘I played really good and then a couple mistakes’ it was like ‘I played really good and then what was that?’ I don’t think of, maybe one big error. I can’t think of an error he made today, like a bad one, that he made over the course of the game.”
(Fair to say you’re still learning how to call plays for him in game?)
“Yeah, you get into that. You get that feeling, that comfort level of what guys … when you practice against each other, practice is great but there is a little bit of difference of being out there on the field in those atmospheres playing great teams. It’s getting everybody on the same page and that comfort level. Not just the quarterback position, everybody. When we’re out there on game day what are guys doing at a really high level that we need to continue to focus and put them in a situation to do things well.”
(On if he feels like he's closer to having a team that can play for and win championships)
"We're getting there. You know, we had the opportunity last year to play for the SEC Championship, fell six points short, the No. 1 team in the country, we're two points short today. So I think we're getting there. I think we're at the point where we can compete, but we gotta get there to the point right now where we're gonna go win, and I think that's the hunger in the locker room. I mean, you see our guys in the locker room, they wanna win that game. It wasn't like, 'hey, we played a great game.' I think there's legitimately some disappointment that we didn't win the game because we expected to. But, we gotta keep building, gotta keep recruiting, keep coaching, keep developing here. And I think, certainly, everybody's onboard making that happen right now. We have unbelievable support from our administration. Within the next nine months, we're opening up an unbelievable football facility for the future for our guys, not just for recruiting purposes, but for the training and everyday purpose for our players. You go out there in The Swamp, there's no atmosphere like gameday in The Swamp when it's rockin'. Our fanbase, our student body, the Gator Nation, bought into what we're doing in creating that environment, so, you know, we gotta get it back where the Gators are competing, and our recruiting, we gotta continue to recruit well, get it back where we're competing for championships every year."
(On the trenches being the area to improve following SEC Championship game against Alabama, and if there's one specific area following this game to take away, closer to being equal)
"Well, yeah, you could flip a couple of plays in that game and it'll change the course of the outcome in that game, but I do think we played much better up front today. But, that's a little focus on this year's team, you know, of where we're at. We're a little bit more veteran in our front sevens on both sides of the ball than we were last year. Last year, you know, you kinda - all the superstars were out on the perimeter, and taking the snap and throwing the ball down the field. In the interior part, we're a little bit more veteran, a little bit more experienced this year. Our backs run the ball really hard, you know, our quarterbacks are athletic and can beat you with the run game a little bit. So, we're gonna be a little bit of a different team. Our wideouts on the outside, I thought did a heck of a job today. I don't know, you know, one of the things that gets - look at Jacob Copeland, 1 catch for 10 years, you know ... and two pass interference penalties for 30 yards that they had to tackle him or he would have been an explosive play type of deal. So, the guys on the outside, maybe not on the stat sheet getting the credit, but now they're loading the box to stop the run, we're getting one-on-one shots on the outside, and those guys are winning. We wanna make those plays become more explosive and actual catches, but I think those guys did a pretty good job down the field."
Holding Alabama scoreless in a quarter twice now, what can you build off of this defensive performance?
"Well, like I said, I'm really excited to see how we come out on Monday, because we need to build off of this, you know? I know people think this is crazy but next week becomes an even bigger game. You know, you're talking Florida-Tennessee on Saturday night in The Swamp, eastern division rivalry. I mean, it's, this game has no effect on our eastern conference record right now. And, you know, I mean, we completely control everything we want to do still for the rest of the season. And hopefully our guys, that's why I want to see that attitude that when we show up on Monday, that kind of hunger. You know, after the SEC championship game, in the locker room, I saw a little bit of a hunger from our guys about next season and we want to put ourselves back in a position to go win and get back to Atlanta. And even in January [when we] came back, our guys, that desire to get back and compete for a championship. I want to see that on Monday, that hunger to go sit there and say 'Hey, we're going to fix those couple things.' That attention to detail, I mean the laser focus on guys communicating and picking each other up. You know, it can, it's a really fine line between, hey, I'm yelling at guys and pointing fingers and you need to do this and you need to do that instead of picking each other up and say, 'Hey, here's the call, here's what it is. Let's do this.' And I want to see that attitude from our guys of everybody kind of coming together to make those plays and correct. You know, erase that little, that two point margin."
Is some of that maybe finding a voice to replace Ventrell Miller?
"Yeah but Ventrell, here's a great thing, Ventrell is out there. His voice is still out there. You know, I mean, he might not be out there on Saturday on the field with the 11 guys that are making the call, but his voice is still present every day as a captain. You know, and that shows why he was voted Captain by his teammates, and it shows his character and the type of person he is that that voice is still very much strongly within our team and at every single practice."
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