Transcript: Florida Gators Dan Mullen On Life Post COVID Outbreak and How the Team Can Respond

Florida Gators Head Coach Dan Mullen met with local media on Monday for the first time in almost a week. He talked about life post the Gators COVID-19 outbreak, how the team can respond and what to expect from the Missouri Tigers.

As a valued subscriber of GatorBait Magazine, we are offering this transcript in full.

---

Opening Statement:

“Good to be back in the office today. We’ve got practice this afternoon, so we’re kind of getting back into our routine and our schedule that we get ready for game week. Obviously, a big opponent with Missouri coming up. Team had a dominating win last week. Have already had a big win over LSU this year, so, obviously, an excellent football team. Should be a big challenge for us, as we get ready to go.”

Was one of your players hospitalized last week for Covid-19?

"I'm not going to confirm or deny anything, I mean I don't get into medical records of players and what goes on, just like anything. I'm not going to say yes or no on anything as far as medical records and stuff. But we feel that, again, we have not had tons of, really, a whole lot of major issues or anything that we've seen be really serious to this point."

Where do you anticipate coming back from this long layoff? What's the challenge?

"Yeah, you know, I think just getting back into the flow of the game routine here. We haven't, it's been two weeks since we've practiced, it'll be three weeks between games. That's not kind of a normal deal. Usually when you have that break, you're playing a bowl game but you have a very different, set schedule and different organization, different planning. So, you know for us, just getting our guys back into regular game week routine, we'll try to do that today."

Does it almost feel like you're restarting the season?

"Not really, because we've played some games already so we're kind of beyond that part of it. You know, and I mean, basically, this is right around where we were going to have a bye anyway. So, you're kind of treating it as coming off the bye week, is kind of how I view it. Of, you know, we're coming back from a bye week, is kind of where we're playing it as."

HOW YOU FEELING, WHAT WAS LOW POINT FOR YOU? WHAT ARE PROTOCOLS FOR GETTING BACK OUT ON DAY 1?

"Yeah, I mean, the uh... one, thanks, I feel pretty good. Rested. Uh, for sure. For what we've done, I don't know. Low point? I guess being isolated in your house and not being able to see your family, that was probably a low point. You know? My symptoms were pretty minor, thankfully. Really didn't have much for me, that deal. Protocol? Well, we'll let everybody know who's available on Saturday, like we've done throughout the year that way. So for us, just kind of the same protocol we left with that we're doing. We're still trying to look at all the different ways of how it occurred, which you know it occurred during the trip, during playing a road game, which always, we knew that coming into the season was going to be one of your biggest challenges of how you manage all that, so we'll look at that. Fortunately for us, you know, we've got a couple of home games. We have two road games, really, left this season. Traditional road games. So we have some time to make sure we try to organize some things and look at some different options for that moving forward. But our protocol for home games will be pretty consistent with what it's been."

ANTICIPATE HAVING ENOUGH GUYS TO PRACTICE TODAY?

"Oh yeah, we'll figure it out. Right? I mean we should have, what, I think you need 53 is what they say? The league says if you have 53 you've got to play. I'm sure we'll have 53 guys ready to play."

OFFENSE IN RHYTHM, WORRY ABOUT GETTING THAT BACK DURING LONG LAYOFF?

"I mean we've got some veteran players, so, you know, for those guys, just uh picking it back up and getting going. Fortunately when you have some older, veteran guys it helps, I think, getting that going. But we'll see. We're playing an excellent defense. You saw that, I think Kentucky only ran 36 plays in the game. You're playing really one of the top defenses in the league, so that will probably be more of a challenge than anything else: the quality of the defense that we're playing."

How close to full strength when resume practice?

“We’ll see. I don’t know. I’m not going to get into any of the specifics to that stuff.”

Do you know when last positive test?

“Yep. Saturday."

How many players registered to vote, schedule changes to ensure players can vote?

“We have early voting in Florida. So unfortunately the NCAA put in that rule that if during a game week you can’t practice that day. So we did have a lot of things plan within our team that now we can’t do any team activity that day, so unfortunately no. We did voter registration, so everybody on our team is ready to vote. It’s very unfortunate the NCAA kinda decided to implement that rule. I think it makes it harder for the guys to vote by not practicing that day.”

View of SEC up-and-comers Mizzou, Arky?

“I don’t know. Each coach, each program you look at it differently how you build a program. Missouri’s been a solid program. Had some ups and downs, but they’ve been pretty solid for quite awhile. I know Arkansas has gone through a downswing, got a new coaching staff bringing some excitement, bringing some energy, brought in a quarterback that has won a lot of games, knows how to win. When you look at that, that certainly has helped them. I think in this league there’s a lot of talent in the league. One of the things that makes the Southeastern Conference maybe different, pretty much every team expects to compete for and win a championship in the league. I spent a lot of years at Mississippi State and people told me we weren’t supposed to win and we did win there. I think if you just look at the programs that have been built. The quality of  coaches, the quality of players and very similar maybe to the NFL is probably the closest thing to that. Certainly, if you look at the number of players that come out of the league and go to the NFL, the quality and depth in the league is that way so that every week if you don’t bring yourA game, you’re not going to win. That’s really been the landscape for me for quite a long time for right now. You can’t really just roll the ball out there and expect win week in and week out. No matter who you are, you’ve got to bring your a game is you want the opportunity to win.” 

Carlos Alvarez being saluted: 

“Obviously, has a great a legacy, been around the program, has a lot of pride in the program. I never got to watch him play; I think that was before my time. So never really got to see him play much, but I know he’s always been a great ambassador for the Gators.” 

Time off wrinkle your desire to make changes on defense? 

“Uh, no, we’re going to keep looking at different things. I mean, obviously, it gave you time to really kind of research it, spend some time on it and find ways to make sure our best 11 guys are out there on the field at all times and make sure we’re putting guys in the best position to be successful to go play. I think it gives you just that opportunity to kind of look at the roster, look where everybody is and making sure we’ve got the guys in the right position and doing the right things.” 

Biggest thing you want to see at this point? 

“I just want to see consistency to play. To me, that is a big part of it, watching our consistent effort, consistent performance on the field, our physicality. As I said, I saw some positives. I saw us doing some things better from one week to the next over the first three weeks of getting back to being kind of normal defensively, I think slowing down. We want to see guys react today at practice and to make sure we’re kind of taking care and doing all the little things the right way: the effort to the ball, the technique, fundamentals, make sure we’re fitting our gap and that as a coaching staff, like I said, that we’ve put the guys in the right positions to make plays. It’s one thing to say, ‘OK, you draw up a play and this is what we need done.’ If the guy you’re asking to do it, if you’re asking too much of somebody, that’s not good defense. It draws up great on paper, but the guys that you’re asking to do have to be able to do what we’re asking them to do as well.” 

Could you elaborate on why it would be more difficult for players to vote if they have day off on Tuesday?

“We had a big thing set for the whole team to do a team vote. So, we had a big thing that we’ve had to cancel now because we were going to do a whole team-vote deal and bring the whole team together to go do that. We’re not allowed to do the organized team activities that day now.”

How do you go about what your players were able to accomplish during the time off in quarantine?

“I guess they got some rest.”

What about Zoom meetings, etc.?

“Yeah, we did some Zoom meetings.”

How much do you have hone in players’ focus with so much going on (coming back off layoff, new uniforms, etc.?)

“I mean, it’s game week, you know what I mean. That just is what it is. You’ve got to make sure we’re doing that. For us, for the coaches – and we talk about it – we had a team meeting this morning, getting prepped, getting mind back in, just like I said, coming off a bye week. Treating it as kind of coming off a bye week even though it’s like a double bye, you’re just still coming off the bye week to get back into the game routine, get back into the game schedule, you know, and get ready to go. I don’t get caught up in too much with all the different – the uniforms that we’re wearing and all of that stuff. Those are fun, cool little deals, but, you know, the biggest focus for us is getting into our routine and getting ready to go play.”

What did Kyle Trask show you in that game two years ago against Missouri when he got a chance to show what he was capable of?

“You know, I just think his preparation. He constantly prepares so he is ready to go when he gets his opportunity to get on the field. He’s done that throughout his whole career, so that when you put him out there, he’s been prepared for his opportunity and we expect the same. He kind of prepared when he wasn’t a starter to be ready to go to get on the field and when he got his opportunities he showed that he was ready go do that. When he became the starter, he did a great job of preparing for each game each week so that when Saturday comes he’s ready to go play at an extremely high level and give everything that he has on the field. We talk about that. A lot of it comes to, you now, that we can control our effort and our preparation and we can control our attitude, all the little things we can control, he does a great job of controlling what he can control so he’s prepared to go play Saturday.”

How involved have you been with the defense making personnel changes?

"A little bit. I'm not telling them what defense to run. I just have gone through some things, like I normally do. And I just want to make sure that we're doing the right thing. I come in more as a challenge than, 'This is what we're doing.' I'll come in and kind of challenge what we're doing to make sure that we're confident that we're doing it the right way, more than coming in and telling people what to do." 

Have you identified ways to create more turnovers?

"Yeah. We always want to do that. We're going to be a very fast, physical, aggressive defense and cause issues. But the offense, they did a good job of ball control last week. But, I mean, everybody is different. You go into a game plan, their game plan was that: to control the clock, control the time. Usually Kentucky is that team. They're usually running the ball and controlling the tempo and having the time of possession. Missouri was able to kind of flip the scale on that to go the other direction. But if you look at it, we gotta do a good job of getting off the field, whether it be third- or fourth-down conversions. Do a good job of getting off the field. We gotta be efficient offensively, because if they're going to play that type of game you're not going to get many possessions. So it looks like kind of as the year has gone, that's how people have played us to really slow games down and limit the number of possessions we have. So that calls for you to have great offensive efficiency as well with how the game plays out."

Usually work on fundamentals during a bye. How much was accomplished on Zoom?

"Yeah. You didn't have the opportunity to do that with guys because you missed out on so many practices. You missed a whole week of game practice and then you missed another whole week of bye week practices, so we've missed a whole bunch of practice opportunities."

SEC protocols calls for a four-day reacclimation period? Eat into your practice week?

"There's a build up with that. You have certain guys that can build up and do certain percentages of workouts each day."

Met with the team this morning, enthusiasm level? Eager?

“Yeah I think everybody’s really excited, ready to get back after it, ready to get back to football, you know. I think after not playing, I think that is something that is big within the team right now, is that ability to get back out on the field, get back to doing football, you know what I mean. This year’s been kind of a unique year like no other, with stops and starts, and different schedules, and kind of everything going on. Our guys, I thought, have handled everything extremely well throughout the year, so I think they’re going to be really excited to get back out there on the practice field today, hopefully it is. It’ll be, I don’t expect us to come out there and have certainly our sharpest, most crisp practice of the year, but I do expect us to have great energy, excitement and enthusiasm to be on the field to be back out there to get going as we kind of build up to Saturday.”

You were rolling along a few weeks ago well with the virus, you said consistency was key in life, you feel this was breaking from consistency?

“I think, what we’re always worried about is when you look at travel, right, and you’re going to take our kind of bubbled group that we have, and you look at the environment through the months of July and August and through September, we had three minimal things, so obviously what we were doing was working, you’re with very few positive cases, unfortunately you end up going on the road and then you’re adding in, you’re adding in a two-and-a-half hour plane ride, you’re adding in bus trips to and from the hotel, you’re adding in pre-game meals, and usually the hotels are not quite as big, and the spacing, as it is at home, so you’re in a tighter meal environment. You’re adding in a visiting locker room –– I don’t know if you’ve been to many, it’s not like the NFL where they have standards, right, of the home and visitor locker room. A lot of times, the visitor’s locker room, when you’re in there, it’s about a quarter of the size, so basically, when you travel right now, you’re going to put your team, there is no social distancing. You’re putting your same number of people in 25 percent of the space, you know, when you’re in there on the road. So we always knew the travel was going to be a concern and an issue for us, and we were trying to evaluate, and we got through game 1 without an issue. We had some concerns in game 1, we had a couple things that we did and we were kind of able to get through it, so we thought ‘OK, we’re heading in the right direction even with that, with the road game’ and unfortunately all of those things, when you add those all up, all of those different combinations, you add that up, and you throw the virus in the middle of it with obviously someone having it on the team, or at least maybe 2 people I’m guessing have it on the team, and then you put it in to that environment, you’re going to get a spread, especially when for us, with a team we’ve had so few numbers. I think there’s a lot of people out there that have had these large numbers of guys already have it, so you’re not seeing a spread anymore because they’ve already had it. We’ve had so few numbers that have had it that it was able to spread throughout the team, where a lot of I think other teams, my understanding of the league, we’re still on the low number I think of total positives with people. It was my understanding, our trainer said there’s still teams that have a lot more positives than we even do now. So when you’re looking at that aspect of things, you know they’re not testing that many guys, they’re not doing that, so the concern of that spread was much greater for every road game.”