Mullen calls for ‘cleaner football’

GAINESVILLE — The Florida Gators’ first scrimmage under Dan Mullen did little to impress the team’s new head coach.

Asked if he took any positives away from Friday’s rainsoaked affair in the Swamp, Mullen did not hide his feelings.

“Not really,” he told reporters Monday. “It was very herkyjerky. It wasn’t great football to me.”

The Gators’ offense was sluggish much of the day before ending with a surge of big plays courtesy of defensive miscues.

“When you see good football, you see execution on both sides of the ball and some playmaking,” he explained. “You could define it to me as bad offense and then all of a sudden an explosive play with bad defense, instead of good football on both sides and guys making plays within the system.

“That would be the biggest thing that I’d love to see cleaned up moving forward — just

cleaner football, cleaner execution on both sides.”

The Gators will return to the field Wednesday and practice again Friday before getting another chance to scrimmage Saturday. A week later, UF will close spring practices with the annual spring game, scheduled for 3 p.m. on April 14 in the Swamp.

Despite his critique of Friday’s action, Mullen did praise the Gators’ effort level in recent weeks.

“If I was happy with something, I think our guys play hard,” Mullen said. “That’s to me the most important thing. If you go hard, we can teach you how to play football.”

While each player finds his way and role in a new system, the learning curve unsurprisingly is steepest at quarterback.

Feleipe Franks, who started eight games last season, at times looked lost. He began the day 3-of-14 passing and finished with two touchdowns and three interceptions.

Fellow redshirt sophomore Kyle Trask fared much better, finishing 12-of-18 passing with three touchdowns. But he also threw a bad interception when he locked on to his receiver.

Mullen wants all of his quarterbacks to improve their ability to work within the offense, take what the defense gives them and focus on one play at a time.

“If I make a mistake on first down, human nature says on second down that I’m going to go make up for that mistake I made on first down, OK?” Mullen said. “Nope, manage the game. Take what the defense gives you, to the right read, get to the right check and keep the right footwork. Same thing as if I just hit a big play before, ‘Hey, we’re in great shape.’ Nope, manage the next play. Take what the defense gives you. Put us in the best position to be successful.

“And that’s the learning curve they’re going through.”

The Gators’ pass rush Friday did not make things easy on the quarterbacks.

“Thought we looked pretty athletic rushing the passer in the scrimmage the other day and that was exciting,” Mullen said.

Athletic, rangy redshirt sophomore Jeremiah Moon closed strongly Friday to finish with 3.5 sacks. He has benefited from the move from strong-side linebacker to rush end. Yet the 6-foot-4, 228-pound Moon also is learning to take on more blocks.

“We’re moving him closer to the ball,” Mullen said. “I think that fits him really well in what’s he doing, but technically he still has to constantly learn how to play with his hands. Contact’s happening a lot quicker.”

Mullen wants his players to keep his high expectations in perspective.

“Have them realize it’s probably never as good or never as bad as you think,” he said. “It’s always about moving forward and how good I can be the next time.”