Mullen: Gators’ QBs have long way to go
GAINESVILLE — UF coach Dan Mullen hopes he has enough time to get his quarterbacks ready for the Gators’ season opener … in 2019 against Miami.
It’s going to be awhile before Mullen identifies his quarterback of the future. Chances are it will not even be this season.
Mullen’s reputation for developing top QBs goes back at least 15 years. He now faces one of his toughest coaching challenges to get redshirt sophomores Feleipe Franks and Kyle Trask ready for the Sept. 1 opener against Charleston Southern.
After four days of fall camp, Mullen realizes each has miles to go before meeting their coach’s high expectation level. This is not a major revelation, given the recent history of shaky quarterback play at UF and the inexperience at the position.
“I mean, to be a big-time quarterback, I don’t think they even think they’d know how hard that is,” Mullen told reporters Monday. “They should understand it by hopefully next summer. I was hoping maybe with just one of them it would really click, but I didn’t see that happen.
“But that doesn’t shock me.”
Mullen said Franks, Trask and freshman Emory Jones have done some good things, shown good attitudes and made the effort to improve. None, though, fully fathoms what it took players like Alex Smith, Tim Tebow or Dak Prescott to thrive under Mullen.
While it is unfair to compare UF’s three quarterbacks to three of the best Mullen ever might coach, it also offers an idea of what he expects. Becoming a great quarterback goes beyond the individual and beyond the obvious.
“I’m seeing flashes here and there, but it’s really about consistency of performance,” Mullen said. “I think one of the ones that is hard is how much work you have to put in at the QB position to be successful. I think they are young guys and they’re still learning that. That just takes time because there are so many little intricacies of it.
“You can’t coach everything at one time.”
Putting in the extra work to hone fundamentals and learn the nuances of the entire offense is a never-ending process that could decide who wins the starting job.
“That’s the one thing that I see from them that I’m harping on all the time: Not just understand their position, but understanding the offense,” Mullen said. “So when you know we’ve got a great play call, go. I don’t know why we’re waiting around at the line of scrimmage, pretending to check. We’ve got a great call, don’t mess around with it. Get the ball snapped. And if we don’t, use your cadence. If you’re not sure what the defense is going to do, try to uncover out there.
“Their attitude is all really good. They just have a lot of work to do.”
With 20 practices remaining in camp, Mullen is confident he will have quarterbacks prepared well enough to succeed.
“This year, we'll get them right,” he said. “We'll keep putting them in situations, finding out what they're most comfortable with right now as we go through installation [of the offense.]”
A year from now, Mullen hopes his quarterback situation is more settled. But even that might be too much to expect.
“It might not even be next summer, it might be the summer after that,” Mullen said. “A lot of guys it takes two or three years of really working.”