No easing into this schedule
No. 5 Gators will hit the ground running vs. Ole Miss
GAINESVILLE — There’ll be no easing into the 2020 season for the Florida Gators.
Bring it on, Florida Gators cornerback Marco Wilson says
Wilson did not come to the SEC to play warm-up games against inferior opponents. Swapping out a visit from Eastern Washington for Saturday’s trip to Ole Miss works just fine for the UF defensive star.
The coronavirus pandemic led the conference to postpone the season three weeks and adopt a 10-game conferenceonly slate that kicks off this weekend. Wilson would like to see a similar approach once the world and college football schedule return to normal.
“Personally, I prefer to play better teams, so [I] like an allSEC schedule,” he said. “That’s good competition every week. I usually don’t like to play the smaller games, personally.”
Wilson, a redshirt junior with an NFL future, said there’s no hiding from top competition at the next level.
“In the NFL, you don’t get to play Eastern Washington,” Wilson said. “When you’re in the NFL, one week you’re gonna have to cover Odell
[Beckham], the next week Julio [Jones]. So it’s preparing you for the best.”
But being at one’s best from the jump is likely to be an iffy proposition during the coronavirus pandemic.
Based on what he watched during recent weekends while the SEC remained on the sidelines, coach Dan Mullen said limiting mistakes will be critical due to the cancellation of spring practices and time lost on the field.
“Avoid the penalties, avoid critical errors and mistakes,” Mullen said. “You’re seeing that in a lot of the games. That [comes] from [a] lack of playing football.”
A Gators squad with championship aspirations is going to find out quickly whether it is prepared and where it stacks up.
The league’s retooled schedule first sends No. 5 UF to Oxford to face offensive-minded first-year Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin’s Rebels, then two weeks later to No. 10 Texas A&M.
The Gators’ Oct. 3 home opener against South Carolina sits in between those games, while an Oct. 17 visit from defending champion LSU follows UF’s trip to Texas A&M.
The margin for error will be slim for every team, potentially giving the Gators a leg up due their experience at quarterback and on the offensive line as well as the continuity of Mullen’s staff.
While multiple SEC schools will field a new quarterback, redshirt senior Kyle Trask is the league’s most accomplished returning starter and the preseason first-team All-SEC pick by both coaches and leaguewide media. UF also returns four starters on the offensive line, and Mississippi State graduate transfer Stewart Reese has 34 SEC
starts and was a Mullen recruit when he coached in Starkville.
“It’s good for us, I guess, that our guys know the system and can go out there and execute it,” Mullen said.
Play-calling and gameplanning also could be to the Gators’ advantage.
The SEC witnessed four head coaching changes and plenty of staff turnover following last season. UF is one of five schools — along with Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, A&M — with both coordinators from their 2019 staff.
Three of Mullen’s offensive assistants have worked with him at least 11 seasons. Quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator Brian Johnson played for Mullen at Utah and is in his sixth season on staff.
“I think it’s a huge deal just in terms of being ready to make adjustments,” Johnson said. “I think 2020 is a year where everybody has to be as flexible as possible. The fact that we have a lot of people on our staff who have been together and know the problems of what defenses are trying to do to you and have the adjustments ready to go — it definitely is a huge positive for us, I think.”
Meanwhile, the Rebels had to juggle a quarterback battle between Matt Corral and John Rhys Plumlee with learning a new offen
sive system during an abbreviated offseason. Corral is expected to earn the starting nod with the fleetfooted Plumlee having a role in Kiffin’s attack. Slot receiver Elijah Moore and tailback Jerrion Ealy are two elite SEC talents too.
But the Gators defense features one of the nation’s best cornerback tandems in Wilson and Kaiir Elam and plenty of speed off the edge for veteran coordinator Todd Grantham to deploy. The run defense, though, is a work in progress, following the loss of linebacker David Reese, and the safeties have something prove following 2019’s struggles.
The looming concern for the Gators — and every team — is the potential of COVID-19 to infect players, postpone games and even wreck the 2020 season. The well-worn mantra of one game at a time has never been more fitting.
“They give us10 etched in stone,” All-SEC tight end Kyle Pitts said. “We have the opportunity to get more, but at the same time, to just grasp everything. We don’t know if we get to Game 5 and they say the season’s over. We don’t want to have any, ‘ Oh, I could have done this better.’
“Finish off saying, ‘I did everything I could.’ ”