Coach Dan Mullen, Gators reflect on shutdown a year later.
Success was achieved, but COVID-19 was a huge hurdle to clear
GAINESVILLE — Growing up in Gainesville, quarterback Anthony Richardson was destined to be a Florida Gator.
When the chance finally arrived for the 17-year-old, Richardson jumped at it. Next thing he knew, the coronavirus pandemic stopped him in his tracks.
Richardson skipped the second half of his senior year at Gainesville Eastside to enroll at UF in January 2020. A little more than two months later, on March 13, the university canceled athletics due to COVID-19 concerns and sent athletes home — in Richardson’s case, just prior to the start of spring football practices.
Richardson did not have to go far, but nothing else about the situation was easy for him.
“It was kind of challenging, not gonna lie,” he said recently. “I didn’t really get to finish my senior year of high school, so I was ready to just get going, just to start playing football again.”
The Gators eventually did return to the field and successfully navigated the 2020 regular season. Yet many players never had the chance to achieve their full potential due to the cancellation of spring and a limited offseason, along with the stops and starts, the constant adjustments and endless fears surrounding a season like no other.
“Missing out on spring, that really took a toll on me,” Richardson said. “I wasn’t able to learn as much as I needed to within that time. So just missing out on the spring and having COVID stop it, it was kind of tough.”
Richardson and many of the Gators returned to the field Feb. 18, still playing catch-up but also grateful for the opportunity.
“Definitely crazy to see where we’re at from a year [ago] not having spring to now we’re having spring,” senior linebacker Ventrell Miller said. “That spring always makes you feel better.”
Being away from coaches and teammates, without the structure of a schedule and wondering when the shutdown would end, exacted an emotional toll on players accustomed to the rhythm of a football calendar and the presence of kindred spirits.
The most difficult part?
“I’d say the isolation,” senior tight end Kemore Gamble said. “Not really getting to know your teammates like that because we couldn’t do all the team events, all the get-togethers we usually do. So we really couldn’t get a real bond together. “For real, for real.” Real-world concerns and inescapable bad news had shattered the comfort zone created in a big-time college football program like Florida.
Even a year later, little truly is back to normal.
“I think COVID is not going away,” Gamble said.
But while the pandemic raged last fall, the Gators still completed a season and enjoyed plenty of success, including winning the SEC East title for the first time since 2016.
To do so required vigilance, adaptability and plenty of acquiescence.
Players and coaches were tested for COVID-19 three times a week at least. Some still contracted the virus, including coach Dan Mullen. At some point, subsequent to their return to campus in late May and until the Dec. 30 Cotton Bowl, many in the program spent time in quarantine.
An outbreak following an Oct. 10 loss at Texas A&M forced medical and football personnel to collaborate on a new game plan for road games. Daily workouts already were more of a chore due to the safety precautions. Filling a meeting room for film study had been shelved.
Put simply, the sacrifices to play football “have been massive,” Mullen said.
“I mean, from testing to redoing how we do everything to trying to make makeshift facilities to makeshift meeting rooms to keep everything open air,” Mullen continued. “How we travel, how we meet, how we change, how we get dressed for practice, the mental, you know, the mental and emotional wear of not knowing . ... You find out Friday afternoon if you’re gonna play a game and that’s really hard to do to prepare all week.”
The 48-year-old Mullen, a 13-year SEC head coach making more than $6 million annually, wore the emotional toll on his sleeve throughout the season.
Lofty expectations for his team, concern for his players and staff, and the general stress created by a pandemic led to some public missteps and miscalculations.
Mullen’s development of quarterback Kyle Trask and high-powered offense were at times overshadowed by explosive optics. Among Mullen’s greatest hits were his call to pack the Swamp after the A&M loss, his role in a halftime brawl against Missouri in the Swamp and his criticism of the NCAA for canceling all practices so players could vote on Election Day.
Behind the scenes, Mullen’s team ultimately felt safe and protected within its bubble.
“Our operations as far as COVID testing and masks and social distancing, it’s top of the line here,” senior offensive lineman Stewart Reese said. “For me, I don’t worry at all about my health, being here.”
Reese, a graduate transfer in 2020 from Mississippi State, was back in Starkville and beginning spring break when the shutdown began. His future teammates soon were spread throughout Florida and the region, away from campus and the football facilities for months.
Mullen and his assistants did their best to buoy the spirits of players and offer direction.
“It really was every day,” offensive line coach John Hevesy said. “No one knew what to do and how to handle it because no one’s ever been through it. It became a thing as a staff and everybody constantly communicating what we’re doing.”
Regular Zoom calls and constant text messages kept everyone connected.
Hevesy tried to keep his group engaged and energized with workout challenges, in one case a jump-rope contest.
“Send your video in,’ ” Hevesy recalled texting his players. “I probably got seven text messages back: ‘Coach, I don’t have a jump rope.’ I didn’t care … I think Brett Heggie sent a video in of him with an extension cord as a jump rope.
“Like in life, find a way to adapt and get done what you got to get done.”
Hevesy regularly tracked his linemen’s mental states, too.
“The big thing for us and our guys, COVID’s a negative thing. What’s a positive about this?” he said. “Some guys get family, which you wouldn’t be home with your family at this time, you’d be up here. Here’s your family time to use because it’s going to come back and we’re not going to have it.”
Despite the distance with his players, linebackers coach Christian Robinson pushed even harder to connect with them during video calls.
“I just said, ‘I’m here for you guys,’ ” the 30-year-old Robinson recalled. “We just sat around talking and, ‘Hey what’d you do today?’ Talking about their lifts, talking about their families, ‘Everybody OK?’ Last year was hard. I tell everybody. I will remember last season for so many things, and the people that you got to spend it with. We’re all able to try to keep each other sane from afar and encourage each other.”
“That kinda set in motion some of the brotherhood that was shown this season and truly why I love this group of guys.”
Back on the field this spring, the Gators are in their element again and have regained a sense of normalcy and purpose.
Gamble said he learned a valuable lesson: “If you want something, you gotta risk something to get something.”
Using hindsight, the risk turned out to be rewarding despite carrying a hefty price.
“You could write a book on all the sacrifices that have been made by the players to get to do this,” Mullen said. “But you know, I will say, this is what guys, that’s what we love to do. Now, was it easy? No, it was extremely difficult. But is it worth all of that, those sacrifices you have to make and those challenges?
“Absolutely it is, because we’re getting to do what we love to do, which is go play football.”