Mullen: ‘We’ve shown football’s pretty safe’

GAINESVILLE — The Florida Gators clean bill of health continues amid the coronavirus pandemic, but coach Dan Mullen realizes the challenge of avoiding COVID-19 infections will intensify as students return to campus.

UF begins classes Monday as the Gators enter the third week of preseason camp.

Mullen said his players must be smart and safe to avoid creating an outbreak among the ranks and putting the college football season at risk.

“We gotta be smart in our decision making, we gotta be smart in what we do,” Mullen said. “We kinda — to me — control our own future. We’ve shown that playing football’s safe — that’s what we’ve shown.”

Mullen said no one in the program has been infected with the virus since July 14. UF has performed 197 tests on football players during August.

Florida athletes were sent home in March and had to do individual workouts on their own until May due to the pandemic. UF processed 359 COVID-19 athlete tests and had 21 football players test positive shortly after their May 26 return to Gainesville.

But once they began following UF’s safety protocol, the virus appears to have stopped spreading among players.

Yet Mullen knows the Gators’ good fortune could change given the struggle some SEC campuses are having containing the virus. The University of Alabama has confirmed 531 cases among students, faculty and staff since classes resumed

Aug. 19.

“To sit there and say that, ‘Hey, when students come back to campus, there’s gonna be zero positives on our campus’, I mean that’s kinda ridiculous to even think that way, you know what I mean?” Mullen said. “So, what we gotta do is trust our local health people, and our students, people try to be smart, make good decisions.

“You know and keep everything under control as best we can. The big one for us, our guys have been responsible. We’ve shown football’s pretty safe.”

Mullen realizes the Gators and SEC still has a long road ahead until the season opens Sept. 26.

“I think it’ll really help for us to get the season going and everybody feel comfortable that we’re gonna kick off on time and get ready to play,” he said.