Scarlett having fun again with football
GAINESVILLE — For about two hours Saturday afternoon,
was having fun playing football again.
The Florida Gators running back returned to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium for the first time since the 2017 spring game. He sat out all of last season after being charged with credit-card fraud.
He was reinstated by new coach in late January.
“It felt great just being back out there, you know,” Scarlett said after rushing for 57 yards and two touchdowns during the team’s spring game Saturday afternoon. “Hearing the crowd go crazy as I ran and scored touchdowns … it felt great being back in the Swamp.”
The energy and excitement Scarlett felt carried over to his teammates, who led a creative touchdown celebration. The offense sat in a circle in the end zone while the redshirt junior raced around the outside of the circle, tapping each one on the head, mimicking an old-fashioned game of Duck, Duck, Goose.
“I told them, ‘Let’s do something altogether, not just me celebrating by myself.’ We decided to get a little Duck, Duck, Goose in,” Scarlett said with a grin. Mullen approved. “I love it. We obviously didn’t have any celebration penalties. Did you notice that?” Mullen said, smiling. “I just told them I don’t want anything COMMENTARY silly. You can do … Duck, Duck, Goose and do some funny things like that and enjoy it.
“A lot of people forget, these are kids — they’re 18- to 20-year-old kids. They’ve got to have fun doing it, too. So it was great seeing their enthusiasm and energy.”
Scarlett said you can definitely see a change this offseason.
“The last coaching staff sometimes made it too much of a business aspect,” he said. “You know, it is business sometimes when you’re out here to them mostly because it’s their job, but they do have to remember we’re 18 to 22 [year-olds].
“A lot of us just want to have fun and sometimes when you make us have fun while we’re doing it, great things come up out of it. I like [Mullen’s] plan so far.”
The Gators are hoping to bounce back from a disappointing 4-7 season, the program’s worst since 2013. The school fired then-coach
seven games into the season following a 42-7 loss to Georgia in Jacksonville on Oct. 29.
Scarlett said the Gators are driven to deliver a better season.
“I think we’re really eager because I think we have a lot to prove coming from last year, we didn’t really have the season we wanted to,” he said. “We had some guys come out, including me, and it just didn’t turn out as good as season as we planned it to be. A lot of the guys are eager to get out there and prove it themselves.”
The Gators have produced just two 1,000-yard rushers since 2010 and none since 2015. Scarlett led the program in rushing in 2016 with 886 yards and six touchdowns. But last season, the duo of
(562 yards) and (526) combined for more than 1,000 yards.
Scarlett’s comeback bolsters a unit that also features Perine, Davis and
“I think we’ve got a lot of great running backs and all of us have our different type of running styles and some are the same and those coaches have done a really good job of figuring out who can do what and I trust their plan and they have a great thing for us,” Scarlett said.