Gators’ Mullen is play-call phenom
Florida coach’s deception delights fans, but frustrates foes.
GAINESVILLE — More than 90,000 people were watching closely, but Dan Mullen did not care.
The Florida coach was confident no one was going to notice, especially the LSU Tigers Saturday in the sold-out Swamp.
Trailing 19-14 and facing first-and-10 in the red zone, Mullen slipped 6-foot-6, 255-pound tight end Lucas Krull into the game for just his third snap of the day. No one caught on until it was too late.
Krull’s throwback pass to quarterback Feleipe Franks set up the game-winning touchdown and once again highlighted Mullen’s play-calling prowess.
“I think he’s one of the gifted ones we have in college football,” said CBS analyst Gary Danielson, who called the game. “He always has been.”
Mullen’s title may be football coach, but when calling plays, no label applies. On game days, he turns into a showman, a card shark and a magician.
“He always has something up his sleeve,” said Vanderbilt coach Derek Mason, whose Commodores will host Mullen’s No. 14 Gators Saturday in Nashville. Kickoff is set for noon and the game will air on ESPN.
Mullen’s tailor might have to stock up on extra material for the 46-year-old coach with a wild imagination and endless reservoir of Xs and Os.
Give Mullen a pad, a pen and a defense to attack and he’ll turn into a visor-wearing Van Gogh.
“There’s so many plays and so little time,” he said. “If you give me a pad, I probably can draw up a thousand.”
The son of a dance instructor from England, Mullen developed a sense of timing and a creative bent as a child. When it came to football, he had a sixth sense. It usually leads to six points. A jump pass in the season opener, a double-pass at Mississippi State and a throwback toss against LSU’s Tigers are recent examples. What Mullen cooks up next is anyone’s guess — just the way he wants it.
“'We're going to run a double-reverse hand-off kneel-down flea-flicker, and we're going to run it on the seventh play of the game,” Mullen joked when asked what was in store this weekend for the Commodores.
Winners of four consecutive games, the Gators (5-1, 3-1 SEC) might not need anything special to beat struggling Vanderbilt (3-3, 0-2). South Carolina and Georgia beat the Commodores by a combined score of 78-27.
If Mullen does need to dig into his bag of tricks, UF’s players will be ready. Mullen views trick plays simply as part of the playbook and does not trot them out on a whim.
The Gators began practicing Mullen’s art of deception during the opening days of preseason camp and continue to work on those plays every week.
“Every time we rep it, twice a week, three times a week, it might not be two or three weeks before we use it,” said offensive line coach John Hevesy, the team’s co-offensive coordinator and a longtime Mullen lieutenant. “It’s just that they’re comfortable with it, so it’s like any other
play. So when you call the play it’s not like, ‘OK, this is this play …’
“It’s, ‘OK, here we go, let’s run it.’”
UF put four or five trick plays into each game plan but might not end up using any of them.
But Mullen’s true gift goes beyond orchestrating the plays everyone will be discussing for days.
“Trick plays are cool and you get a lot of notoriety and people love to talk about it after the game, but it’s just icing on the cake,” said Danielson, a former NFL quarterback for 13 seasons. “What separates Dan is that he can find a thread on the sweater and pull at it and understand how it distorts the defense. He can take a defense that is sound and make it unsound with one or two plays, or one or two formations or one motion that give defenses problems.
“He seems to have a real gut instinct for finding it, and then utilizing it to give him better odds the rest of the game.”
Against LSU, Mullen noticed the Tigers shifting their linebackers to the field side and began to call options runs to the boundary side with Franks. The Gators had several nice gains off the play.
“That one play forced [LSU defensive coordinator Dave] Aranda to move around his guys,” Danielson said. “Whenever you plug a leak somewhere, you have a leak somewhere else. It forced Dave to make the next move, and it seemed like Dan was always a step ahead of him at that point.”
Florida fans want their coach to remain a step ahead at all times.
Mullen said his inbox is flooded with suggestions on what trick play he should dial up next.
“I get emails all the time for them,” he said. “People sending me all kinds of plays for what we should and shouldn’t do.”
Mullen always is open to ideas but has his limits.
“Some of them aren’t even legal in the game of football,” he joked. “But that’s OK.”
When it comes to calling plays, though, don’t put anything past Mullen. Ever the card shark, the Gators’ coach just might give some fan and kindred spirit a reason to smile this season by running a suggested play. Nothing is off the table.
Follow our Gators coverage on Twitter at @osgators and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/osgators. Edgar can be reached at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com