Mullen: Gators’ offense will look simpler this season

[BMF]

Dan Mullen: Florida Gators’ offense will look simpler this season

http://www.tampabay.com/sports/flor...gators-offense-will-look-simpler-this-season/

DESTIN — Forget what you saw this spring, or last season.

The Florida Gators' offense will look simpler in coach Dan Mullen's first season.

"Spring ball, we kind of touched on a lot," Mullen said at the Hilton Sandestin on the first day of the SEC's spring meetings. "Instead of hey, we're just going to do this complete package, we're going to touch on different aspects of the offense and see what they handle. Moving forward from that now, we say, 'OK, here's things we do well. We're going to put this aside for maybe a year or two and focus on this part of the offense and defense.'"

That sounds obvious. Why should you harp on packages that don't work for your players instead of focusing on the ones that work?

But it isn't. Some coaches are rigid in their ways. That's a common complaint about the sustained offensive struggles of the Jim McElwain era.

Mullen said he still hasn't watched much of the Gators' 2017 season, but he watched spring footage repeatedly to see what worked.

"We've got to really focus on putting them in position to be successful," Mullen said. "Not, 'Hey, this is our offense, this is our defense.'"

In other news, Mullen said things are going well with his quarterbacks, but no one has yet taken charge.

"Within the room, they work pretty well together," Mullen said. "That's the good thing."

 

[Omar's Coming Yo!]

Handing off is pretty simple

 

[BMF]

More from Mullen on the Finebaum show:

Mullen says fixing UF means restoring 'shattered' confidence

https://247sports.com/college/flori...eans-restoring-shattered-confidence-118616333

Since Dan Mullen left as Florida's offensive coordinator in 2009 and took over as head coach at Mississippi State, the Bulldogs have nearly outdone the Gators.

Florida has won 73 games in the nine seasons since, while Mullen elevated a traditionally moribund Mississippi State program and won 69.

And while Mullen has been asked routinely since he began the Gators job just what went wrong in the span stretching nearly a decade now since he left, he's mostly tiptoed around the questions carefully to avoid ripping either of the previous two head coaches.

On Tuesday evening on the Paul Finebaum Show, he probably gave his most candid response yet, though.

"I do think over the last several years the confidence has been shattered a little," Mullen said, before seeming to think better of being so frank. "Not shattered I shouldn't say, but it's been dropped. Ten years ago when I left Florida, nine years ago, they'd just won two of the last national championships and anybody that was a Gator, you talked to them and it was like 'well we expect to win another one next year, and we expect to win another one the year after that.'"

The Florida coach is plenty familiar with that mindset after experiencing it in Gainesville as one of Urban Meyer's cheif architects of a run that produced two national titles in his first four years at the helm.

Shoot, his wife Megan once complained about having to go grocery shopping out of town after games where the offense didn't put up 40 points in their first stint in Gainesville.

So if anyone understands how lofty the expectations can be in Gainesville, it's Mullen.

"Those are the expectations I have for the program -- is building a program that's going to compete for SEC and national championships every single year," Mullen said. "Not every once in a while, every single year, and be in that discussion. I don't know that I feel that out there with everybody."

That lack of confidence has been pretty readily apparent in the last few years, particularly on offense.

Jim McElwain ripped his players following the 2015 season for simply being happy to get to the SEC Championship Game, as if that was the type of accomplishment that meant they had arrived. But McElwain was never able to coax them to more, to inspire the real winning mentality that nothing is ever good enough.

Mullen wants to fix that.

"I think it is the mindset of the team of expecting to win every single year. Of the players, of everybody within the program," the first-year coach said.

"I think everyone's excited for that, but I don't feel that just now, and it's our challenge to embrace those expectations. But to be honest with you, it's not just everybody within the football office, not just the guys in the locker room or the coaches in the football office that are going to do that, it's the entire fanbase of getting back to what that Gator standard is."

 

[CaribGator]

Heard this from the past two coaches also... but I had no faith that they were capable of doing anything beyond basic. I do think Mullen and staff can finally teach these kids proper fundamentals, (block the other team and not each other) and once they grasp that, build on it.

I think a lot of this boils back down to not having a (stud) QB that can run the offense. Maybe he sees the oline as still struggling.. . I would like to see passing patterns that don't have 2 receivers running in the same area. Just open a hole for the running back. That's pretty basic

 

[GatorJB]

Jim McElwain ripped his players following the 2015 season for simply being happy to get to the SEC Championship Game, as if that was the type of accomplishment that meant they had arrived.

 

[GatorStud]

Well, we've watched the debacle first hand. My hope with Dan this first year, and he pivots around it, is the program becomes tight knit, focused and relentless effort to win a game despite some inevitable bad day outcomes. I mean that Mac was something between a sedative hypnotic and an anti-psychotic to be around. Frankly, the term "shattered" isn't too far fetched. Go Gators.

 

[itsgr82bag8r]

Whatever he decides to run it’ll be a major improvement over what we’ve been suffering through.

 

[Chomper]

There were times during the past seven years that Gator football was a national joke. Under Muschamp we had Gators blocking each other; a horrific home loss to a team that didn't throw even one pass; and a coach fighting with fans; under McElwain we had a deer-in-the-headlights coach who talked the talk while flashing yellow teeth on national TV but who could never walk the walk My main hope for this season is that Coach Dan will give Gator Nation a team to be proud of and one that is in the national conversation in a positive way.

 

[rogdochar]

My thinking is : New coach = new training, S&C = better player development = more yardage - more scores = more wins. The difference between a fraud-HC and Mullen ought to be massive.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

Jim McElwain ripped his players following the 2015 season for simply being happy to get to the SEC Championship Game, as if that was the type of accomplishment that meant they had arrived

Muleshyt.

McElstain scolded the fans and media for not appreciating his four blowout loss seasons and the life championship he gave himself.

 

[oxrageous]

a horrific home loss to a team that didn't throw even one pass

They actually threw 3 passes. Just didn't complete any.

By the way, the running back who torched us that day was Jerrick McKinnon, who was a big free agent signing for the 49ers in the offseason and is expected to have a huge year.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

Offense is going to be more simplistic?

Why? I thought the "just throw it to an alum in the endzone" would have worked well when we desperately needed to get to double digits. How the hell else are we going to score at all? It was the only play that worked.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

a horrific home loss to a 1aa team that didn't complete even one pass

fixed it for you.

important detail.

also called a "Dee 2" team by interwebz people.

not completing a pass makes it a moral victory in Chimp's book.

 

[OurProgramIsBroken]

In other words we don't have a QB capable of running the offense

 

[Swamp Donkey]

Uhhh... did any other team lose to a Dee 2 lately? I can't think of one.

 

[Omar's Coming Yo!]

There were times during the past seven years that Gator football was a national joke. Under Muschamp we had Gators blocking each other; a horrific home loss to a team that didn't throw even one pass; and a coach fighting with fans; under McElwain we had a deer-in-the-headlights coach who talked the talk while flashing yellow teeth on national TV but who could never walk the walk My main hope for this season is that Coach Dan will give Gator Nation a team to be proud of and one that is in the national conversation in a positive way.

PREACH.

 

[Blacklabgator]

Of course it’s going to look simpler. 75% QB runs. 25% RB runs.

 

[soflagator]

They actually threw 3 passes. Just didn't complete any.

By the way, the running back who torched us that day was Jerrick McKinnon, who was a big free agent signing for the 49ers in the offseason and is expected to have a huge year.

Looks like someone's been reading Mushamp's autobiography.