Mullen not being excited to quickly give EJ playing time tells me EJ's got that low ceiling.??
In fairness to EJ, he has spent his years knowing that he isn't on-schedule to ever take over this team. So no exciting motivation starts growing.
EJ has not been given any continuous "live" play chunks of time. Proper training would be showing faith by letting EJ QB full drives. Let him develop in his mindset the self-expectation of owing his team a TD drive -- not a spot-shot that happens to get a TD, but a chess-match series of plays that conquers one defensive scheme after another.
A valid question is = is Mullen already seeing Anthony Richardson as our "go-to" guy? As a runner EJ shows no drive-thru bulk power. Until EJ gets appropriate swatches of playing time, he's not going to be able to develop that needed : "And wow, once Franks leaves, the Gators have Emory Jones taking over. Add to that that Mullen and Franks realize that Franks should return for his senior year -- something that used to be the norm. Finishing his junior year, Shea Patterson was better draft material than Franks will be at the end of his junior year and Shea stayed to play his final year, now. Now I bet if Franks announces he's, likely EJ will transfer. With that, how more important will Richardson become in Mullen's plans.