Dan Mullen assesses Florida quarterback situation moving forward

The Florida Gators lost another tough one on the road on Saturday. The Gators fell in a shootout against the LSU Tigers 49-42. In the game, there were a lot of opportunities for Florida on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball but their prolonged quarterback controversy continues to take the spotlight.

After the game, Gators head coach Dan Mullen spoke on his team’s quarterback dilemma heading onto this upcoming week.

“We are going to look at that, obviously going into the bye week,” Mullen said of his quarterback position. “We are going to evluate a lot of things. Thought [we] saw some good things from both quarterbacks today, saw some mistakes from both quarterbacks today. We’ll evaluate that and how that’s going to play out moving forward. I can jump up and down on the table about some really good things we did, and jump up and down on the table about some terrible mistakes we made. We’ll evaluate that part of it.”

On offense, the Gators were able to match the productivity of the Tigers. but the team could not overcome the series of turnovers that they committed. Starting quarterback Emory Jones and backup Anthony Richardson both threw a pair of interceptions in the game. Neither’s productivity through the air in terms of yards was anything of note, but Richardson did throw three touchdowns on the game. Making matters worse for their turnover problem was the absence of the Florida running game. As a team, they rushed for 138 yards. However, they did not have a single-player rush for more than 50 yards in a game for the first time this season.

Florida has issues on both sides of the ball

The Florida Gators have had one of the best run-stopping defenses in the SEC. In their loss two weeks ago at the hands of Kentucky, they held the conference-leading rusher Chris Rodriguez to under 100 yards rushing on the game. Giving up 321 yards on the ground to an LSU team who has struggled to find a run game is beyond comprehension. The leading rusher for the Tigers, Tyrion Davis-Price, came into the game with 220 yards rushing on the season. He left the game with more than double that as he rushed for a new school record of 287 yards. LSU did show signs last week of the running game heading in the right direction but nothing signaled that they would run over the Florida defense so easily.

The Florida Gators have quite a few things to fix with their two quarterbacks before their next game. It is a good thing that they have additional time because of the bye because the next time they step on the field it will be against the nation’s top team, the Georgia Bulldogs.