Dan Mullen jokes about how Florida could open up offensively in Cocktail Party
Dan Mullen has kept things close to the vest when it comes to revealing the Florida Gators offensive plan vs. Georgia.
In the SEC coaches weekly teleconference on Wednesday, Mullen had yet to name a starter at quarterback for the Cocktail Party.
A reporter asked, “just to clarify, no running back at the quarterback position, correct?”
“You never know, you never know,” Dan Mullen responded jokingly. “I mean we are coming off a bye week right here, so I don’t know, we could come out in the wishbone and just play all of those guys. So you never know how that’s going to play out.”
When Mullen was asked about the quarterback situation vs. the Bulldogs earlier in the call, the Florida head coach gave a vague, yet clearly coy response.
“We will play a quarterback on Saturday,” Mullen said sarcastically. “We’ll have a quarterback on the field.”
On Tuesday, Dan Mullen addressed his conundrum surrounding Emory Jones and Anthony Richardson this week ahead of the Florida-Georgia game.
“Both guys have to get ready to play, so we get both guys a lot of reps,” Mullen said. “It’s probably a little bit more even than a lot of places where the one gets a lot of reps and the twos get minimal reps. The quarterbacks, we try to keep them pretty even now so that they’re both ready to play. You’re a snap away from those guys getting on the field so, you kind of do that with a lot of positions across the board. You roll them through to get the reps.
“We’re going to keep planning the same way, we plan on playing both of the guys like we have.”
Dan Mullen opted to play both quarterbacks versus LSU in Week 7. They lost 49-42. Emory Jones and Anthony Richardson looked almost identical on paper. Both threw two picks, both had 19 attempts, and both averaged about 8 yards per pass.
On the year, Jones is 67.4% for 1304 yards, 10 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. Richardson, in two fewer games, is 56.8% with 392 passing yards, five touchdowns and three interceptions.
Both quarterbacks will need to have a near-perfect day versus Georgia on Saturday in Jacksonville. The Bulldogs defense is No. 2 in the country in passing defense, limiting teams to 144.9 yards through the air (and 63.4 on the ground).
Like Dan Mullen, Smart juggling two quarterbacks
Like Mullen, Georgia coach Kirby Smart has a two-quarterback situation to figure out for the Week 9 contest against Florida. The Bulldogs headman said former starter JT Daniels has been able to throw pain-free this week, and could have a chance to start over Stetson Bennett.
He added that the choice will be “based on practice,” and “No decision has been made whatsoever.”
Both Dan Mullen and Kirby Smart could very well wait until kickoff to reveal their starting quarterbacks, but both fan bases will be locked in between now and then to see if either decide to show their hand.
Florida and Georgia will kickoff from Jacksonville at 3:30 ET on Saturday.