Dan Mullen Talks Florida Football Spring Practice

The Florida Gators football team is gearing up to kick off spring practice this Thursday. Typically practices start in March, but this year Feb. 18 is the set start time; an entire month earlier than last year’s planned start date of March 16.

Head coach Dan Mullen is excited to get the young guys integrated, especially after spring practice being cut last season due to COVID-19. A lot of the ’19-’20 recruiting class missed out on pivotal developmental time that Mullen thinks will be vital for the new guys coming in.

Coach Mullen stated this during today’s press conference regarding the importance of spring practice:

“You know having spring ball, we have to do a great job of evaluating our players. One thing you got to miss a lot of, in spring you get an opportunity. This morning we met as a staff about player evaluation, finding out exactly what our guys do well, what they don’t do well and making sure that our scheme fits the strengths of our players and that we’re putting guys in the best position to be successful on the field, and that we’re putting our best players on the field.”

What it will look like

The team is set to have fifteen practices for the spring season and will not host an intra-squad scrimmage due to ongoing COVID precautions. March 20 is set to be the last day of spring practices for the Gators and this will be the second year in a row with no orange and blue game.

Florida Athletic Director Scott Stricklin released this statement via Twitter regarding the decision making:

Thank you for your patience and understanding, Gators! #GoGators pic.twitter.com/c2sgUjzIZQ

— Scott Stricklin (@ScottStricklin) February 16, 2021

This season the Gators will undergo a lot of changes on both sides of the field, especially offensively. Having to replace tight-end Kyle Pitts and quarterback Kyle Trask will shake things up a bit for the orange and blue. Mullen and the guys will have a lot of work to do, and thinks film will be a big part of their success in the fall.

“We want to get that stuff on film so they can see that and we can coach and teach off of it. So that’s some of the reasons why we’re doing it.”