There has been plenty of bad blood all offseason between the fan bases of Florida and Miami leading up to the Week 0 showdown between the two programs but don’t expect that rivalry to bleed over to the respective sidelines in Orlando come Saturday.

Dan Mullen has a ton of respect for Manny Diaz and his crew and the feeling is mutual down in Coral Gables, according to the Miami coach.

During his Monday morning press conference down in Miami, Diaz was asked to share his thoughts on working for Mullen — the two worked together on two different staffs at Mississippi State — and their relationship heading into the opener.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for Dan Mullen, you know, I think personally, we get along very well, consider him a friend,” Diaz said on Monday. “You know, we’ve worked together twice, and in two of those years, Mississippi State had two of the best years and in their history. I feel like we’ve always viewed the game similarly. He’s kind of a very creative guy, a little bit of an outside the box, type thinker and we tried to always be the same way defensively and I think that’s why we always got along well together. I know his offense is very well thought out.”

Not only did the Hurricane coach offer nothing but praise for Florida’s head coach, Diaz then admitted he has aspirations of building a similar staff in the model of Mullen’s offensive staff in Coral Gables.

“And it’s not just Dan at this point, his staff (is filled with) a bunch of guys I know like John Hevesy and Brian Johnson and Billy Gonzales and Greg Knox,” Diaz continued. “They’ve been together a long time. So, you’ve heard me talk in the last eight months about how important staff synergy is and chemistry and unity and all that type of stuff and how the players respond to that. Well, he’s got that on his offensive staff and that’s what we’ve been trying to build out here with our defensive staff and there’s some other guys on our defense staff here that were at Mississippi State and in 2015.”

While some may ask if the familiarity between the two coaching staffs will prove to be an advantage or a disadvantage in the season opener, much like Mullen has said previously, Diaz doesn’t see much of an advantage for either side with all things considered. For Diaz, it all comes down to the execution of the players on the field and them successfully accomplishing the fundamentals of the game.

“We know it’s gonna be a challenge,” he concluded. “I don’t think that there’s any sort of advantage because we know him and he knows us and whatever I think if anything, you just get on the grass and it’s going to come down to know I mean all the standards of terms of know who can block who can get off blocks and who can cover and you know we can keep throwing catch.”