Dan Mullen says it takes a special, hard-to-find defender to cover Kyle Pitts: ‘He’s kind a unicorn’
By Keith Farner
Published:
Florida TE Kyle Pitts drew a lot attention as an up-and-coming star this offseason. But after a huge game against Ole Miss where he had four touchdowns, that talk has only ramped up.
At his press conference on Monday, coach Dan Mullen discussed why it’s so difficult for defenses to cover Pitts. Pitts had touchdown catches of 1, 16, 71 and 17 yards. The tight end had 170 yards receiving on eight catches.
“It is about the mismatches,” Mullen said. “He’s got the size, so when the DBs are on him, a lot of times he can go over the top of DBs and can run away from backers. He’s got tremendous athletic ability to go catch the ball. He’s really developed much better as a blocker this offseason. When you combine those things defensively, who do you put on him?”
That’s why Mullen has a special term for Pitts.
“He’s kind of a unicorn,” he said. “Unless you have a unicorn on defense to match the unicorn on offense, you’ve got to have a guy, there’s not a lot of them out there. They’re kind of very, very rare to ever see one. Do you have a 6-foot-4, 240 linebacker that can run with him? Or do you have a 6-3 1/2 220 safety that’s physical as he is at the point of attack.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
