How and when do great QBs emerge from obscurity? QB guru Dan Mullen shares his take
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During his recent appearance on the Paul Finebaum Show, Dan Mullen was asked the question he’s probably been asked a thousand times since arriving in Gainesville, how are his Florida quarterbacks looking?
While Mullen didn’t directly answer the question, he didn’t avoid it either. Simply put, the Gator coach stressed his belief that all great quarterbacks make their strides between the end of spring football and the start of fall camp. During that time is when the special players at the position put in all the extra work to succeed and have minimal distractions preventing them from achieving their goals.
It’s a message the Florida coach has stressed to his signal callers in Gainesville and one he won’t know who really took the information to heart until the summer comes to an end.
“These guys are learning at Florida right now,” Mullen said this week on Finebaum’s program. “I’m trying to impress upon them the biggest gains, when I’ve seen great gains from quarterbacks and great development — I’m talking about not just becoming a starter but becoming a great player — those gains are made between the last spring practice and the first fall practice.
“There is so much time in there, when you get into summer school, there’s so much less school time, there’s less all the other things going on, there’s a little bit more downtime where somebody decides, hey, I’m sitting there and I’m getting the receivers and we are going to throw. We are going to work on all these little details. I’m going to spend extra time in the film room working and I’m going to spend time at night working on the details of my game. Handoffs, fundamentals, technique, how I maintain and treat my body. There’s so many little things to the quarterback position that go on between that day and this day that the great ones make enormous strides during that time.”
Until fall camp rolls around, Mullen and his Florida staff won’t know which players took that message to heart but he did explain that one of three scenarios will happen come the fall in Gainesville.
“I’m trying to impress upon that of our three quarterbacks,” Mullen continued, “hey, one of three things happen: one guy separates himself and it’s an easy decision, right? That’d be good. Everyone works their tail off and takes that to heart and we have a great quarterback battle in the fall, or no one works their tail off and we still have a quarterback battle that’s going on in the fall. One of those three things will happen.”
While the questions regarding the starting quarterback position in his offense aren’t likely to go away this offseason, if you ask Mullen about it, he’ll likely tell you he has no idea until he gets to coach his players once again heading into fall camp.
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
