GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Dan Mullen is always looking for a way to make football fun at Florida. Over the course of the season, the Gators head coach has implemented several trick plays that switch the momentum of the game.

"There’s so many plays and so little time," joked Mullen during his SEC Teleconference. "If you give me a pad, I probably can draw up 1,000.’"

Well he only needed one on Saturday against Vanderbilt.

Facing a fourth-and-three on Florida's own 37-yard line and trailing 21-13, the call came in.

"It looked like we were going to have the look," Mullen said. "We needed some momentum, so it seemed like a good time to call it. It's when you call it and the execution you execute it with. It's drawn up to work."

"I'd been really excited for this play-call all week," punter Tommy Townsend said. "We'd been practicing all week. It was all about getting the right look. We got the right look."

The Commodores expected Florida to punt, but Townsend saw his moment, and he yelled, 'Go.'

"I was just excited that the coaches trusted me enough to put the ball in my hands to get the first down and lead to a scoring drive," Townsend said.

Townsend had clear space up the middle and the punter was 15 yards up the field in a blink of an eye, already passed the first down marker, but still lowering his shoulder, aiming to gain a few more yards.

Townsend ended up running for 18 yards.

"It was really exciting," Townsend said. "I just can't wait to get back and look at the film and watch the play. Over and over. It was incredible."

“He’s always been like that," said quarterback Feleipe Franks about Townsend gunning for the extra yards. "He’s always been a tough guy, him and his brother. Since I’ve been here Tommy and Johnny have both been really tough people since they’ve been here."

This was a game-changing play.

Two plays later and Franks found Van Jefferson open for the 38-yard touchdown, cutting the Commodores' lead to just one.

"It looked like we were going to have the look," Mullen said. "We needed some momentum, so it seemed like a good time to call it. It's when you call it and the execution you execute it with. It's drawn up to work."

"The fake punt, I loved it," kicker Evan McPherson said. "It was great. We've been practicing all week and I was hoping Tommy would get that chance to run it. So when we got the call we were all excited on the sidelines."

The fake punt is just the latest trick play in Mullen's repertoire. Last week, it was a throwback pass that helped secure a win over the Tigers, a few weeks ago it was the jump pass. It is safe to say Mullen wants to win, but the head coach is willing to get a bit creative in order to earn those wins.

And his players feed off of that.

"That was a gutsy call by him," said Franks about Mullen. "I think that was cool. He kind of played it good, he came over to me and was just kind of talking to me, but I was wondering because he kept peaking on the field. He was talking to me and peaking like that, I was like, what are you doing? That was pretty cool, pretty gutsy call.”

"I love coach Mullen. He's got a lot of energy," said Townsend. "That's the thing, he's not scared to call big-time plays. Coach Mullen's awesome. He has a lot of confidence in me, and I can't thank him enough for that, for giving me the opportunity to run the call."