Two days after an awkward press conference, which led to nearly 48 hours of questions and bashing of the Florida football Dan Mullen sought to clear the air. Speaking on the SEC Teleconference — something every coach in the league is contractually obligated to speak on each week of the season — Mullen claimed his Monday comments about recruiting were taken out of context.

"I'd like to touch on something for all the Gator Nation and all our great fans, something that was taken out of context in Monday's press conference. As it pertains to recruiting, our staff recruits nonstop," Mullen said. "We grind at recruiting all day every day. We're always recruiting and working the best to get great players that fit the Gator Standard and bring them here to our program. As I said on Monday, we just weren't going to get into the specifics of everything we do in recruiting and how we do all of that until after the season."

Saturday Mullen was asked if there was a talent gap between his team and Georgia. The Bulldogs had just beaten Florida 34-7 and Kirby Smart and his coaching staff continually pull in great recruiting classes ranked higher than Florida. Mullen didn't want to talk about recruiting after the game but was asked again on Monday.

“We’re in the season right now, we'll do recruiting after the season," Mullen said. "when it gets to recruiting time we can talk about recruiting. Next question."

An hour after his shortest Monday press availability of the season Florida announced that it was closing its media availability with defensive coordinator Todd Grantham and players for the rest of the week. That, again, didn't quiet the noise around the program, so Mullen again tried to clarify that decision.

"On Monday morning, we had an 8 o'clock team meeting. And at our 8 o'clock meeting we had a great meeting with the team. The energy, the excitement of our players going into this final third of the season and the focus of which we have to take and the approach we need to take in the final third of the season. And I felt that the best for our players is to make sure our focus is completely on the work that we have to do in the final third of the season," he said ."And so because of that, I made myself available for media every single day this week -- Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday -- because we didn't have the players available. So I just want to clarify some of those things that apparently have been taken way out of context over the last several days."

Mullen spoke with a reporter from the Orlando Sentinel on Tuesday, where he reportedly said that there is 100% support for him from the administration and also revealed that Anthony Richardson suffered a concussion against Georgia and hadn't practiced on Monday or Tuesday this week.

Mullen's effort to shield his players from media obligations has led to a good first two days of practice as the team prepares to head on the road this week to take on South Carolina.

"I think the one thing our guys do, our guys love to compete and they love to play and they love to work," Mullen said. "The effort they give is awesome all the time. I think there’s guys that are looking at it and despite the fact they’re not, I don’t think there’s anybody pleased with exactly where we stand at this point of the season. But there’s also guys who understand there’s a lot more football to be played and opportunities to get us where we want to be moving forward, which is finding a way to win a game on Saturday. So I think it’s been a really good week of practice for us.”