GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Florida football won a sloppy game against Miami last weekend with Feleipe Franks taking a brunt of the criticism.

Franks had two picks in the win and a fumble. The second interception came in the fourth quarter, and to be fair, Franks should have made a better decision, like taking the sack, instead of throwing it. However, Dan Mullen took some of the blame for that play call.

"The last interception, I don’t know if a great call or not in that situation," Mullen said. "So much gets made about it, that he’s getting pressure, looking to throw the ball away."

Florida was ahead by four with four minutes left in the game. The Gators could have run down the clock, however, Mullen is not known for that. Manny Diaz knew that.

"Obviously, a great call by Manny if you talk about maybe knowing personalities," Mullen said. "We get the ball. We felt we set them up for this play. We felt that they were going to be ready to stop the run because we’re going to try to run out the clock. We’re going to hit them with this play-action pass, guy’s going to be wide open and we hit an explosive play.

"He was trying to throw it away and he doesn’t get enough on it and it gets picked. Maybe not a great call by me."

Not a great call. Miami had another opportunity to win the game but Florida was lucky that the Canes failed to take advantage.

Mullen also took responsibility on another failed play, when Florida decided to check a third-and-goal from the 8-yard line into a quarterback run.

"I checked that (play). That was one to me, I thought I saw them in a look and I checked to that," Mullen said. "(Franks) got to it late, he kind of looked over and I got his attention. I thought that they were all walked out (of the box). That was probably a bad call by me in that situation.

"It was one that if we executed clean we might, he’s got a chance to walk in," Mullen added. "They had a lot of people walked out. Sometimes you run plays in situations that you’re not always going to run. We talk to our guys to just trust your rule. When you see such a weird look, they had no D-linemen, we’re running the ball, you’re used to somebody being there for you to block. For the linemen to hit that the right way.

"If it does it perfectly you have a chance to, 'Holy cow you walked in from the 7-yard line untouched.' But it’s kind of one that you don’t practice much and you've really trust your rules. The young O-linemen, we missed, we missed that one."

Although there were certain play calls that were not successful, the Gators were successful on fourth downs.

Mullen's side went 4-for-4 on fourth down.

“You know if you look at our third down conversions… I think we’re 2-10… but like I said we control 4th down,” Mullen said. “We had ten conversion opportunities in the game and we covered six out of 10 against the No. 1 defense, against that last year. Now maybe we used four downs to do it but theres some strategy within that as well. We had 10 conversion opportunities and converted six of the 10 times that we had an opportunity to convert during the course of the game.

“We didn’t have to go for any of those 4th downs in the game situation. That was all under our control and our decision to do so. As I view it… when did you convert within your opportunities and some of the 3rd down calls were to set up 4th down calls."

One of the fourth down conversions was a fake punt in the first series. According to the Gators head coach, he knew they were going to run a fake punt the Monday before the game.

The staff had a plan to attack quick and attack early.

“One, we wanted to take an aggressive approach to the game,” he said. “Two, we knew they’re a great third-down team, and we wanted to create momentum. Within the game, you look at things, you sit there and look at things, and you say, ‘OK, we had some third-and-10 calls against the best defense against third down in the country last year.’ We might not be as aggressive on that call. But suddenly, we have a fourth-down-and-3 call and we really feel good about that call, in the situation where we’re at and how aggressive we’re going to be over the course of the game.”

“It allows you to call the game a little differently and how you’re going to do things. There are some games where you sit there and say, ‘Hey, I don’t feel great about our fourth down plan and what we’re going against on fourth down and one, two, three, four yards.

Mullen's approach shows the head coach's confidence in both his quarterback and his offensive line. Will he continue this more aggressive approach later in the season?

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