GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Emory Jones arrived on campus with plenty of expectations. The highly recruited four-star quarterback signed in Dan Mullen's first recruiting class and quickly became heralded as the future of the program.

Now with a quarterback question looming in the Swamp, some in Gator Nation want to see more of the true freshman signal caller. However, Mullen is adamant, the expectation is for Jones to redshirt his first year at Florida.

"There's an injustice to put guys on the field before they are completely ready to go play," Mullen said. "Now, if I think Emory is completely ready to go play, we can go play him. If he gives us the best chance to win? We'll go do that. But there's also a lot of discussion, too, you have to have with his overall development."

Jones has already featured in two Florida games this year, Charleston Southern and Georgia, which means the Georgia native can play in two more games and still redshirt this year.

"You want to put guys in position to try to do things that they can do, so that they can build confidence," Mullen said

Thats the crutch of it. Putting a player in too early can be detrimental to a player's development. According to Mullen, he wished Feleipe Franks did not take over the reins so early in his career.

"It's fair to say Feleipe probably played before he was ready to play," Mullen said. "I think that's hurt his development. I'll be honest with you... So I think you have to be careful with that of saying, 'Hey, let’s just throw this guy out there.'"

Mullen does have a point. The quarterback spot is an unforgiving position. You can go from a hero to a villain with just one pass or decision.

"I think you better be really cautious if you're going to play that young of a quarterback," Mullen said. "Confidence is the biggest thing at the quarterback position. OK? The hardest thing in the world to do, right, is to stand here while people are coming at you trying to hit you, and you don't flinch or move, you're going to stand in the pocket and get through your read and get through your progression.

"If you've kind of played too early, then you're not ready for that moment, and you start, before knowing where to go with the ball, you start getting a little gun shy."

A gun shy quarterback will hamper any offense into snowballing one mistake into many - hurting the program not just in one game but through several games or even seasons.

Mullen says it is all about balance. The head coach says he has never started with a redshirt freshman in his career, however, he has slowly brought in a signal caller but exposing them to opportunities.

"I mean, 2006, Tim Tebow played barely at all. Now he got an awful lot of attention on the six plays a game that he played. Right? But that led to him being confident to go win the Heisman Trophy the next year," explained Mullen.

"There led to some confidence-building in the limited action that he saw, that by the time it was (his time to start) he played, and he’d been in big games, he’d been in big moments, he’d been experienced, he’d been on the field, he’d gone through seasons of backup to learn the system, and now I've got to go play in the game. Well, now I know the system. I’ve been in big moments. You might still not have the entire playbook open to him, but there's confidence. And I think that’s such a huge factor."

So those clamoring for Emory Jones, you may have to wait a little longer for the freshman to be the main man under center.