GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Florida football is not entering spring with a quarterback question looming over its head or are they?

“Is [QB1] set? I don’t have any positions set. I’ve never had a position set," Dan Mullen told reporters on Monday during his first spring press conference. "When I was here before, I didn’t even have a position set. That was Urban’s deal. ‘Well you can go do the press conference and say Cam Newton’s gonna start over Tim Tebow.’ It’s like, ‘I’m not doing that press conference.’ But no, I just love competition.

"One of the things you see, we try to get a lot of guys reps. We get as many people reps as we can. One, to build depth, but two, for competition. The great thing at quarterback now is we have some experience at that position coming in, and some experience within the system, so that should be fun."

So does that mean that it is an open competition at quarterback? Maybe not quite open, however, projected starter Feleipe Franks has the ability to lose the job if he does not compete on the field this spring.

"I would hope a guy like [Franks] expects to be the starter. Better? No. But he better know he's got to compete to make sure he keeps that job because there's other guys that want to compete to go take that job from him," explained Mullen. "There's a lot of people that want to be the head coach at the University of Florida, so I don't just sit there and be like, 'Well, I'm the head coach at Florida. I've got nothing to worry about.' I show up every day making sure I stay the head coach at the University of Florida.

"You've got to show up every day and go perform," Mullen added. "You better walk into the huddle with the right attitude, you better know that if I don't compete ... nothing gets handed to you...Emory Jones expects to be the starter. Kyle Trask expects to be the starter...That’s how you do it."

Franks grew more confident as each game passed last season - finishing the year passing for 2,457 yards, 24 touchdowns, and six interceptions, while rushing for 350 yards and seven touchdowns.

Franks' passing efficiency jumped 30 points to 143.4 - the third biggest leap among quarterbacks starting in the country.

According to Mullen, he has been impressed by the signal caller's work ethic this offseason.

"He’s worked hard. He’s a great competitor and he’s learned what we expect in the program. I’ve seen him really compete hard this offseason," said the Gators head coach. "I think one thing he really bought into at the end of the year was his ability to play physical. Like I said, I don’t need a dynamic runner, a great runner or even any bit of runner. You just want somebody who is going to have kind of a toughness edge to him. I think you saw as the year went on, he kind of played with some toughness. And I think he upped his confidence and I think it upped the team’s confidence in him and upped everyone’s level of play when every once in a while he goes and drops his pads on somebody to run into an end zone.

"Hopefully it just raised his confidence, and then his confidence helps him be more comfortable in the offense, being a quick decision maker," added Mullen. "Because if you’re a quicker decision maker and know where you want to go with the ball, you got a chance to be more accurate. Now you’re making good decisions with good accuracy, you can become a pretty good quarterback.”

In addition to Trask, redshirt freshman Emory Jones is waiting in the wings if Franks does not show the level of intensity expected this spring.

"He’s worked hard studying film, understanding the offense better. Getting a little bit bigger, putting on some weight. We’ll see," said Mullen about the Peach State quarterback. "We can’t be there when they workout, throwing workouts and stuff. So I want to see how much. I know they’ve done a bunch, but we’ll see how much it translates when we’re able to get with them on the field tomorrow.”

Although several eyes will be on the quarterbacks' development, year two under Mullen is an opportunity for the whole team to move forward.

Last season the group was trying to adjust to new coaches and new schemes, however, this year, the team understands what is expected of them.

"It should be a lot easier going out to practice tomorrow than it was this time last year when nobody really know what to expect," said Mullen. "We’ll take a jump if we work harder. If we do what we did last year, then we can’t expect to be better than we were last year. It’s going really see how everybody has put in the extra time and I know a lot of what is you do – what we do – we ask them to come in and lift. When we have meetings, we have meetings. When we have agilities we have agilities. When we have speed training, we have speed training. If that’s all we’ve done, then we can’t expect to be any better than we were last year. That’s the minimum. So it’s really what everybody does above and beyond that that is going to determine your success.”

Not only are the players familiar with the coaches, but the coaches are now familiar with the personnel - which means a bigger playbook.

“There’s more you can do, but we’re going to do what our guys do well," said Mullen. "There will be a lot of young faces out there, guys in new roles that maybe haven’t been in that part of a lead role before. It’s the foundation of the offense and defense, should be a lot of carry-over and allow you to accelerate the learning curve and the comfort level within what we’re doing on both sides of the ball a little quicker.”

Mullen hopes this familiarity will allow his team to come out with a stronger attitude on Tuesday.

"Are we attacking it? You only get 15 opportunities to be out there. Are we maximizing that opportunity? Are we playing with unbelievable effort and strain? Have we learned to push ourselves and play harder than we did last year," said Mullen. "That's something that I want to see. That we attack it and we have a little bit different mindset of what are definition of effort and strain is when we hit the field."