GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- As National Signing Day comes to a close, Dan Mullen will shift his focus to finding an assistant to replace Larry Scott.

"I'm really happy for Larry," Mullen said on Wednesday about Scott accepting a head coaching position at Howard. "The opportunity to be a head coach, you know, he and I met and talked about that, and those opportunities are hard to come by.

"I could never blame anybody for wanting to try it. I love what I do," added the Gators head coach. "Obviously everybody wants to have the opportunity to be a head coach and run your own program and implement it your way.So I'm really happy for him."

It's always hard losing a coach so close to National Signing Day. Scott was a key staff member in Dee Beckwith's recruitment. The three-star athlete officially visited the Gators on Jan. 24, with many ultimately feeling like the Alabama native was trending towards Florida. However, on Wednesday, Beckwith ultimately chose to sign with Tennessee over UF.

When asked if Scott's departure affected the Gators on signing day, Mullen did not agree.

"I think that's part of early signing with some of that stability," he said. "It really didn't have any effect on anything down the stretch."

As with any coaching job search, there will be plenty of speculation around the program. Will Mullen look for a tight ends coach or will there be some internal shuffling?

"Well, we might shift a bit. I think we might shift certain duties around, but we'll probably hire a tight ends coach," explained Mullen. "Or a guy that's more of a background with tight ends. In the next couple weeks I might have some stuff that I'm going to shift certain duties around on our staff of what they're doing besides their actual just -- individual what their position coach would be."

That shift could very well have an affect on how his staff recruits moving forward.

With the 2020 cycle coming to a close, Mullen and his coaches will sit down and evaluate on where things stand; on where this staff can improve.

"Did you do a quality job recruiting guys in your area, did you do a quality job recruiting guys at your position, not just the guys that we got, did we do a good job recruiting," explained Mullen. "When you look back and say, did we do everything we could to get this guy, and if the answer is yes, you know, hey, he just didn't come to you, he went somewhere else.

"If the answer is no, then what were the mistakes, what were the issues, what did we do wrong, what could we have done differently, and you know, and that's kind of what would go into their evaluation," added the head coach. "I'll tell you, you did a great job, you did everything we could have done to get this guy, and as I look at it, I go back and hey, we talked to him, I wrote him letters, we did this, we visited him. Every time we could get to the school, we went to the school. We saw him play a game. We had him on campus multiple times. We had him on campus with an official visit, with the family, home visits, everything we could do. Kid decided to go somewhere else, I mean, that happens.

"And so for us, that's kind of how I evaluate with the assistant coaches, and if there's something we missed, then that's what you've got to fix and that's what you put as the negative aspect of what would be in the evaluation of the recruiting process of that coach."

With Florida on the hunt for a tight ends coach, it will be interesting to see how Mullen changes up duties heading into the 2021 cycle and the 2020 season.