GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Florida football is starting the season one week earlier but that does not mean Dan Mullen is changing their training approach in the spring, in the offseason, or in late summer.
"You get 25 practices before you play your first game. How we set up and organize our training camp and how we do that, spring ball, that's so far out," said Florida head coach Dan Mullen. "So really it has to effect right now. We'll run training camp the same way we always run training camp."
Florida will kick off its season against in-state rival, Miami, on Aug. 24 at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla.
The game was originally scheduled for Aug. 31, however, ESPN approached both programs about moving the game up by a week. All parties were waiting on NCAA approval, which was given on Thursday.
This means fall camp will now start earlier for both the Hurricanes and the Gators.
"I always think we do a pretty good job scheduling with our players with time off and trying to keep them fresh, trying to keep them healthy. That's one of the things we spend a lot of time on, the health of the players," said the UF head coach. "Whatever our earliest possible start date we’re allowed to have, I like starting on that day because I like giving guys max time off during training camp so that there’s more time for recovery and health. Hopefully you can take time off during final exams and first day of class to get settled in."
The game moving to an earlier date also has an interesting effect on Florida's schedule. The Gators now have three open dates rather than two. When asked if thats a positive or a negative, Mullen joked, "ask me in December."
"There's been years where we've had multiple bye weeks. Used to be a common thing back in the day to have two bye weeks," Mullen added. "Then when we went 11- to 12-game schedule it went down to one, but since it's been 12 we've had the multiple bye weeks at times. I've had it where we've played Thursday night games and that gives you multiple, kind of weird schedules. We always plot it out and spend a lot of time with the trainers, strength coaches, everybody on our staff, how to keep everybody mentally fresh."
Miami and Florida will no doubt have some recruiting battles in 2020. While both programs can host recruits on campus for home games, both sides will have to agree to host recruits in a neutral site game.
“I don’t think either school would want one school to host, and the other to not,” Mullen said. “So it would be an opportunity to co-host recruits. Either everybody is all in or everybody is all out.”
The NCAA will also have the final word. The game is scheduled during the Dead Period, which means no school can host recruits from Aug. 1- Aug. 31.
"There is an NCAA rule now that one you can’t because it’s a Dead Period, but it was going to be a Dead Period anyway because until September 1 is a Dead Period," said Mullen. "I know there are some discussion. We discussed it at the AFCA level, I don’t know how far it’s gotten up to the NCAA level.”
Mullen says maybe there should be some allowances despite the Dead Period.
“The August Dead Period to me makes a lot of sense, because you know you’re in training camp, high school players are in training camp, but the August Dead Period should really end when you play your game. Or if they want to keep it that way, it’s not dead on a game day. You know, so you could host recruits.”
Although there has been discussions about allowing recruits on campus for the first college football game, there has been no discussions about hosting recruits for the game in Orlando.
"I don’t think that’s something that’s been addressed," said Mullen. "Right now, it’s a non-factor because it’s during a Dead Period. It came up this year and the whole discussion of it all, you can’t host. You know, if you’re a team you have six home games and one of them is that first weekend, you’re in a competitive disadvantage, so that’s not really fair in recruiting because it’s one day earlier off an NCAA calendar, which is a whole other discussion.”
