No. 5 Gators face unfamiliar road test, brand new Ole Miss staff
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Florida football is finally back.
After no spring practices and a truncated offseason, the Gators return to action Saturday and open their 2020 slate at Ole Miss. Kickoff is set for 12 p.m. ET on ESPN.
“I think everybody’s excited to get out there on the field and go,” UF coach Dan Mullen said. “Obviously going on the road in the SEC is always a big challenge, but this environment will be different.
“We haven't played in forever, so I'm excited for us to play. Kind of had a weird training camp only going against each other, so it’ll be good to see what we look like against another team and a quality SEC team.”
Mullen's coaching staff has worked with him for a combined 51 years on offense and 15 years on defense. UF finished last season with an 11-2 record and its second straight NY6 bowl win, while the Rebels went 4-8 and fired Matt Luke. They turned to Florida Atlantic coach Lane Kiffin, who led the Owls to a pair of 11-win seasons in three years.
"We're going through a transition here,” Kiffin said. “I think of our 10 coaches, I've only worked with one before."
That newness required a lot of film study for Gators defensive coordinator Todd Grantham. He spent the offseason watching tape on Kiffin, his offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby and his offensive line coach Randy Clements, who coordinates the Ole Miss running game.
“It is a brand new staff,” Grantham said. “Lane Kiffin is a guy that prides himself on being a good play-caller and he's always had good offenses. So you've got to look at that tree, and things that he's done while he was at FAU but also at Alabama. Then you have the offensive coordinator who came from Central Florida, Baylor, you have that tree. So you’ve got to look at what they do, and how maybe things are the same and what are the differences.
“And then you’ve always got to look at the offensive line coach from the standpoint of seeing what he likes and maybe how they're going to block certain things. Really, it was a combination of all three things to try to formulate what we feel that will give us the best opportunity to play well.”
Kiffin hasn’t named a starter for Week 1, but Grantham expects to see Matt Corral and John Rhys Plumee and the Florida staff has history with both quarterbacks. Grantham also singled out slot receiver Elijah Moore and running back Jerrion Ealy as other players to watch.
“I think you've got to be really impressed with the speed of their receivers and their length,” Grantham said. “They’ve always had good receivers and that really hasn’t changed. You’ve got to account for those guys. Then you look at the running backs, they're young players but they were really effective last year and they can make guys miss. You’ve got to run through guys.”
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The Rebels have former UF assistant D.J. Durkin co-coordinating the defense with Chris Partridge, who spent the last five years at Michigan and one with Durkin. Their top returning defenders are linebackers Lakia Henry and Jacquez Jones, who combined for 158 tacklers in 2019.
“Their linebacking corps is probably the heart and soul of their defense, so we’ve got to be ready for those guys,” Gators offensive coordinator Brian Johnson said. “It does provide a unique challenge. First games are generally a crapshoot anyways in terms of schematics because teams spend the entire offseason working on new things, so you’ve gotta be ready to adjust. And like Coach Mullen says, our first game is really about you. It’s about how hard you play, your attention to detail and your technique and fundamentals, and making sure that you bring your own energy.”
Vaught-Hemingway Stadium has set the capacity limit at 25 percent, permitting 16,000 fans to attend the season opener. It will be an unfamiliar road environment for Florida quarterback Kyle Trask and his team, but his focus is on the opponent and not the crowd.
“As far as I know there’s still going to be noise, but it’s not going to be from actual fans,” Trask said. “And from what I’ve heard from people at other schools, obviously it’s going to be weird playing with no fans. But it’s just another one of those things we’re just going to have to adjust to this year.
“I think they’ve got a lot of very talented and athletic guys. I know that they’re going to be playing with a lot of passion, especially with new coaches in the building. Whether there’s zero fans or however many thousand fans there is, we’re going to always bring our own juice and be ready to play.”