GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- It seems like a long time since Florida football has played a game of football.

The Gators opened up the season against Miami two weeks ago and are set to return to the field on Saturday -two weeks later.

"Home opener, which is really exciting for us," Gators head coach Dan Mullen told reporters on Wednesday.

UF will welcome UT-Martin to the Swamp this weekend for a night time kickoff.

Florida's schedule was a bit different last week. After playing the Hurricanes a week earlier, the Gators had an unconventional bye week during the second week of the season. Mullen gave his staff and players Thursday to Monday off and treated the first three days of practice more like preseason practices.

“A lot of special teams, individual, a little extended individual periods where you get that stuff more than in game week," explained Mullen. "Our next bye week, you’re going to be coming off a big stretch of games, which is a little different recovery period. You’re trying to get some guys reps and get stuff – hey, this is what we’ve done so far. Here’s some things we want to clean up, things we’re looking at here for the back half of this season.

"With one game, it was more, hey, here’s some other things we did during training camp but we didn’t get enough reps of that. We’d like to get some extra reps of these things. Getting players, guys that didn’t’ get a lot of reps in the game that are still in there that we’re going to expect to play a lot. Get them a bunch of reps within the scheme of things, with base offense, base defense as well as getting special situations covered.”

Mullen hopes to see the benefits of those additional "preseason" practices this week as they prepare for the Skyhawks.

"I want to see if we’re taking the steps we need to continue to move forward, and make our improvements throughout the year," he said. "You know, I want to see us, hopefully our preparation’s better this week than it was for the Miami game, and that preparation translate to a little better performance on the field, you know, that we continue to see that steady growth that you always want to have throughout the season.”

Still a waiting game for Brenton Cox

Florida has submitted all the paperwork for Georgia transfer Brenton Cox, however, it is still a waiting game.

"He’s got a great attitude. He’s been working hard at things so he knows he’s kinda in limbo as we’re waiting," said Mullen.

The Gators head coach still remains confident that UF has a strong argument for immediate eligibility.

"I mean, from other waivers I’ve seen that have been cleared, he’s a very similar case so we’re certainly hoping for that," explained Mullen. "Obviously some of those were submitted much earlier so they’ve gotten those results back but I mean, I’ve seen a lot of similar cases cleared eligible so we’re optimistic about that but you never know and we’ll wait to see as that comes but he’s been doing a good job of taking care of his business at practice and you know, working hard every day an giving good looks and filling roles on the team and taking care of business in the classroom.”

Related Story: Gators QB Feleipe Franks has support from those inside the program

Any suspensions this weekend?

Mullen continues to stay quiet on whether or not there will be more suspensions this weekend.

“Maybe. We’ll let you know on Saturday, what time? Say like half hour before kickoff usually, we’ll let you know if there is any suspensions, who would be suspended or not suspended or any of that stuff.”

Injury Report

As Gators Territory noted last Wednesday, Florida tight end Kyle Pitts was seen wearing a boot after practice. However, apart from CJ McWilliams and the younger David Reese, who are both out for the season, Florida is not dealing with any new significant injuries.

“We’ve got some guys still dinged up from the game a little bit. We’ll see. we’ll as we get closer to Saturday where they’re at and who’s ready to go. I’m gonna help you out. Eight minutes before kickoff we’ll let you know.”

Mullen did not want to put out any names.

“Not guys that I’m concerned about.”

Set to play tribute to Florida legend

Florida is set to pay tribute to Florida legend, George Edmondson, Mr. Two Bits, during Saturday's contest.

" I know we’re encouraging all our fans to wear their Mr. Two Bits yellow T-shirts for the game, which will be a pretty cool scene, to look up and see if everybody’s in those, to see that around the stadium. Will be really exciting and should be a really neat deal and tribute to him and his family."

Gator Chomps

On scheduling tough teams after criticism etc.

“I mean we won the game against an excellent team. Talking about, we won the game against a team that was the number one 3rd-down defense in the country, number four overall defense in the country last year with a lot of guys that came back that could’ve left to the NFL, so I don’t know. I mean, I’m sure you can make, a lot of people rush to judgment. We’ll see as the year goes on. I think that’ll have a lot to do to in our future I guess in discussion of how we schedule. Right? Are you’re gonna try to schedule really tough games and play big games or are you better not scheduling those games? We came out and won a rivalry game against a team that people think, right?, I keep seeing a lot of projections, they’re projected to be in the Orange Bowl or something this year on people’s projections. So to win a game against a team that’s going to be New Year’s Six team and you’re winning that game, you’d hope you’d get some good credit for that. But we’ll see as the year goes on. That’s not something we’ve got to worry about now. That would be something at the end of the year. We’d see how it works with the playoff committee and how they rank things, are you rewarded for playing a hard schedule or are you better trying to play as easy a schedule as possible and just get big wins, blowout wins.”

Scheduling FCS teams, help fund athletic departments, but doesn’t help schedule?

“We have a philosophy on scheduling. There’s a lot of teams as we meet with Scott, he and I get together on some of those things, we try to get to games, there’s not a lot of people always jumping up and down to play us. Within the situations that you have that are out and of just how we schedule and what fits us, that stuff happens. I think last year we had it, we had Idaho, but when that game was scheduled, they were an FBS school. So the scheduling is kind of different that way, but one of the things we’ve talked about this year is trying to play 10 Power 5 teams. That’s been kind of more our discussions than who the other two teams are.”

On former Gators and current UT-Martin DL coach Clint McMillan

“I see him coaching, around. I’ll run into him at camps, in recruiting, at the AFCA – American Football Coaches Association – convention every year. He’ll text me. I love to see former players go out and have success as coaches. Got to see it. I’m sure it’ll be a fun homecoming for him, coming back. It’ll be a different feeling. I’ve done it once where you come in, all of a sudden you’re in a different locker room…You ran out of the locker room and took a left. He’s got to take a right this time.”

Favored by 41 points. Chance to get other guys in the game?

“Thankfully. I was talking about this the other day. You want to make college football different? If we walked out on The Swamp Saturday, and someone was certified to do that, and we were losing 41-0 to start the game. That would certainly change (can’t hear). I was thinking about it off the PGA Tour. I was like, ‘Boy, if they did that like the Tour Championship and you walked in and you’re already 10 under.’ That would be a crazy change to college football, wouldn’t it? It would make things interesting.”