The Florida Gators are just days away from opening up spring football camp. Dan Mullen met with the media for the first time since his post-game Cotton Bowl press conference to address his team as they prepare for the 2021 season.

The start of spring camp came as a surprise because of the starting date. Typically Flordia would start spring football camp in March, now the Gators will be finished with camp on March 20.

There is a reason why Florida is starting early, according to Mullen.

One of the reasons is that, because of the show cause on Mullen, the staff wasn't able to be out on the road recruiting in the month of January. This gave them more time to review the 2020 season, do exit interviews with players, and start the preparation for practice. It also helps that Florida is one of only a handful of states that aren't dealing with huge winter snowstorms.

"We’re in Florida so we have the option to start spring ball a little bit earlier. I did click on the weather channel and saw that I’m very happy we live in the state of Florida right now because it looks awful cold in a lot of other places around the country," Mullen said. "I hope everybody is safe with where they are in the country. So, we have that opportunity to do it."

Mullen also believes that there is a benefit for the players. The majority of the players from the last two recruiting classes haven't had the opportunity to go through spring practice. It's a month-long period filled with a ton of instruction and development. Starting early will give the players film from the 15 practices and be able to have that to continue the learning process after spring camp breaks and before the start of summer/fall camp.

"I’m going to tell you what, the guys are much more attentive when they’re watching themselves do it and you’re correcting them and they’re seeing themselves perform within the offensive or defensive or special teams scheme. So by having the spring ball earlier, we’ll be able to start watching the spring cut-ups earlier with the players of guys that maybe haven’t played a lot that have not had that experience and they get to watch themselves running our offense and our defense," Mullen said. "And we’re going to make some changes offensively and defensively schematically around this year’s players with some of the things that we talk about. We want to get that stuff on film so they can see that and we can coach and teach off of it. So that’s some of the reasons why we’re doing it.”

There won't be a traditional spring game in 2021. The Gators made the decision to not hold a spring game because Ben Hill Griffin Stadium is being used as a rapid testing site for COVID-19.

Dan Mullen weighed in on the positives and negatives of not having a traditional spring game.

The Gators had to replace three coaches, including two on the defensive side of the ball. That means a shakeup on the recruiting trail as well.

Tim Brewster is taking Miami-Dade Country and the southern part of Broward County. This is the area that Brian Johnson used to be responsible of. Garrick McGee is going to recruit North Broward and West Palm Beach counties, Brewster was responsible for that area previously. Jules Montiar is taking Polk and Hillsborough.

The Gators had several players transfer in and out of the program. The highlight of the transfers is running back Demarckus Bowman, but Mullen singled out two older transfers in Antonio Shelton and Daquan Newkirk.

"I think we have some really good young talent, interior defensive linemen, and we had a bunch of guys over the last two years, you know that leave and walk out the door. And so there is kind of this little gap in the middle between the two. You know, and you look at Quany [Daquan Newkirk], look at Toney [Antonio Shelton] coming in, and those guys, they have experience. They have, you know, one of the things that was huge for me that I'm very pleased with—because you talk to them, you research them, you try to find out but until they're with you don't know—is their leadership, you know," Mullen said. "They’re very, both older experienced players with great, with maturity. And they understood coming in, that they are some of the older players in that group and that meeting room now. And in that unit position unit. And so they are expected to have leadership qualities. They’re not expected to come in and just act like the new guy. They got to learn the program and what it is fast, but we have very high expectations for them and they've really shown that."