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The Florida football team will scrimmage Friday for the first time since bowl practices last year.

The Gators missed two scrimmages in the spring along with the Orange and Blue game, and would have scrimmaged twice by now if not for the altered fall camp schedule.

More than anything, UF coach Dan Mullen is ready to see his team have a physical, full-contact practice after an eight-month break.

“It’s going to be interesting. They haven’t played football in a long time — a really long time,” Mullen said. “Our practices are starting to look a little bit more normal. To go out there and tackle and catch, ball security, get hit and do all of those different things to see where we’re at.

“Since Dec. 31, we’ve had zero (scrimmages). This time last year we were 1-0, and we haven’t had an opportunity since 2019. ... We haven’t got hit and tackled and played live football. That’s one of the things I want to see, where we’re at that way.”

Mullen didn’t single out any particular positions he wants to watch. He’s more concerned with maximizing the number of plays they run and making sure they come out healthy, which he calls priority No. 1.

“We’re going to run maybe 130 offensive plays,” Mullen said. “That’s two games worth that you’re getting in one night with 118 guys getting reps. In a game you might have 60 get reps. … You’ve got to kind of take it all in, and you’re figuring out, looking at all these things that end up being relevant to the current team more than the program as a whole.”

“Getting hurt, obviously, always makes you nervous. ... It’s the third-party, the innocent bystander, that gets rolled up on when guys hit the ground. Those are where a lot more of the injuries come from, so that’s why you don’t scrimmage all the time. But we’re just going to do our regular scrimmage because we just got to see where we’re at before we get out there and play a game, get guys used to doing some live things.”

The quarterbacks, however, will not be live Thursday or at any point in 2020.

“Not this year,” Mullen said. “I’ve made them live before in scrimmages if they have no experience, but the fact that they have experience, we’re not going to let them.”

The Gators boast one of the best quarterback rooms in the country with the trio of Kyle Trask, Emory Jones and Anthony Richardson.

Last week Mullen said Trask will have more freedom operating the offense because of his improved play. Florida’s third-year coach reiterated those remarks Thursday, adding that Trask has an advanced understanding of his system.

“One of the great things is that we’re on kind of graduate level stuff with Kyle right now,” Mullen said. “He understands the offense and the reads and all of that. It’s how fast he’s getting to everything, the ability to check and change plays. The ability to extend the game plan. … Now he’s managing and leading everybody on the field.

“That’s a lot of the stuff we’re working on right now with him because I think with him understanding the offense, he knows where we want to go with the ball, what we’re trying to do on each play and why we’re trying to do it. Now we’re just trying to put it all together and let him be that field general out there.”

Jones’ knowledge of the offense has also expanded, and Mullen said his increased role will provide a “pretty good 1-2 combination” with Trask. But don’t rule out potential contributions from Richardson, who may appear in more than four games this year with the extra year of eligibility from the NCAA.

He brings a different skill set to the position and has made a strong first impression in fall camp.

“I think he is a really good young guy,” Mullen said of Richardson. “Picks it up very quickly, very natural, doesn't get flustered. Has the things you want to see and obviously this is his first training camp. Was hoping he was going to get a spring; he didn't get a spring.

“But you see him, the things that he gets he picks up fast, and there's other things he’s still trying to figure out. But the fact that you have two other veteran quarterbacks in there, things have been thrown at him really fast and we haven't pampered or babied him. We just see how he's picked it all up, and he's done a pretty good job."

Florida’s Dante Lang is not only playing a new position, but a different side of the ball.

The redshirt sophomore has switched from tight end to defensive end, Mullen confirmed Thursday. Lang appeared in all 13 games last season as a reserve, but did not record any stats.

“That's like a big one because he changed from offense to defense,” Mullen said of Lang. “We haven't had anybody switch sides of the ball.

“As you guys know, we experiment with guys at different spots and moving guys around. A lot of that's for depth purposes … but Dante is playing defense.”

* Mullen on slot receivers besides Kadarius Toney and Jacob Copeland: “Rick Wells has played in there, Trent Whitmore played in there. Jordan Pouncey’s played in there, (walk-on) Jaylin Jackson's played in there. One of the things we did a lot with our offense's work is the ability to move guys around schematically to try to create matchups. Within our system, I can get any of our guys into the slot. I can get any of our guys outside as well, so that's kind of already built-in. Then what we do is build it around the strengths of each individual.”

* Mullen on the challenges of preparing for Ole Miss: “Playing Lane Kiffin for his first game and the difficulties there. It is a pain in the rear end because you can't watch Ole Miss because he wasn't there last year. You're watching Ole Miss film to watch players and you're watching where he was, where the offensive coordinator was, where the D-coordinator was throughout the years and you're trying to mix and match it all together. If you guys can post their depth charts and what they're doing, it will be a heck of a deal for us. I am going to put you guys in charge of that. Get me scoop of Ole Miss practice.”

* Mullen on players taking classes online this fall: "My understanding on campus is a lot of classes are still going to be online classes. So we're not all online and we're not all in person. So there's going to kind of be a mix and a balance. For me to say all our guys are online, I can't say that. There are going to be some guys who have some classes that are going to be in-person they need to go to. But I do think the majority of them will try to be online."