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Florida coach Dan Mullen was not happy with his team's first-half performance against UT Martin. (ASSOCIATED PRESS/JOHN RAOUX)
GAINESVILLE — When the Florida football team comes out of the locker room after halftime, the players usually run out of the tunnel and straight to their sideline.
Not on Saturday during UF’s home opener, a 45-0 win over UT Martin.
Second-year coach Dan Mullen made them walk — not run — onto the field and stretch in the end zone like they were doing pregame warmups. Why?
After what was described by players as the most intense halftime speech Mullen has given the Gators, he told the team, “When we go back out there, we’re starting a new game.”
That’s the clean version. The radio station wasn’t so lucky.
As Mullen was heading into the locker room after the second quarter, he dropped the F-bomb on air during his interview with UF sideline reporter Tate Casey. He was upset about his offense getting pushed around.
“I don't know that it was a super friendly halftime to be honest with you,” Mullen said.
He told his assistants to stay in the coaches’ locker room at half instead of meeting with their position groups — another break in routine. Mullen wanted to address the entire team by himself.
“At halftime, Coach Mullen gave us ... a talk,” Florida wide receiver Tyrie Cleveland said after a long pause. “We gotta be better at executing drives.”
The Gators reached the red zone on their opening series, but failed to convert on third-and-one and had to settle for three points. Their second possession resulted in a turnover on downs, with the Skyhawks stuffing quarterback Feleipe Franks on his fourth-and-2 keeper.
“We should have scored more points in the first half,” Franks said.
UF led just 3-0 after the first quarter and couldn’t get into field-goal range before the half, having to heave a Hail Mary on the final play. Despite Franks completing his first 15 passes and throwing two long touchdowns to give the Gators a three-score lead, Mullen was furious.
“At halftime, I kind of got after the guys a little bit. Just about our attention to detail and our level of focus and exactness of playing to our standard of play every single play,” he said. “It was just frustrating. That first half went fast. We weren’t getting a lot of plays.
“We made a mistake and end up with a field goal on the first possession. We miss a block and don’t convert a 4th down on another possession and kind of run out of time at the end of the half.”
Cleveland, who caught one of the two TDs from 35 yards out, said he and his teammates heard Mullen’s message loud and clear: the Gators weren't dominating an FCS opponent like they should.
“(Coach Mullen) told us to go back out there and don’t get comfortable,” said fellow senior receiver Van Jefferson, who hauled in Franks’ 69-yard bomb. “We’re playing UT Martin. I mean, not knocking them or anything, but he wanted to see us execute better and just play better. So he came in there and he gave us a good talk, and we came out in the second half and were stronger.”
Cleveland concurred, as did his coach.
“I think our guys went harder in the second half,” Mullen said, “and our coaches obviously did a great job of making some adjustments for them.”
The Gators scored touchdowns on three consecutive drives and four of their first five. They finished with 543 yards of offense after totaling just 64 in the first quarter.
“One thing we always focus on is scoring in the red zone,” said wide receiver Trevon Grimes, who had a career-high five receptions for 56 yards. “No field goals. We need to score touchdowns. That’s one big thing Coach Mullen always preaches.
“When it didn’t happen the first time, we were like, ‘OK, we gotta get this thing rolling.’ And then on the next drives, we went score, score, score. The offense started clicking and we’re going to build on that going into next week.”