GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The phrase "relentless effort" was introduced into the Florida football program's vernacular on the day
Dan Mullen was introduced as head coach.
In the middle of his opening statement, Mullen said: "I can promise you that I will give 'relentless effort' in everything I do to make sure that we return the football program to a national championship level."
A few days later, Mullen hired
Nick Savage as the program's director of strength and conditioning, the same role Savage had under Mullen at Mississippi State. Savage and his staff spend more time with Florida's players than the coaches, setting a tone in the weight room that Mullen wants the Gators to carry onto the field, into the classroom and in every aspect of their lives.
The motto has a simple meaning on Saturdays.
"If you don't train hard in the offseason and summer conditioning, when it gets hard in a game, that's the level you are going to revert back to,'' Savage said. "That's what I always tell them."
Savage has continued to spread that message since Florida's victory at Florida State in the regular-season finale. As the Gators prepare to face Michigan in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl on Dec. 29, Savage is in charge behind the scenes.
The coaches have spent the majority of the past three weeks on the road recruiting for the early National Signing Day on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Gators entered their fourth week of bowl prep on Monday, each stage different than the previous one.
Preparing for a bowl game is unique compared to the steady flow of the regular season.
"It's a trained mindset that you try to get the guys to understand that we're doing calculated things in here for a reason, but keeping the same mindset that everything goes back to winning the game,'' Savage said.
Bowl Prep I, the first week after the regular season, the Gators worked out three times a week to maintain their strength, with the difficulty increased with each workout. However, Savage shut down the running program that week to allow the players' legs to recover from the grueling season. The first week also included additional time for players nursing injuries to focus on rehab and treatment.
The second week, or Bowl Prep II, reintroduced a running program back into the workouts to maintain cardiovascular conditioning. Finally, during last week's third phase of bowl workouts, the team returned to its normal workout routine with the game creeping up on the calendar.
"It's still somewhat in-season training, but you have a little more room to be more aggressive if you have to, especially with some of the developmental guys,'' Savage said.
The additional workouts for a bowl game are instrumental in development, something the Gators missed out on a year ago.
"It's huge for the future,'' Mullen said.
With the Gators opening a consistent practice schedule on Friday that included fans in attendance on Saturday and Sunday, Savage said the individual workouts will reduce from three times a week to two in Bowl Prep IV, and eventually mirror the team's in-season program in the days leading up to the Peach Bowl.
For Savage and the players, this year is night and day from December 2017. With no bowl game and the team's coaching staff in transition, the players anxiously awaited for new direction. Meanwhile, Savage spent most of the month wrapping up loose ends at Mississippi State and trying to relocate his family to Gainesville.
He finally settled at UF in mid-January and began implementing his program. In Florida's turnaround season, going from 4-7 to 9-3, Savage and his staff received a lot of credit from Mullen and the players.
"The preparation in the offseason I think was the biggest part for the entire team,'' receiver
Josh Hammond said Friday. "We put ourselves in situations we knew were hard. Going through those workouts has definitely prepared us for these moments in football games where we hit adversity."
While in Atlanta, the Gators will continue to work out between practices, with the program adjusted based on the resources available. Savage said the team will ship some equipment from campus and depending on what's available at the hotel, they will likely use body-weight strength training with some players.
Of course, it won't be all work and no play for the Gators, who depart Dec. 23 and will be in Atlanta over Christmas. There will be a team meal on Christmas and the players will have family time Christmas day until later in the afternoon.
Still, the focus is finishing the season with a final statement, which would give the Gators their 15th 10-win season in school history.
"I'm not going to say it makes or breaks the program,'' Mullen said. "But I do know this: we don't play again until the beginning of September, and that's a long time of not being happy."
Once the Gators return from the bowl game and New Year's break, they will get back to work under Savage's watchful eye. The tone will be in stark contrast to last January when Savage spent much of his time learning about the players, their strengths and weaknesses, their conditioning, etc.
It took time for Savage to catch up to speed, but by the time the Gators were unveiled at the Orange & Blue Game in April, the change in their physical conditioning was easy to spot.
"When we got here, you essentially went in blindfolded because you don't know the guys or their strength-training level,'' Savage said. "You really have to take baby steps and plan out how you want to progress things. Now you know. We can address all those things from day one. In a calendar year a lot of things reveal themselves."
Part of that revelation is that the Mullen-Savage combination is working. The Gators are back in a bowl game and just getting started on the path of relentless effort Mullen shared at his introductory press conference.
"For Coach to understand the program foundation is run through how we handle our business from the offseason until the foot hits the ball in September when it counts, I can't ask for a better situation,'' Savage said. "Coach has put his trust in me to make sure we're training, that our philosophy matches the program identity here at the University of Florida and what we want to be known for on the football field is what he expects us to act like and train like and handle ourselves like in the weight room in every aspect.
"This foundation will continue to grow every day, every year until we are done here. It's that simple."
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