The Opening Kickoff: Gators vs. Charleston Southern

Saturday, September 1

Gainesville, FL

7:30 PM

Florida Gators

Charleston Southern

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Graphic: Scott MacCord/UAA Communications

The Opening Kickoff: Gators vs. Charleston Southern

Thursday, August 30, 2018 | Football, Scott Carter

By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer

2018 Football Game Day Initiatives | Directions and Parking | Pregame Notes

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The fun part has finally arrived. A game. The Swamp. Mr. Two Bits. The Pride of the Sunshine.

Yes, folks, Florida football is back and so is Dan Mullen.

Mullen's return to UF following nine seasons as head coach at Mississippi State was the Gators' biggest offseason development. As soon as Florida's disappointing 4-7 season concluded, Mullen touched down in Gainesville and got to work.

The mission is undeniable: restore Florida's place among the country's elite programs. If this sounds familiar, we understand.

You heard it when Will Muschamp took over in 2011. You heard it when Jim McElwain settled here in 2015. Both had good moments, but in the end, they failed to lift the program's fortunes over the long haul.

Now they're gone. Mullen is here.

He reminded the Gators of that when they gathered Monday for the start of game week in preparation for Saturday's season opener against Charleston Southern (SEC Network, 7:30 p.m.).

"Things will be a little bit different for them this year I'm sure," Mullen said. "I didn't get into much how they've done it throughout their career in the past, just kind of how we're going to run our schedule, how we expect them to prepare to get themselves into a routine, get themselves ready to go into game week.

"But you can see the different change in mentality, the change of mindset of everybody. And the coaches, it's exciting."

Coincidentally, Mullen's first game as Florida's head coach is against the Buccaneers, the same program he faced in last year's season opener at Mississippi State. The Bulldogs won 49-0.

In the wake of a familiar transition, Florida fans will take a familiar result on Saturday.

Besides the hiring of Mullen, the other major development in the offseason was a renewed quarterback battle between redshirt sophomores Feleipe Franks and Kyle Trask, and true freshman Emory Jones.

On Monday, Mullen announced that Franks won the job. Simple reason: Mullen considers Frank talented and the best option to lead the Gators to wins right now.

Mullen isn't interested in taking a test drive. And if you know anything about Mullen's history, the quarterback has both hands on the wheel.

Whether Alex Smith at Utah, Tim Tebow at Florida or Dak Prescott at Mississippi State, Mullen's quarterbacks have to run and throw to make his spread offense spit out points. They have to make smart decisions. They have to lead with the kind of swagger Mullen used on the speaking circuit to get Florida fans pumped up after the Gators' second losing season in five years.

Franks, much-maligned in his first season as the starting quarterback, vows he is the right man for the job.

"A lot of people out there who are doubting me, doubting our team," Franks said earlier this week after practice. "Overcoming some of that adversity is just a good thing. It's not over yet. Just winning this spot, it's not over."

Franks is absolutely correct. It's not over. It's just getting started.

In the season's first edition of The Opening Kickoff, here is a closer look at the Florida-Charleston Southern matchup:

THREE QUESTIONS WITH … GATORS DB JEAWON TAYLOR

Q: You got into the starting lineup last year, then suffered the season-ending shoulder injury, so what does it mean to be back?

A: It feels great to be back. I feel like I could have hit in the spring, but I'm grateful to be here. All glory to God.

Q: What stood out to you from the secondary in camp?

A: The whole secondary has done a good job. [Cornerbacks] Marco [Wilson] and CJ [Henderson] will always be Marco and CJ, lock down. But [freshman] Trey Dean has really stepped up and he showed that he can also step in and play.

Q: What has sophomore Donovan Stiner, who starting at safety with you, shown you to win the job?

A: He was a little shy coming in, but I feel like he has broken out of his shell. He is a hard worker. He has what Coach Mullen wants, relentless effort to the ball. He makes plays and he deserves it.

THREE STORYLINES

The Gators have a different head coach for the fourth time in the last nine season openers. They hope Mullen is the one who turns the program in the right direction and keeps it there following two losing seasons in the last five years. His debut as UF's head coach is finally here after nine months of waiting.
Feleipe Franks is set to become the first Gators quarterback to start consecutive season openers since Jeff Driskel in 2013-14. Franks put up modest numbers (5 of 9 for 75 yards) in his starting debut in last year's opener, which foreshadowed an up-and-down season. Franks gets a second chance under Mullen.
Charleston Southern eats up yardage on the ground with its triple-option offense, which provides a different look for Florida's defense in the debut of defensive coordinator Todd Grantham. The Buccaneers ran 667 plays a season ago, 480 of them rushes.

THREE PLAYERS TO WATCH

Franks will be the most scrutinized player on the field Saturday. The redshirt sophomore struggled to find consistency in his first season, starting eight games. He threw for 1,438 yards, nine touchdowns and eight interceptions. At 6-foot-6, 240 pounds, Franks has the size and arm strength to succeed in Mullen's spread offense heavy on read-option plays. The key for Franks is whether he has shown the maturity to avoid costly mistakes and quickly forget the ones he makes.
Redshirt junior running back Jordan Scarlett appeared primed for a run at a 1,000-yard season a year ago until he was suspended the week of the opener for his involvement in a credit-card fraud scam. Scarlett's suspension lasted the entire season. However, he is back atop the depth chart at tailback and has been impressive in camp. Florida's backfield is deep, but Scarlett is projected as the workhorse of the group.
Freshman defensive back Trey Dean quickly gained the respect of his teammates after enrolling early in January out of Dutchtown High in Hampton, Ga. Dean (6-3, 194) opens the season behind starter CJ Henderson at one of the cornerback spots. Dean's aggressive attacking style and physical attributes are sure to get him on the field regularly as a first-year player.

THREE DIGITS

28 – Consecutive wins for the Gators in home openers, the longest active streak in the nation. Oklahoma State and Wisconsin are tied for second with 22 in a row.

7-2 – Mullen's record in season openers as head coach at Mississippi State.

17-5 – Record of Gators head coaches in their inaugural season opener at Florida. (Interim coaches Gary Darnell, Charlie Strong, D.J. Durkin and Randy Shannon never coached a UF season opener).

INJURY REPORT

PROBABLE: OL Brett Heggie (turf toe); QUESTIONABLE: DB Shawn Davis (undisclosed), LB Davis Reese (undisclosed), DB C.J. McWilliams (undisclosed); DOUBTFUL: WR Jacob Copeland (undisclosed).

THEY SAID IT

"That was pretty easy for me. This is my first game here. You see that uniform combination, there's no question of what team that is. There's a lot of them you can see it and you're like, 'what team is it?' To me, to go with our traditional uniform combination, everybody in the country knows that's the Florida Gators." – Mullen on Gators wearing their traditional orange helmets, blue tops and white pants in his first game
"It's really important because you're facing a triple-option team that is going to test you at all levels, meaning there's a dive element, there's a quarterback on the edge element and there's a pitch element. That's the great equalizer for teams, that they can test you at all three levels on each play and if you don't take care of your responsibility you can get gashed.'' – Grantham on importance of proper focus on assignments against a triple-option team like Charleston Southern
My preparation has changed tremendously because it's not that I'm just playing football, I'm a starter. I have a responsibility, I have a role now. I've tried basically like living like a pro and doing things that pros do even though I'm not in the pros." – Sophomore defensive tackle T.J. Slaton
"He tried to run a couple of people over that he shouldn't. Jachai Polite, and he tried to run over Jabari [Zuniga]. I'm like, 'Dude, those dudes are not the guys you want to run into. Maybe somebody in the secondary, but not those guys.' But he has the attitude, so, I like it." – Scarlett on physical play of Franks in preseason camp
"Kyle has been fantastic in practice. One thing we talk about is development. They all have so much development left to do and he understands that. He understands he is one snap away, and he needs to be ready and ready to help the team." – Mullen on second-team quarterback Kyle Trask

THEY WROTE IT

Quarterback Feleipe Franks gets a fresh start for the Gators writes Matt Baker of the Tampa Bay Times.
Backup quarterback Kyle Trask accepts role and prepares for his chance writes Edgar Thompson of the Orlando Sentinel.
Florida beat writer Will Sammon of The Athletic (subscription site) offers his take on nine Florida players who stood out most in preseason camp.
These college football rules have always applied according to Gainesville Sun columnist Pat Dooley, who offers some humor for UF fans anticipating a new season.
The Florida linebackers continue to develop but tools are there writes Thomas Goldkamp of Swamp247.com.
How Charleston Southern gets back to Big South Conference championship contention writes David Shelton of The Post & Courier.

CHARTING THE GATORS

Mullen is the 23rd head coach in school history to lead the Gators in a season opener. A look at how the previous 22 fared:

COACH	SEASON	OPPONENT	SCORE
James Forsythe	1906	Gainesville Athletic Club	W 16-6
G.E. Pyle	1909	Gainesville Athletic Club	W 5-0
Charles McCoy	1914	Auburn (in Jacksonville)	L 20-0
Al Buser	1917	South Carolina	W 21-13
William Kline	1920	Newberry	W 21-0
J.A. Van Fleet	1923	@ Army	L 20-0
Tom Sebring	1925	Mercer	W 24-0
Charles Bachman	1928	Florida Southern	W 26-0
D.K. Stanley	1933	Stetson	W 28-0
Josh Cody	1936	The Citadel	W 20-14
Tom Lieb	1940	Mississippi State	L 27-7
Raymond Wolf	1946	Ole Miss (in Jacksonville)	L 13-7
Bob Woodruff	1950	The Citadel	W 7-3
Ray Graves	1960	George Washington	W 30-7
Doug Dickey	1970	Duke (in Jacksonville)	W 21-19
Charley Pell	1979	@ Houston	L 14-10
Galen Hall	1985	@ Miami	W 35-23
Steve Spurrier	1990	Oklahoma State	W 50-7
Ron Zook	2002	UAB	W 51-3
Urban Meyer	2005	Wyoming	W 32-14
Will Muschamp	2011	Florida Atlantic	W 41-3
Jim McElwain	2015	New Mexico State	W 61-13
Dan Mullen	2018	Charleston Southern	TBD

NEWS, NOTES, NUGGETS

The Gators are back home for the season opener after breaking away from tradition last year and starting the season somewhere other than in the state of Florida for the first time since 1979. Florida lost to Michigan, 33-17, in Arlington, Texas.
The Gators enter the ninth season of the decade with a 60-41 record over that span, a .594 winning percentage. That's a significant drop from the 1990s (102-22, .823) and 2000s (100-30, .769), and one reason UF Athletic Director Scott Stricklin plucked Mullen from Mississippi State to revive the program. Mullen was 69-46 in nine seasons in Starkville, a difficult place to win consistently.
Florida returns 20 starters (10 offense, nine defense, one specialist), which is tied for third among FBS programs.
Since the start of the 1990 season, Florida owns the best home winning percentage (148-28, .841) in the country. Florida State (137-25-1, .840) is second.
Offensive line coach John Hevesy said redshirt junior center Nick Buchanan is likely to make his first career start Saturday. Buchanan battled T.J. McCoy in one of the closest competitions of preseason camp.
Transfer receiver Van Jefferson needs one yard to reach 1,000 career receiving yards. Jefferson, who played at Ole Miss prior to joining the Gators in January, caught 91 passes for 999 yards in two seasons with the Rebels.
Charleston Southern senior defensive tackle Johnny Robinson was a four-year teammate of Gators senior offensive lineman Martez Ivey at Apopka (Fla.) High. Robinson was second on the team with 5.5 sacks as a junior.
Bucs quarterback London Johnson takes over as the starter after waiting his turn. Johnson passed for 581 yards, four touchdowns and three interceptions a season ago in a backup role. He added 366 yards on the ground. "It's his show. It's his job to lose,'' Charleston Southern coach Mark Tucker told The Post & Courier.
Mullen's talent at creating offense was displayed in his tenure at Mississippi State. In the nine seasons prior to his arrival (2000-08), the Bulldogs averaged 19.1 points per game, ranked 115th nationally. In nine seasons under Mullen, Mississippi State averaged 30.1 points, tied for 48th overall during that span.
Charleston Southern lost to Mississippi State and Indiana by a combined score of 76-0 in its only two matchups against FBS opponents in 2017. The closest the Buccaneers have come to upsetting an FBS program was in 2014, losing 21-20 to Vanderbilt.

THE OTHER SIDE

Charleston Southern, after back-to-back Big South Conference championships, is coming off a 6-5 season. The Buccaneers have had little success against FBS opponents – actually, no success is probably more accurate. CSU is 0-19 all-time against FBS schools, including a 62-3 loss to the Tebow-led Gators in the 2009 season opener at the Swamp.

Nine years later, the Bucs are back in town. Of course, they are no stranger to Mullen. CSU opened last season on the road at Mississippi State, losing 49-0 to Mullen's Bulldogs. The Bucs managed only 33 yards of offense and two first downs.

While Mullen is familiar with CSU, most Florida fans are not. Here is abridged version of the CSU-Mississippi State game from a season ago:

BOTTOM LINE

Nine years ago, in his first game as a head coach, Mullen raced out of the tunnel at Mississippi State with his team only to be forced back inside almost instantly due to a lightning strike. Once the Bulldogs returned to the field, they provided the lightning strikes by cruising to a 45-7 victory over Jackson State. Blowouts in coaching debuts don't guarantee anything (i.e. Muschamp, McElwain). Still, it's what the Gators could use, what their fans want, and based on the matchup, what this prognosticator sees happening. Florida's talent is superior and after an offseason of hype, a blowout win seems a fitting way to get the Mullen era underway as a tribute to the past and, more importantly, a nod toward hope in the future.