Gators strength and conditioning coordinator Nick Savage is one of many UF staffers with close ties to Mississippi State. (Photo: Matt Stamey/UAA Communications)
Homecoming in Starkville for Large Contingent of Gators
Friday, September 28, 2018 | Football, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
TUPELO, Miss. – The chartered flight touched down here late Friday afternoon and as soon as they stepped outside, they knew they were no longer in Florida. The 20-degree drop in temperature and lighter humidity gave it away.
Still, for nearly 20 members of Florida's traveling party, headlined by Gators head coach Dan Mullen and Athletic Director Scott Stricklin, a familiarity of place overwhelmed any change in climate.
They were back in Mississippi, in a town known for its Civil War battlefield and as the birthplace of Elvis Presley, and just an hour's drive down Highway 45 to Saturday night's showdown between the Gators and No. 23-ranked Mississippi State at Davis Wade Stadium.
While the return of Mullen and Stricklin is at the center of Florida's first game at Mississippi State in nine years, the matchup runs much deeper for the Gators.
"It's like a family – a family that keeps growing,'' Gators co-offensive coordinator/offensive line coach John Hevesy said.
Hevesy has been with Mullen since 2001 when the two were assistants on Urban Meyer's staff at Bowling Green. They have company 17 years later. As soon as Stricklin hired Mullen last November, the Florida-Mississippi State game surfaced on the radar as one of the most intriguing games of the 2018 season.
Seven members of Mullen's coaching staff worked with him at Mississippi State, including two – Hevesy and running backs coach Greg Knox – for all nine seasons of Mullen's tenure. Six of the seven came directly with Mullen from Mississippi State after last season and another, quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson, had spent three years with the Bulldogs prior to a one-year stint at Houston last season.
For those going back to Starkville on Saturday, the goal has been to treat this game like any other.
"I know those kids,'' Hevesy said. "I've known them for a long time. The 60 minutes we're going to be on that field, it's my guys against their guys. It will be a little different after the game. Everything prior to that, it's just you prepare the way you prepare for every game. You just try to block it out. You have to block it out."
Gators coach Dan Mullen, left, and longtime assistants John Hevesy, center, and Billy Gonzales. (Photo: Kelly Streeter/UAA Communications)
Once the Gators arrive on the Mississippi State campus is when it will really start to set in for the coaches and support staff who helped Mullen build the Bulldogs into a consistent winner over the last nine years.
They are trying to do the same in Year 1 at Florida, a task that has been softened in many ways because so many of them have a recent shared history.
"Coach has a program and an identity and a culture he wants to get accomplished here, and when you have people who already understand what his vision is, I think it makes the transition easier and smoother,'' said Nick Savage, Florida's director of strength and conditioning who spent the last four years at Mississippi State. "The biggest factor is just making sure everyone helps everyone out, crosses the T's and dots the I's. I think Coach excels because of his relentless effort toward excellence and having multiple familiar faces around, it just helps that overall vision."
Besides the assistant coaches who made the move east with Mullen – they are the most visible to the public – an array of support staff picked up their lives when Mullen returned to Florida where he served as offensive coordinator from 2005-08.
Jon Clark, assistant athletic director for football operations, plays a vital role in the day-to-day business of the football office. He was a student assistant at Bowling Green when he first connected with Mullen, and after following him to Utah and Florida, he rejoined Mullen at Mississippi State after the 2009 season.
They have been together since. When Mullen took the Florida job, Clark's wife was pregnant. He stayed behind a few weeks to assist the Bulldogs in preparing for the TaxSlayer Bowl in Jacksonville, a game in which Knox served as interim coach.
The move back to Florida was unique even for a seasoned nomad.
"This one was a little bit different than others,'' Clark said. "When I moved to Starkville, it was me. When I come back, it's me, a wife and two kids. The second one being born after Dan took the job here."
Clark met his wife in Starkville and both the couple's kids were born in Mississippi. And while the family has relocated to Gainesville, Clark's home outside Starkville remains on the market.
Hevesy has faced similar situations in his career, although his wife Kelli has become a professional at moving from Ohio to Utah to Florida to Mississippi and back to Florida the past two decades.
"My wife can sell a house like no other,'' Hevesy said. "We had our house sold in three days."
The most difficult part for Hevesy at this stage of his life was uprooting his three teenage kids after nine years in Starkville.
"Sometimes people get lost in the profession, 'Oh, it's Florida, or it's this or it's that.' People quickly forget about a teenager that's leaving nine years of her friends,'' he said. "Now I've affected five peoples' lives when you are moving."
Like Clark, Savage met his wife Gianna while at Mississippi State. The couple married in 2017 and when Stricklin called Mullen last Thanksgiving weekend to see if he would be interested in returning to Gainesville, Gianna was pregnant. Their son Lincoln was born in April.
Savage considers the move a smooth one considering the circumstances and that he had never been to Gainesville prior to accepting Mullen's offer to join him at UF.
"I sold my house,'' he said. "I lucked out. Through closing, I want to say it was 63 days. I was fortunate. One of their assistant strength coaches bought it."
Real-life stories get overshadowed when a head coach changes jobs. However, much more goes into it than signing a recruiting class in the first couple of months on the job.
Ten months after Mullen took the Florida job and brought a crew of Bulldogs with him, the personal transitions have calmed, though the memories of a game day at Davis Wade Stadium will spring back to life Saturday night.
And of Stark Vegas, the smallest college town in the Southeastern Conference.
"I grew up in a smaller area,'' Clark said. "It was not new or unique, but just that small-town atmosphere of everybody knows everybody. You felt safe to do whatever you want. You are not worried about, 'Hey, I forgot to lock the door.' That was the main thing [I knew I would miss]."
They are gone but not forgotten -- and have not forgot those they left behind.
"I enjoyed my nine years being there,'' Hevesy said. "I met great people there. I have great friends I still talk to there."
Hevesy has heard a common sentiment, though, from his Mississippi State friends.
"We're rooting for John Hevesy and the Bulldogs,'' he said.
