Florida football: Dan Mullen evaluates potential two-quarterback system

Florida football coach Dan Mullen has a quarterback controversy on his hands following a Week One win over Florida Atlantic.

The Gators entered the season with Emory Jones behind center but a rough start for the redshirt junior was followed by a dominant stretch from redshirt freshman Anthony Richardson. During his Monday press conference, Mullen addressed the situation and talked about the various ways to implement two quarterbacks.

“There’s a lot of ways you can go about it,” Mullen said. “You can do the coach Spurrier play where you rotate them by play – I guess that would be a real, true two quarterback system. [What] we did on Saturday, which is development of the two-quarterback system, which is – Anthony hasn’t play much in games so to get him out there, to get him experience kind of like we used to do with Emory to throw him in. Last year you had more of the other one, where Emory would have a couple of packages of plays that we’d put in for him for a game. There’s different ways you can do it.”

Comparing Jones and Richardson

Jones is the far more experienced option between the two quarterbacks. Mullen originally recruited him to Mississippi State before taking the Florida job in 2018. Jones emerged as a part of the offense last season when he would spell pocket passer Kyle Trask, providing a different look to the defense.

Jones did not have the debut start he was hoping for on Saturday, going 17-for-27 with 113 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions. He also ran for 74 yards on 10 carries.

Richardson is a redshirt freshman who saw action in four games last season. He was featured on the Netflix series “QB1: Beyond The Lights” during high school.

Richardson started his season with much more fanfare, going 3-for-8 (after starting 3-for-3). He added 160 rushing yards on seven carries with an explosive touchdown run.

“[Richardson] made some great plays,” said Mullen. “I was here is 2006 and there was huge enthusiasm for Tim Tebow, and he played about six or seven plays per game. On those six or seven plays there’s a lot of enthusiasm. I’ve seen it before, and I understand it.”

Evaluating the performance

Dan Mullen also took time to break down the grades for each quarterback in Week One.

“I don’t have all the specifics,” Mullen said. “They were both ok. I kind of look at – when we have the meeting with them for me to go through some of the reads. How we do our grades, Anthony probably graded a little higher because he has explosive plays, so you get extra points for having the big, explosive plays. If I went pure, without giving the bonus points in, probably very similar.”

Mullen has continued to back Jones as the starting quarterback but did not commit to anything beyond this week’s South Florida game.