Acknowledging the expectations that will be vocalized from every barstool in the nearby Grog House to every seat in cavernous Carleton Auditorium might make it easier to manage those expectations, because come August, they’ll feel enormous.Įxpectations are a funny thing at Florida. Some programs eschew discussing anything past the next game as a matter of policy, but Mullen has never ordered his players to shy away from the big picture. It also is reasonable to expect the Gators themselves to expect to compete for a Playoff berth. We won’t really be able to handicap that game until this Florida team and that Georgia team - with its revamped offense - take the field.īut it is reasonable in year three of Mullen’s tenure to expect the Gators to be competitive with the Bulldogs and the rest of the SEC. But Smart had a two-year head start on Mullen in that rivalry, so perhaps the balance has shifted. The SEC East might very well be decided at the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party again this season. Two of Mullen’s five losses are to Kirby Smart’s team. Yes, the Georgia question is perfectly legitimate. He wouldn’t say that unless he and his teammates believed it, and given what they’ve accomplished the past two seasons and what the Gators bring back, perhaps we should listen to them when they confidently declare that they consider themselves contenders. We’ve established he isn’t the type of person who seeks out attention. Trask has gone from curious signing - the guy who started over him in high school is now Miami’s quarterback - to backup to the leading returning passer in the SEC. He has seen his current coach win double-digit games in his first two seasons and get celebrated to his face while everyone asks But what about Georgia behind his back. The fifth-year senior has seen the coach who signed him win the SEC East and get fired the next season. Lest this devolve into one of those BEST OFFSEASON EVER stories, let’s pause and unpack exactly what Trask said. I’m excited to see where this season takes us.” We know what the coaches want to see, and I think everyone really has that perfect bond with each other right now. I think we have a great shot because our guys know how the coaches operate. And the only way out was to say the P-word.īut instead of downplaying what he’d just said, Trask spoke the word with the kind of confidence it takes for a quarterback to lead his team that particular annual event. Even though he probably didn’t want to stir the pot, he’d cornered himself. Trask, whose career thus far has been marked by underpromising and overdelivering, was about to make a headline. Naturally, a group of assembled scribes pounced on this juicy pronoun. “So we definitely feel pretty strongly that we have a good shot at it this year.” “Ever since Coach Mullen’s gotten here we’ve been to two New Year’s Six bowls,” Trask said as he and the Gators previewed spring practice, which begins March 16.
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