Video: Florida’s Dan Mullen discusses quarterbacks, Jordans, Chick-fil-A in press conference

Florida Gators head coach Dan Mullen didn’t have his scheduled Tuesday press conference on Tuesday, and its postponement to early Wednesday afternoon led some fans to worry whether he was delaying the dissemination of bad news.

But Mullen was — and I’m not kidding — apparently at Chick-fil-A on Tuesday, picking up food for “meet the teacher” day at his son’s school...

...and, in a nice touch showing off Mullen’s sense of humor, the media in attendance at the Wednesday presser were provided Chick-fil-A for their troubles. (You are free to forever be skeptical of the credibility of objective journalists based on them accepting a waffle fry on this day.)

Mullen’s presser itself, though, wasn’t the torrent of bad news some feared.

Notes

• Mullen recapped Florida’s scrimmage briefly and talked about fall camp. It was mostly coachspeak — Mullen is good at coachspeak — but he did single out a player here and there. (I’m not overreacting to any of that.)
• Mullen did not name a starting quarterback — “They’re coming along,” he said — but did say he’d like to have an answer after Florida’s next scrimmage, though he suggested he might not make that answer public.
• Safety Quincy Lenton, whose Florida career has already been plagued by injuries, has a torn Achilles and is expected to miss the full season.
• Apart from Lenton, Mullen — who is cagier than both Will Muschamp and Jim McElwain about injuries — did not elaborate on any injuries except to say that “none of them are serious” and that he doesn’t expect any other players to miss significant time.
• Mullen is mostly pleased with Florida’s starting offensive line, but wants the backups to catch on a little quicker. Center is the position most up for grabs up front.
• Mullen’s response to a (kind of softball) question about whether current events at Maryland in the wake of the death of Jordan McNair during offseason conditioning have him re-evaluating his program was a riff on “I’m constantly evaluating” that didn’t really answer any questions about conditioning, but was of a piece with Mullen mentioning that he’s mellowed, and is not the “raving lunatic” he used to be at practice.
• Mullen’s response to a question about educating Florida players about the rules around their team-issued Jordan shoes following issues at Michigan and North Carolina revolving around players selling them was basically “We try to teach them everything,” with Mullen repeatedly indicating he thinks they should keep the shoes as memorabilia.
• During a riff about players being concerned about starting versus contributing, Mullen harkened back to Andre “Bubba” Caldwell not starting against Vanderbilt thanks to Florida’s first possession being a first-and-goal and thus having a consecutive starts streak snapped. I do not remember this, so I have no clue how Mullen, a head coach and father and husband, does.

Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments.