Taking over the Gators’ offense, Pease reached out to the son of friend and Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg, a former teammate of his at Montana. The older Mornhinweg was a four-year starter who set 15 passing records at the school and graduated in 1985, the same year that Pease transferred to the program and sat out a season before starting as a senior in 1986.

The younger Mornhinweg took a trip to Gainesville, FL from Jan. 21-22 and received an official scholarship offer during his visit. However, he was also given a Jan. 25 deadline to decide whether or not he would accept.

The deadline was put in place by Florida because Pease is so dead set on bringing in a signal caller that a backup candidate, Paxton Lynch (Deltona, FL), was in place should Mornhinweg decline the offer. The Gators wound up pulling the deadline as Mornhinweg asked for more time to make his decision.

The Nittany Lions were obviously prepared for the potential defection, gaining a commitment Tuesday from three-star QB Steven Bench (Cairo, GA), a Rice pledge.

Mornhinweg, unranked nationally or positionally by Rivals, is considered a four-star recruit and the No. 19 player at his position by ESPNU.

Photo Credit: Montgomery News

Muschamp maintained Monday (sorry for the alliteration) that Florida will not officially hire an offensive coordinator until after the bowl game but that does not mean he has been stationary in his search for Charlie Weis’s replacement. “A lot of people have a tremendous interest in the job,” he said. “I’m taking my time. I’m talking to an awful lot of people and will continue to do so to find the best fit for the University of Florida. We will make that decision after the bowl game.”

Interim offensive coordinator Brian White, the team’s running back’s coach who is filling in for the bowl game, is a candidate at the top of Muschamp’s list and will have bowl practice and the game itself to convince his head coach that he deserves the job. “I’ll sit down and talk to Brian but again, he’s a guy I’ve been with every day. I like how he’s managing our offensive football team at this time,” Muschamp said. “He’s doing an outstanding job. He has experience at the position with Wisconsin and had great success. Certainly he’s a candidate.”

Other candidates – like Jacksonville head coach and former UF QB Kerwin Bell – are being interviewed in the meantime. In the end, Muschamp is looking for someone who can add his special touches but keep the status quo. “You’re also looking for the right fit. We’re not going to come in and change what we’re doing. We don’t think that it’s smart to hire a guy and have 40 guys learning as opposed to one guy learning,” he explained. “Obviously will he tweak some things? Certainly. Will he change some things? Yeah, maybe. But we’re not going to just take a playbook, throw it out the window and bring another one in. We got a young football team, and I think continuity is the most important thing at this point with our football team.”

IT STARTS WITH SELF-EVALUATION

Already looking back on the Gators’ 6-6 regular season, Muschamp (as he has all year) puts the blame primarily on himself, saying he is responsible because it all falls on his shoulders. Nevertheless, he thinks there is plenty for Florida fans to look forward to with the bowl game and offseason upcoming.

“At the end of the day, are we headed in the right direction? Yes, I emphatically believe that. Is it where we want to be at this point? No. Are we going to get there? Yes,” he said. Muschamp added that the 2011 season did not go as expected because, simply put, Florida did not play for a SEC Championship. “That’s what I understand, and that’s what I expect,” he said.

Asked if there was one thing he could change about how the year went, Muschamp said it would be one of the very first decisions he made as head coach. “The most disappointing thing or poor decision I made was training camp not having been more physical because of numbers. You get nervous about injuries. You get nervous about situations with guys as far as having a more physical camp to prepare our team for the season. If I had one thing I wish I could have changed, that would be it,” he said.

NOTES AND QUOTES

» Florida began practicing on Friday and worked on fundamentals and technique over the weekend. Preparations for Ohio State began on Monday, and the team will practice Monday-Thursday this week before going to Jacksonville next week.

» On the sophomore class: “Without getting specific, there’s no question the majority of our playmakers are in that class. You look offensively, defensively and special teams of the guys who really contributed to our football team.”

» On there being so much attrition this year: “I would attribute it to a lot of different things. I think it is hard to really put your finger on one thing and say, ‘This is it.’ Anytime you have transition there is a natural attrition that occurs. Whether it is the coach that recruited you, the position coach, the coordinator, the head coach is different, the scheme is different. There are a lot of things.”

» On why Brantley impresses him: “Regardless if you pay attention to it or not, you hear negativity a lot. Quarterback is a tough position to play. It is the hardest position o play on the field. When it’s going well, you normally are put on a pedestal that you actually are playing probably better than you really are. At times when things aren’t going very well, you’re probably painted to be a little bit worse than you really are. From that standpoint, a guy that went through a frustrating year the previous year, came into our situation [and] really embraced it, did a good job with our offense, unfortunately had some injuries and some setbacks. The one thing I’m going to tell you about John is that he’s a positive guy. He loves being a Florida Gator. And that’s important to me. He’s a guy that does everything he can do in a first-class manner. He’s got a great family that supports him and is a guy I’m really proud of to be a part of this football group.”

» On how he will approach recruiting with so many empty spots: “You still want to evaluate and take the right guys. It’s a little different now because we have a whole year to evaluate. My philosophy at that point was not taking a guy you weren’t sure about. That’s the most important thing – right now we’ve had a full year to evaluate. We know what we’ve evaluated. We’ve ranked everybody at every position. We understand the numbers at certain positions that we want to take, but we’re not going to take a guy to take a guy. We’d rather – if there’s five at this position and you want to take three, you know you’re going to get two so you take four more at this position if you really feel good about those four. More than anything, at the end of the day, it’s kind of like the NFL Draft. You take the best player available at those situations.”

» On redshirt junior tight end Omarius Hines not seeing the field much: “He had some injuries early in the year. As we moved forward, you look at Jordan Reed and A.C. Leonard were very productive at the position. [...] We expected more of an impact on special teams as well, not just on offense. The injury put him behind a little bit as far as moving forward.”

» On his plan for redshirt freshman QB Tyler Murphy: “To compete at the quarterback position.”

On sophomore Buck linebacker Ronald Powell: “He played better as the year rolled on. He’s having a nice bowl practice as we progress to this point. He’s had his best practice since we’ve been here the other day as far as just his pad level, his hand placement and affecting the quarterback in the rush. He always plays with good effort and toughness.”

With his starting quarterback out at least one more week and an offense that has only scored 21 combined points against top of the top teams in the country, Weis realizes that the Gators have to make some changes. It did not help that he had to start his third signal-caller on Saturday with a limited package of plays that did not allow Florida to pass the ball as much as he wanted.

“If you score 10 or 11 points on a weekly basis, you’re going to lose most of them – if not all of them. What we have to do is be more aggressive. You’re in that catch-22 when you’re dealing with inexperience at the quarterback position. We will be more aggressive [this week],” he said.

Weis also explained why he was unable to keep the offensive momentum going two weeks ago when redshirt senior John Brantley went down and freshman Jeff Driskel was forced to enter the game. He placed the blame on his lack of preparation.

“Let’s go back two weeks. John gets hurt. What you could do is you could have a better auxiliary plan in place so that if John goes down, we’re going to go just to this auxiliary plan,” he said. “But to be honest with you, I thought we were going to have to throw the ball to win – as you saw what our game plan was. You don’t go into that auxiliary plan with guys that have been here for three days saying, ‘OK we’re going to let you throw it on this defense on every snap.’ It’s quite a drastic change from what the plan really was to win the game.”

Part of Weis’s auxiliary plan against LSU was using RB Trey Burton behind center for many of the running plays. He said that Burton was a viable option for the team and will be one going forward if UF must continue using young quarterbacks.

“You better have, especially going into that game, you better have some options, some versatility within your package,” he explained. “I wasn’t going to wait around and let us be stagnant. […] We had the package. I used it the second series. Didn’t intend to use it quite so early, but what you didn’t want to do was – it was already 7-0 – you don’t want to let the game get away from you too quickly.“

NOTES AND QUOTES

» On freshman QBs Driskel and Jacoby Brissett: “I like both these guys. I like them a lot. I don’t like one of them a lot. I like both of them a lot. They both have attributes to be a very good quarterback. [...] I’d love Brantley to be here this week, but you can only play one quarterback at a time. Right now my job is to make sure I just get those guys ready to go.”

» On learning about Brissett’s presence during recruiting: “I was scrambling a bit to help get him here, but one of the things that I liked the most besides watching him on tape was actually watching him play basketball. I watched his basketball team, which was really good. But I watched him play on his basketball team and watched his presence and his command playing basketball. It’s so much easier when you can watch a guy physically doing it. That’s something that’s different. Presence is not something that you can watch on tape. You can watch production, but you can’t watch presence.”

» On rumors about redshirt freshman QB Tyler Murphy transferring: “He’s been with me for the last five hours, so that would be news to me.”

» On if he’s concerned about the blocking of tight ends and running backs: “If you can’t block then you can never be a regular player. You can never be an every-down player. Because a running back who can’t pick up the blitz, you have to take him out when there’s a blitz. A tight end who can’t block the run, you’re going to be looking for somebody better. And the same is true for wide receivers. If they can run and catch but they can’t block anyone, you can’t play them on a regular basis because you’re going to run the ball at least half the time.”

» On if his offense is physically capable of matching up with teams like Alabama and LSU: “That’s a moot point because I’m just worried about Auburn. That’s what I’m worried about. Hopefully we’ll get to revisit that question down the road. Hopefully that question has some merit this year. Right now, we can’t be worrying about that. We have to be worrying about Auburn.”

» On the improvement of redshirt junior tackle Matt Patchan: “He’s played with a lot of physicality. That’s what’s got him more time. Matt is a physical player, but when he knows what he’s doing and can really turn it loose, he can be a dominant physical presence. That’s what he’s shown to earn himself more playing time. In that last game, he was one of the players for us that stood out and played with physicality the whole game.”

» On if his offensive line is undersized: “It depends on who you’re playing against. If you really look out our offensive line versus LSU last week, no, they weren’t undersized. It depends on the opponent and how big they are versus how big you are. I’ve been with offensive lines where everyone averaged 280 and I’ve been with offensive lines where everyone averaged 315. And I’ve won with both of them. Size isn’t always the factor.”

» On if using so many special packages early has hurt his playbook: “Now [other teams] practice that and you do other stuff. That’s part of coaching. There’s other things you can do off of the same thing. We only ran a handful of things.”

Muschamp said that how the snaps are split – and how much Driskel practices – will be solely dependent on his health at this point in time.

“It’s not like one guy is a different quarterback than the other guy. They’re both very similar skill set as far as that’s concerned. A lot of that is going to depend on Jeff’s ankle,” he said. “How many reps will he be able to rep in practice? I don’t know at this point. We’re going to have about an hour and 15-minute practice [Monday night]. We’ll move from there and, as we move further in the week, I’ll know more obviously about how much he’ll be able to go and compete for the job this week. That will determine the reps and then obviously determine the starter.”

If Driskel is unable to practice at full speed or Brissett goes out again and earns the start, Muschamp is confident in the latter can continue progressing and play better.

“I thought Jacoby did a good job [against LSU]. As far as comparing how each quarterback performed in totally different environments, I’d have a hard time doing that. I thought he managed our offense very well,” the coach said. “I thought what we asked him to do he did very well. He’s a very composed young man. He’s very intelligent. He’s athletic. He’s smart. He works extremely hard since he’s been here as far as learning the offense and learning what to do and how we want to do it and manage our football team. I’m very pleased with his progress.”

Muschamp is so pleased, in fact, that he said offensive coordinator Charlie Weis will open the playbook even more for him if Brissett returns behind center. “Certainly we’ve got to do some more – something else offensively,” he said. “If you continue to do the same thing, you’ll continue to get the same results.” Driskel has been working with a larger playbook considering he’s been involved in the offense since the spring.

One thing that will not change as long as a backup quarterback is in, however, are running backs sophomore Trey Burton and redshirt senior Chris Rainey taking direct snaps in certain packages. Muschamp feels that helps take some of the pressure off of the young signal callers and gives the team a different element in a running game that was completely stopped against Alabama.

Florida will know who is starting at quarterback by mid-week, but who the Gators will trot out under center may once again remain a question until just before kickoff.

NOTES AND QUOTES

» Muschamp said redshirt senior QB John Brantley is progressing well in rehab and slipped up a bit, mentioning that the injury is indeed to his ankle. “He’s working hard. He’s been in the training room a lot and went on the road with us to get all the reps he could get as far as rehabbing his ankle. We feel like he’s making good progress. We’ll continue to go forward with that.”

» He also said that there is a benefit to not disclosing the specifics about Brantley’s injury. “There are some teams out there that might want to get him in a pile. Not that anybody in our league would do that.”

» Florida will again likely choose their starting quarterback on Wednesday after two full days of practice because that is when the offense primarily focuses on red zone and third down plays. “As you start to work through Tuesday’s practice, you need to move forward,” Muschamp said.

» He also addressed why redshirt freshman QB Tyler Murphy has not had a chance to start for the Gators. “He’s done some good things. He’s managed our offense well, but those other guys have just performed better,” Muschamp said.

In addition to Alabama being better, one of the reasons Florida struggled so badly in the second half was the fact that the entire offense was tailored around Brantley and his abilities. Muschamp echoed Weis’s sentiments from Tuesday that, given the new situation, the Gators will be much better prepared heading into the LSU game.

“After the game, Charlie and I sat down and he said, ‘You know, I just don’t know if we gave Jeff much of a chance because of the game plan and the experience that john has in running the offense,’” he said. “It’s tough when you’re getting ready to play a defense like Alabama or LSU and you’re preparing for your starter to play the game and then something happens. You got to be able to adjust and adapt to the situation and do the best job for your football team.”

Muschamp said that Florida prepares itself for “injuries at all positions including the quarterback position throughout training camp,” but now the team must step up to make up for a big loss. “Now you’re getting into a point in the season where you have an injury that’s unfortunate because John has been playing so well. He’s playing his best football since he’s been at Florida,” he said. “Very disappointing for him, but we got to move on and understand that he’s not going to play this week. Our guys need to accept the challenge not just at the position but as the team as a whole.”

NOTES AND QUOTES

» On LSU’s talent and ability: “LSU’s got a good football team, very balanced, got a lot of respect for Les [Miles] and the job that he’s done. They’ve got an outstanding staff and team. They’re very balanced offensively with what they do with the run and the pass, the two-back package as well as the zone read. Compliments to what they do. Defensively they’re playing very well, especially in their front seven. They’ve got a lot of playmakers on the back end and John Chavis does a great job.”

» On LSU cornerback Tyrann Mathieu: “Ball hawk. Just an electric guy on the field. Plays with great energy and tough, hard-nosed, great blitzer and has just a knack for getting the ball of people as far as strips are concerned and interceptions. Just one of those guys that shows up in the right spots. Certain players have a certain knack, have a certain ability to be in the right spots at the right times and make plays. He plays the game extremely hard. He’s a physical player. Got a lot of respect for the young man.”

» On the Florida-LSU annual game being in jeopardy if divisions shift: “It’s been a great game through the years, especially recently. That decision ill be made by people far above my head. Certainly the Flordia-LSU game has been a game that’s been nationally watched and has national implications every year.”

» On if the run defense has improved after he ripped into them this week: “We had a really good practice yesterday, but it needs to transfer to game day and that’s the bottom line. I thought we had good preparation last week. It’s about playing blocks. It’s about understanding your job within each call, striking the guy across from you, keeping him off the second level. We did not do a good enough job of that the other night. We had too much second-level blocks and the ball bounces to the second-level, not getting the carrier down. A lot of that had to do with our front. We got to play blocks better up front. That’s something we’ve seen throughout the year, it’s not something that just happened Saturday night.”

» On if Alabama and LSU’s defenses look very similar: “Athletically, you look at the front seven of LSU and the thing that strikes you is that they have a lot of guys. They’ve recruited well. They’ve got some length up front, they’re athletic, they got great speed, they’ve done an outstanding job coaching those guys. I’ve got tremendous respect for John and the job he’s done wherever he’s been. And then they’re very athletic on the back end. You see the length and the size of the secondary, being able to cover space. They are very similar. This is the SEC and those are two of the best defenses going, obviously.

No matter who eventually wins the battle, Weis is much more confident in being able to create a game plan for a back-up given a week to prepare rather than having to scrap one in the middle of a game and start from scratch.

“I feel a lot better now than I would have doing it last week in the game. You devise a game plan really around John, and when John goes down, you have to cut back in what you’re doing,” he said. “Now at least knowing that John is out for this week, you can devise a game plan around less experienced guys rather than more experienced guys.

“The best thing for this week versus last week is everything’s being tailor made around these guys. You don’t add more, you cut back so you get used to doing the things that they feel comfortable doing. You don’t expose them to as much material, which gives them a lot more confidence.”

Weis was also quick to point out that replacing Brantley is not a one-man job. The entire team will have to step up to fill the void created by their signal caller’s untimely injury.

“Everyone knows that part of their responsibility with Brantley out is everyone, on both sides of the ball and on special teams, has to pick up some of the slack,” he said. “There isn’t one guy that picks it up. It isn’t the backup quarterback coming in alone that picks up the slack. It’s everyone that has got to kind of pick up the slack.

“We can’t lose the line of scrimmage. [If] we lose the line of scrimmage Saturday afternoon, we’ll be in for a long day. It starts there with making sure that you don’t go get roughed up. If you control the line of scrimmage with the players we have on offense, I like to think that will give us a legitimate chance.”

In a hostile environment against a tough opponent trying to fight back after a disappointing showing at home one week earlier, chances are the Gators will have plenty to worry about on Saturday in addition to their quarterback situation.