GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- At his National Signing Day press conference, new Florida coach Dan Mullen seemed to breathe a big sigh of relief when talking about the next step.

After weeks of grinding on the road in recruiting, Mullen will finally get to slow down a little bit and actually hang out in Gainesville. Get to know his new players.

"To be honest with you, I'm excited for this next phase right now that we get wrapping up recruiting and having the opportunity to be back around and getting to know our players," Mullen said.

"One of the toughest things within how the calendar works in college football, when you take over a new program, is I've spent more time away from Gainesville and with recruits than I have with our current players, and now I'm really excited to be back here. We had mat drills (Wednesday) morning and had the opportunity to get around and really spend a lot more time with our current players on the roster and get to know them and push them and continue to develop them for the future."

Mullen wasn't able to answer many questions about what he expects out of his team this spring. He doesn't have answers yet about who will fit in where, how the quarterback battle might shape up or who could be a benificiary of new schemes on both sides of the ball.

Simply put, that will all come in time.

He hasn't had much of a chance to breathe just yet. Now the fun part begins.

"I see our guys working. They're buying in. That's what's really exciting," Mullen said. "I haven't seen resistance from the guys. Not just the new guys, but guys that are even in the program (already). I haven't seen resistance, which is fantastic, because you know what, when they made a decision to come to the University of Florida, they came here for the tradition, they came here for the University, they came here for all of those things, but the program has changed a little bit, and maybe some of the ideals within the program and how we're running the program has changed a little bit."

So far, very little push-back from the players. They seem to have embraced the move. It's not always easy, and there will certainly be some rough patches ahead as things progress.

For now, though, Mullen's ready to dig his heels in and start to watch the team he'll have for next fall go to work.

There's a lot to be done.

"Hopefully these guys continue to develop, get a little bigger, a little stronger, a little faster, a little better shape, and once we hit spring ball, we'll see what anybody can do," he said.

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