Florida coach Dan Mullen said his team could have opted to not play in Wednesday night’s Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic based on player availability but chose to anyway because the players wanted to compete.
Following a 55-20 blowout loss to No. 6 Oklahoma, Mullen said his depleted roster would have allowed the No. 7 Gators to skip the game.
“With the number of people that were out for the game, we were under numbers actually,” Mullen said. “We had the numbers to not play the game.
Added Mullen: “I give our guys credit. … Our young guys wanted to go play in that game, and they wanted to get that experience and wanted to be on that stage.”
On Tuesday, Mullen estimated that he would have 60 scholarship players available. The SEC this season established a minimum threshold of 53 scholarship players for game participation, but teams could opt to play even if they didn’t meet that number….
