Alabama puts Florida Gators in their place

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — When the final whistle blew and the game was over the scoreboard read Alabama 42, Florida 21. The Tide easily covered the 17½ point spread that Vegas gave them. On paper, it’s a 21-point loss. It doesn’t look good. On the field it was even worse.

“Offensively, third down, just two-of-13 for the game; couldn’t stay on the field and we couldn’t get off the field defensively, 12-of-16,” Will Muschamp noted. “As the game wore on we just wore down.”

This was a benchmark game. This was the game where we would see where the Florida Gators (2-1, 1-1 SEC)  stacked up against one of the best teams in the conference. We learned a lot. We learned that Florida may be improved, they may be better than they were in 2013 but they are nowhere close to the level of a program like Alabama (4-0, 1-0 SEC).

The Gators were the beneficiaries of a Crimson Tide team that went looking for stickum before the game and instead found a can of Pam, spraying that on their hands instead. Nick Saban was irate on the sidelines as Alabama turned the ball over three times in the first half and again in the third quarter.

The turnovers helped the overmatched Gators hang around. Florida capitalized — they scored all 21 of their points off of turnovers — but it was far too little to overcome Alabama.

“That’s a good football team but we have a good football team too,” said Muschamp. “We still have everything sitting out in front of us.”

Sound familiar?

Florida had everything sitting there in front of them last year and they told you about it. Then losses piled up and a “woe is me” mentality crept into the locker room. This is just the first game of the season but that same mentality reared its ugly head again here tonight.

“I think some people started feeling sorry for themselves,” defensive lineman Jon Bullard said after Alabama’s 16-play touchdown drive in the third quarter.

Sophomore linebacker Jarrad Davis had the same sentiment. Davis, a player who has been a leader in the field and in the locker room was surprised to see the reaction from his team after they saw what that mentality did to them last season.

“When we went down a touchdown and then another touchdown, that’s when we started seeing guys go down,” said Davis. “We just gotta keep in mind what we did this offseason. We’ve worked through tougher things than that.”

They have a bye week to work on things, but then again they had a bye week after their first loss in the 2013 season as well. How do you keep that mentality from seeping into the minds of the team? How do you prevent the cancerous mental state that ruined the 2013 season more so than any single injury? Davis didn’t have an answer. “I feel like we just have to keep on, I don’t know that’s a tough question to be honest with you,” he said.

“Everybody has their own mentality on the team. We’ve all got a lot closer this offseason and if we just remember what we did this offseason together, nothing can keep us from staying on top of our mental mindset, even when we’re losing. That’s when we need to be in it the most.”

This game was a blow out. It exposed the Gators as a team that isn’t back. They’re not the offense that exploded against Eastern Michigan. They are better than they were a season ago but on Saturday night Alabama let Florida know exactly where they stand in the SEC race.

It was a cold shower and a cup of coffee for fans. This Florida team is still a long way away from being in the same class or conversation as Alabama.

Nick de la Torre
A South Florida native, Nick developed a passion for all things sports at a very young age. His love for baseball was solidified when he saw Al Leiter’s no-hitter for the Marlins live in May of 1996. He was able to play baseball in college but quickly realized there isn’t much of a market for short, slow outfielders that hit around the Mendoza line. Wanting to continue with sports in some capacity he studied journalism at the University of Central Florida. Nick got his first start in the business as an intern for a website covering all things related to the NFL draft before spending two seasons covering the Florida football team at Bleacher Report. That job led him to GatorCountry. When he isn’t covering Gator sports, Nick enjoys hitting way too many shots on the golf course, attempting to keep up with his favorite t.v. shows and watching the Heat, Dolphins and Marlins. Follow him on twitter @NickdelatorreGC

3 COMMENTS

  1. I don’t know why you say the Gators are better than a season ago. Even last year’s team dominated Kentucky, and that was on the road. WE are starting to see that Jeff Driskel being injured last year probably didn’t mean that UF suffered any because of his loss. Florida is much better at forcing turnovers this year, but the offense is still pathetic and the defense seems to have taken a major step back. There was only one person on the field who played well Saturday, Vernon Hargeaves. The only other bright spot was the punter. A usual, the Gators failed to get any pressure on the quarterback. I think Dante Fowler is on a milk carton, he vanished just like he did in some games last year. It was a given that the secondary was going to struggle with so much inexperience, but the lack of pressure on the opposing quarterback makes it too easy. UF made Blake Sims look like a great quarterback, that’s how bad UF is. I just don’t see any reason, so far, to say that UF is a better team this year. If UF loses to Tennessee in a couple of weeks, I think it may be time to say that hypothesis is null.

  2. i certainly agree with Snowprint. Actually, it looks like it will take an injury to Driskel for this offense to improve. We probably would have lost to Tennessee last year if he hadn’t have been injured. Both the play of Murphy and Brissett this year prove that. It’s time for the sunshine pumpers to admit that retaining the Chump for another season was a “Fooley” mistake, a worse mistake than hiring him to begin with. As for the defensive guru, he left to coach at Seattle.

  3. Thanks Nick. My final rant…Well, I don’t feel as bad as I did last night. I’m more accepting of our teams reality today. I don’t like it. But it is what it is…Now what? That’s the question. We’re not supposed to be critical of coaches and players in these threads and comments on articles, but it is pretty hard not to be totally and utterly disappointed with the games result and subsequent coaching and playing. I’ll try and do this as best as I can. I did see kids playing their hearts out-but it was the result though that was disappointing. Talking heads said this year there was no clear-cut dominant team. Well, if Bama isn’t dominant, then we’re just bloody awful. Driskel struggled in that game against St. Mary’s girls lacrosse team- no surprise he struggled against Bama. As far as Bama’s QB. The guy barely missed a pass. He put almost every pass exactly where it needed to be- In the hands of the receiver!Our defensive backs were confused by simple passing patterns. Our receivers-were they open? Not that it mattered. Unless we hooked the ball to that camera cable and slid it to the receiver, it wasn’t getting there. The ball stripping , ball hawking was really exceptional. The kicking was unreal, our premier defensive back the III was as good as advertised. But three years in the basement of college ball? How can we continually hear how our recruiting is so good and we can’t put it together on the field? Is everyone a bust or is it the coaching? Quite frankly, hearing Muschamp spew his defensive technical mumbo jumbo means nothing compared to humility and accepting we have a lot of work to get done. Is he in denial? The offensive result was so ineffective I am wondering if he started telling the OC what to run. His response instead of saying we’re going to ‘run more’ should have been:”I have confidence in Kurt, he’ll get it handled.” If he gets involved in the offense the result will reflect the last three years of offensive mediocrity. He needs to seriously consider a QB change. The good news …it is early in the season, the potential bad news…OMG will this continue? For all those folks that bust their buts every week-my hats off to them. Here’s to someone in the Gator coaching contingent to make it work. Four years is a long , long time to be irrelevant. Especially after dominating for 20 years. While I had no delusions on beating Bama I expected a better game plan and execution. As usual, we can only hope there is a shift from here forward. I don’t say that with much confidence, but I’ll certainly rally behind the effort. There appears to be better team unity this year, they’ll need to stay together and deal with adversity to move on effectively. I’ve been a Gator since the early 70’s-and will be for a long time forward, but I sure hope things change before tumbleweeds start blowing through the now arid region that used to be known and feared as the Swamp…Go Gators.