Five Florida Gators observations from Columbia

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The No. 11 Florida Gators finished their conference schedule with a 24-14 win over South Carolina and a perfect record against SEC East teams. Here are five observations from

1. Jonathan Bullard made the right decision

So many times in sports we focus on the negative. If a player leaves school early for the draft and then sees his stock fall, we point it out, “he should have gone back to school,” we say. The same can be said for the inverse. When a player comes back for their senior year and can’t live up to the hype or suffers an injury it’s, “should have taken that pay day while you had the chance.”

Jon Bullard took a chance coming back to the University of Florida for his senior season. The versatile defensive lineman could have elected to leave school early, with a lot of his friends and guys he came into school with. He didn’t like where he was projected to be selected in he NFL draft and every single thing that he has done on the football field this season has gone towards improving that draft stock.

Bullard has played his way into the first round this season. The senior has 49 tackles, 13.5 tackles for a loss, 5.5 sacks, six quarterback hurries and one pass breakup.

We don’t do it enough in sports, so here it is. Good for you, Jon Bullard. Glad to see that you made a decision to come back to school, finish out your degree, be apart of Jim McElwain’s first season and it’s nice to see that it’s paying off for you.

2. Kelvin Taylor’s third 100-yard game

The yards just weren’t there against Vanderbilt. Kelvin Taylor finished with only 47 yards on 17 carries (2.7 per rush) and it wasn’t for lack of effort. Taylor didn’t have running lanes but continued to press on against a staunch Vanderbilt defense.

That statement held true for most of Saturday. Taylor carried the ball and, time after time, had to make a man miss or break a tackle just to get back to the line of scrimmage. Doug Nussmeier kept calling his number and Taylor kept pounding away. His 51-yard run and 1-yard touchdown plunge put him at 100 yards rushing, the fourth time he has hit that number in his career, and the third time he’s amassed it this season.

3. Geoff Collins’ halftime adjustments

The Florida Gators held South Carolina to minus nine yards in the third quarter on Saturday, the second time this season the Gators have held an opponent negative yards coming right out of the locker room.

In 10 games the Gators have allowed just 406 yards (40.6 per game) to their opponents in the third, the best number of any team in the nation. This is a credit to Geoff Collins and the entire defensive staff. Florida has kicked off to start the second half in nine games this season and the job the defense has done in the third quarter of getting their opponent off the field quickly and stifling them has gone a long way in helping Florida to their 9-1 record.

4. The rushing defense is spectacular

South Carolina carried the ball 23 times against Florida.
They gained 21 yards.

The Gators are allowing 105.1 yards per game on the ground, top-10 in the entire country.

5. Just win, baby

The Gators are figuring out ways to win games, blowouts, comebacks, close, ugly, you name it and the Gators have won a ballgame that way.

They’re 9-1 on the season.

Let that sink in.

They’re a perfect 6-0 against the SEC East.

Let that sink in.

Week after week, game after game, the Florida Gators are finding ways to pull out a win and that’s not a sentence many expected to be reading in the middle of November.