Five takeaways from the Florida Gators 65-0 win

The Florida Gators football team advanced to 1-0 on their redemption tour with a decisive and punishing victory over the Eastern Michigan Eagles, 65-0.

A win in this fashion was something the Gators hadn’t experienced since a 70-19 victory over Citadel in 2008. Points were a dime a dozen on Saturday night in the Swamp and the Gators score more than five-dozen points.

Here are the fast five takeaways from the first win of the 2014 season.

1. This team is fun to watch.

Andre Debose, Matt Jones, Max Garcia and Quinton Dunbar all agreed that playing in this new offense has brought fun back to the team. None of them can remember putting up that many points on an opponent in a game, even dating back to high school.

The fun that the players are having translated to the fans as well. Down on the Eagle’s side of the field, the Gators held the ball with a 65-0 edge. The ravenous fans began chanting, “we want 70! We want 70!”

Are you kidding me? You can take any two games from Florida’s 2013 game and combine them together and not get the score that Florida amassed today and the fans were having so much fun they wanted to punch in another one.

655 yards of offense

This is how you win fans back after a terrible season. Put a winning product on the field but — maybe just as importantly — put a product on the field that the fans enjoy to watch. Put out a team that makes people want to travel to Gainesville and come see the team in person.

Saturday was a step in the right direction, but the fun is just getting started.

2. Welcome, freshmen

In total, the Gators used 19 freshmen (9 true freshmen and 10 redshirt freshmen) on the night. Will Muschamp has never been afraid to use young players and he proved that tonight.

3. The game was won but at a big cost

Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, Gainesville, Florida
Jake McGee gets carted off of the field after breaking his tibia and fibula on Saturday night. / Gator Country photo by David Bowie

Jake McGee broke his tibia and fibula in the second quarter of the game on Saturday (the same injury Jeff Driskel sustained) and will miss the remainder of the season.

McGee didn’t catch a pass before he was rolled up on from behind and lost for the year.

Senior tight end Clay Burton stepped up in a big way on Saturday, catching 7 passes for 42 yards, but the loss of McGee is huge. Florida will need to continue to get production form the tight end position and that may mean C’yontai Lewis or DeAndre Goolsby may need to step into a greater role than they anticipated.

 

4. Electricity!

No, I’m not talking about the lightning that chased the teams off of the field last week, I’m talking about Gators making big, electric plays on the field.

1st Quarter: 
Kelvin Taylor 31-yard run
Matt Jones 45-yard TD run

2nd Quarter:

Quinton Dunbar 42-yard reception
Brandon Powell 12-yard TD run

3rd Quarter:

Kelvin Taylor 14-yard run
Mack Brown 47-yard run

4th Quarter:

Demarcus Robinson 70-yard TD catch
Mark Herndon 78-yard TD catch
Darius Masline 13-yard run

And how about the stat of the night: Freshman quarterback Treon Harris finished the game 2-of-2 for 148 yards and two touchdowns. That’s good for a passer rating of 1,051.6. Not too shabby.

 

5. This is Will Muschamp’s deepest team

He said it and people scoffed, but the statement is a fact. This team is deep and Muschamp showed that by playing a solid rotation of 10 defensive linemen, had eight players carry the ball on offense and 11 players catch a pass.

Florida will continue to rotate players in and out of the game because they can. Something they didn’t have the luxury of doing in seasons past.

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

8 COMMENTS

  1. Nick…it’s all good…the foundation has been set rather nicely. That forced paradigm shift on offensive philosophy is glorious to watch. What’s almost equally exciting is Ohio State was losing the last time I looked. HA! :) Go Gators.

  2. There’s only one thing to take away from this “game. I was very pleased that Florida made it’s field goals. That is something that is not skewed by the quality of the opponent. Other than that, there’s nothing positive or negative to be taken away from what amounts to just a glorified scrimmage. Eastern Michigan has rightfully earned it’s status as one of the worst teams in college football, so it’s pretty silly to get excited over anything coming out what was seen on Florida Field. Next week will see a considerable step up with Kentucky, which gives you an idea of how bad Eastern Michigan is. It’s only two weeks until we learn the true measure of this year’s Gator football team, what that measure will be is still a mystery because nothing is learned from playing a sacrificial lamb, After all, isn’t that what teams like Eastern whatever and Idaho are paid for? Isn’t it to be part of a spectacle like the Christians when they were thrown to the lions. I think UF got exactly what it paid for.

    • These early games in the season are just as meaningful and important as the rest of the schedule because it gives the team an opportunity to build confidence ahead of tougher competition. Nobody is saying this team will go undefeated after dominating E Michigan 65-0. Taking made field goals away as the only positive is just another example of your negative nancy attitude. The rest of Gator Nation will enjoy this positive 1st step, and maintain an optimistic attitude going into the game against Kentucky. Great job Muschamp, staff and players……..Go Gators!

    • Ask Nebraska about playing a sacrificial lamb. The fact is the Gators looked sharp and much improved, even if they were playing an over matched opponent. Last year we win this game 28-10 while making a bunch of mental errors.

    • I made a similar comment on another article ILGATOR42 in which SNOWPRINT decided to grace us with another of his “nobody-get-excited-this-team-still-sucks” comment. Glad I am not the only one who feels this way. is funny. Snowprint is becoming a real bore. You can almost predict his responses.

  3. Tripp07 I said nothing about the Gators still being bad. I only said that you can’t make an evaluation on the quality of this year’s team based on playing an awful team. Florida may be a great team this year, or they may still be a bad team, no one knows. UF has to play someone good first, and that won’t happen for a couple of more weeks. I’m sorry that you misinterpret being realistic is the same as saying the Gators suck. Arkansas scored 73 in their “contest” against another hapless foe, but they have actually played another game against a good team and were routed. That doesn’t mean that Florida is a bad team like Arkansas, it just means that stomping an awful team doesn’t mean anything other than the fact that you can stomp a really bad team.

  4. I stand corrected. This was a slightly less cloudy forcast than usual coming from you. But my point, and ILGATOR’s still stands. You are becoming a bore, you’re comments are predicable, and I can’t remember the last time you had anything positive to say about Gator football. If you can’t see that Saturday was different then you’re hopeless. Nobody has said that our offense is now equal to what Spurrier or Meyer were running when they were here, but it seems as if everyone except you can see that things looked at least a bit different. If all you *got* from Saturday was FGs then you and I watched entirely different games. I am not saying we’ll beat Alabama, but I certainly feel better about this offense going up against the big-boys than I did last season.