Florida Gators offense: Nice to meet you

Perhaps last week is precisely what Gators fans needed. The torrential rains that blanketed Gainesville and forced the first game to be deemed no-contest acted as a cleansing for the fans.

The stench of the 2013 season lingered in the stadium, the product that was put on the field caused fans to go from hopeful to angry and finally, downright apathetic.

The fans, to their credit, showed up last week. Filled with the hope that Kurt Roper would bring them an offense they would be proud of; an offense that they could take to social media and brag about. They sat, for four hours in the pouring rain waiting for football that would never come.

“I want to thank our student section. I went over there and shook their hands,” head coach Will Muschamp said. “Two weeks in a row and what they did last week (with the weather conditions). They’re a lot better fans than I would have been. They’re absolutely amazing. I’m glad we were able to put out a pretty decent product for them today.”

The team had moved on, they buried the game film, they’re tired of 4-8 questions and they know what they’re capable of. The product that they watched in practice filled them with confidence. They didn’t speak like a 4-8 team this offseason. Vernon Hargreaves infamously called Jeff Driskel one of the best quarterbacks in the country, bypassing even the league.

The coaching staff would field questions about 2013 with a Cheshire cat-like smile. They knew something we didn’t and they were waiting for that “I told you so moment.”

Boy, did they deliver.

Before the naysayers indulge in their “yeah, but look at the opponent” rhetoric, realize that this is exactly what we needed to see from the Gators.

Was Eastern Michigan overmatched? Obviously, but Florida did what they couldn’t do a year ago; they took care of business. The Gators didn’t play down to their opponent; they didn’t let off the gas. Florida’s defense clipped the Eagles’ wings, holding them to 125 yards of offense on the night.

The offense, oh the offense. Roper injected life into Florida’s offense. Driskel led the Gators up and down the field in a manner that hasn’t been seen in years and it was fun.

Florida totaled 655 yards of offense on Saturday night. Jeff Driskel set a career record for completions — in the first half and Florida’s triple threat running back trio of Matt Jones, Kelvin Taylor and Brandon Powell carried the ball 19 times for 157 yards and four touchdowns.
“I was just really excited just to see what we can do and it’s just a testament to the type of mentality that the coaches have brought to this season,” senior center Max Garcia said after the game. “Ever since last season, it’s been focusing on speed, tempo, physicality, execution and when that’s clicking on all cylinders this is what happens. 65 points happens.”

The last time Florida scored this many points was against The Citadel in 2008. Andre Debose was the only player who could recall the game, opponent and score of the game — probably because he was a redshirt sophomore that season (I kid, I kid).

Debose was a senior in high school, on his way to leading his team to a state championship. He played on the same team as Riley Cooper, Aaron Hernandez and Tim Tebow. Debose can still visualize what the old Florida offense was able to do but this offense is different.

“This is the most fun that I’ve seen everyone have in the last six years,” Debose said. “Just our offense, because we know we’re good, you see us put up 65 points; I haven’t seen that since I’ve been here. This is just amazing man, I’m very excited about this season.”

The Florida Gators offensive players walked into the south end zone media room for interviews with a new swagger. Their chests were sticking out, that ‘I told you so’ smirk across all their faces. They answered questions not about ineptitude but about how much fun they had, how much enjoyment their play brought to the fans and to anyone who watched the game.

It was a new role, but they saw it coming all offseason.

“We always knew what we could do,” senior receiver Quinton Dunbar (who caught a pass in a record 29th consecutive game). “We believe in Coach Roper. We were just excited to show what we can do, that’s all.”

The opponent may have been a directional school from the Midwest but the orange and blue offense is making believers of us all.

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. Call me a naysayer. I think you actually have to take an exam without being given the answers beforehand before you can call yourself a genius. To call a contest with one of the worst teams in America a “test” is laughable. I guess I’m a naysayer because I still have no idea if UF is a good team since they haven’t played a “real” game yet. Kentucky looms, I’m sure they’re a better team than Eastern Michigan, but who isn’t, but they’re still Kentucky, which isn’t saying much. In two weeks we’ll actually learn something about this gator team, right now we still know nothing.That’s neither good or bad, it’s just that Florida is still a tabula rasa, awaiting it’s first exam.

    • Snowprint – the level of competition may not have been up to your standards (in fact, nothing seems to be up to your standards) but this win, and more importantly the way both sides of the ball played, was exactly what the Gators needed. This game was an opportunity to build confidence for these kids, and thats exactly what they did. If it makes you feel better to downplay the opponent and outcome then so be it………….as for the rest of us, we saw yesterday as a 1st step towards not only rebounding from a disappointing 2013, but also to building something special now and into the future. Go Gators!

    • Seriously. If this Gator team had come out and won 30-6 our friend Mr. Snowprint would have been all over it as being more of the same. The fact is that no offense under Muschamp has looked like the one we saw yesterday, and we have certainly played teams as bad as EMU under Muschamp before, or at least comparable, Yesterday’s offense did not look the same. It simply did not, and anyone with any bit of sense could see that; however, we have one poster on this website who constantly wants to cast a dark cloud over everything that goes on with Gator football under Will Muschamp. Nobody is saying that all is well or that this offense will now take the SEC by storm, but I do think most of us [save for a few…or one] can see that things appear to have at least taken a step in the right direction. At some point it’s time to accept Muschamp as our coach, and I for one want him to succeed. Sometimes I wonder if Snowprint wants the same thing.