The defending SEC East champion Florida Gators spent most of the offseason talking themselves up. Can you blame them? Nobody else was mentioning the Gators unless it was behind Tennessee and Georgia.
That practice worked until it didn’t and the Gators have now changed course.
“I personally believe you earn your respect with how you play. We learned the hard way you can’t talk yourself up to be a great team,” starting quarterback Luke Del Rio said. “So we’ve kind of shut up and let our play do the talking.”
Since the second half meltdown in Knoxville the Gators are 3-0 with a narrow win on the road at Vanderbilt, a 40-14 homecoming win that featured just two offensive touchdowns, over Missouri and a convincing 24-10 win over Georgia. Their 6-1 record, coupled with four previously higher ranked teams going down last weekend, has Florida back inside the top-10. They still don’t feel as if they’re garnering the respect they deserve.
“People pick this team apart quite a bit,” Jim McElwain said Saturday after beating Georgia. “Guys, this is a good football team. The Florida Gators are a good team, all right? I’ll go with these guys against anybody. And we’ll figure out a way to get it done.”
Maybe McElwain is right. Maybe the Gators aren’t getting their just due. Perhaps some of it is aftershock of how Florida collapsed at the end of the 2015 season, but you can’t look at that team and compare it to the 2016. Florida’s offense floundered with Treon Harris at quarterback last season, Del Rio hasn’t been himself since returning from a knee injury, but he’s producing head and shoulders better than Harris did at this time last year.
Florida isn’t winning pretty like the Urban Meyer or Steve Spurrier teams that dominated college football on the way to National Championships but he’s winning football games. He’s 16-5 at Florida and has the Gators two wins away from a return trip to the SEC Championship game.
“I think we’re playing to the strengths of our football team right now,” Mac said on Monday. You’ve got to adjust as coaches to give your team, whatever team that is that given year, the best opportunity to win. And that’s kind of what we’re doing.”
The Gators have found their identity. They have a bruising defense that will make teams bleed for every yard and point they get. They have an offense that wants to run the football and more than enough capable running backs to get the job done. Del Rio is as smart a quarterback as Florida has had in years and he can make the plays that are asked of him.
Is that a recipe to put up 70 points a game? No. Does Florida need to do that in order to get where they want to go this season? Absolutely not.
Nobody gave the Gators a shot before the season began and the team took notice. A win on the road in Arkansas this week won’t open many eyes but it will give the Gators an opportunity to punch their ticket to Atlanta with a home win over South Carolina the following week.
Winning pretty is nice. Winning ugly doesn’t feel as good but gives you the same result.
“I don’t think going into it anybody thought much of us anyway,” said McElwain. “I told our guys it’s just a matter of going out and proving it each week. You know if you take care of business on Saturdays people are going to take notice, and that’s really what we have to do.”
At the end of the day the team has rallied around each other.
“We’re No. 10 in the nation,” Del Rio said. “If they don’t respect us, I don’t really care.”
Cam Dillard, said the same, maybe less eloquently, but just as effective. The Gators don’t care what you think about them or how they’re perceived on a national stage. They just want to keep stacking up wins and will tell you “I told you so” in December.
“Let the haters hate,” Dillard said. “Let everybody doubt. We’ll go out there Saturday and do what we need to do to take care of the job.”
Love the “just get the job done” attitude from the players. Good article, Nick