It wasn’t a great day for the Florida offense. Dan Mullen’s unit turned the ball over three times and never showed a true identity. Regardless of the failures that occurred, the Gator offense needs to get back to work quickly before they hit the road next Saturday.
Q: “Was there any other call on the fourth down play where you ran Tebow?”
A: “We were looking at (kicking a field goal). When they moved it back and made it a full yard, you can second guess yourself, but we know we want to put the ball in his hands with the game on the line. That’s what we wanted. We just didn’t get it today.”
Q: “How much did the third quarter turnovers hurt you?”
A: “We’ve been preaching all year to take care of the ball and score when we can score. Play great defense… our defense did a great job today. We put them in terrible situations. Statistically we had a big offensive game. We had more yards. We came out on the wrong end. We turned it over, they didn’t. They followed what looked like our plan to win.”
Q: “Were you surprised with how bad the team looked after looking good in the first three games?”
A: “It’s just bad for us. We preach no turnovers and take care of the football. We had five fumbles and lost three. That’s just sloppiness that we’ve got to get fixed. We’ll get it fixed.”
Q: “How did the blitzes affect the offense?”
A: “I thought we did a good job picking up all the pressure. We gave up a couple sacks but not with free guys coming through. We did a nice job of picking up the pressure and getting the ball out. I think we hit a couple big plays. It was a lot more of not executing.”
Q: “Why did the offense look so discombobulated?”
A: “When things got shaky, you go to your guys you count on that have experience, with Tim and Percy. (The turnovers) got us out of a little rhythm at that time. The nice thing you see with that group is the same guys are the maturity came out. We went right back to those guys and they settled down and were our catalyst as the game went on.”
Q: “How much did it hurt when Tim missed the long pass to Murphy on the last drive?”
A: “It would’ve been nice. They blitzed us and we had one-on-one coverage with Murphy. He had a post. We had a couple of them. We took some deep shots down the field and missed Riley Cooper, Percy and Murph there at the end. I’ve got to do a better job making sure we get cleaned up and getting that timing down during the week.”
Q: “Was there any thought to putting Tim under center on the 4th down?”
A: “That’s where he’s most comfortable. At 240 pounds he’s usually better with a full head of steam instead of stationary. Not that we don’t trust our guys, but under center would be a lot more on the center than on Tim. We wanted it in Tim’s hands to do it.”
Q: “Can you still accomplish the goals this team set out to accomplish this year?”
A: “The goals coming in is always winning the SEC East and get to Atlanta. If I’m not mistaken, we control our own destiny for that. That’s always the focus. That’s all you can control. People and players get expectations of things they can’t control. We can control whether or not we get to Atlanta to win the SEC Championship.”
Q: “How do you evaluate the play of the offensive line?”
A: “I thought they did a decent job protecting. We could have gotten rid of the ball a little quicker a few times. We threw a bunch today. I’ve got to evaluate. I don’t think they played poorly.”
Q: “How much did losing Moody hurt the game plan?”
A: “A little bit but I felt comfortable with those other guys. Emmanuel was running the ball hard. It didn’t change our mindset. In the second half we were throwing and catching fairly well. After it was a tight game, we wanted to make sure we were scoring when we had the ball. We got a little away from the running game in the second half, but I still think we threw and caught well.”