If Florida State, Alabama and a bowl opponent to be determined/sacrificed didn’t have enough to worry about playing the explosive Florida Gators, coach Urban Meyer and his offensive mad scientists added a new wrinkle to their repertoire Saturday during their 70-19 victory over outmanned small-college foe The Citadel.
If trying to corral defending Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow and account for his multiple weapons of Percy Harvin, Chris Rainey, Jeff Demps, Louis Murphy, Deonte Thompson, Riley Cooper and Kestahn Moore, FSU coach Bobby Bowden, who grew up idolizing Alabama and coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, and Nick Saban, the current head coach of the Crimson Tide, have to worry about No. 4 Florida’s new “Elephant” formation.
Redshirt defensive lineman Javier Estopinan, one of 21 seniors making his final playing appearance in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at Florida Field, rumbled his 6-foot-2, 290-pound frame into the end zone from 1 yard out in the third quarter for one of 10 offensive touchdowns (six rushing, four passing) on the record-setting day. The popular Estopinan, who grew from a linebacker into a linemen and fought through a pair of season-ending knee surgeries (and three total), was overjoyed.
“It was coach Meyer’s idea,” Estopinan said. “It was awesome. We have a lot of playmakers on offense, so Coach is stingy with his touchdowns. I just wanted to make sure I had the ball. I made the right decision to come here and I wouldn’t change a thing. We have the chance to win the SEC (in two weeks at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome against No. 1 Alabama) and potentially win another national championship (at the BCS National Championship Game on Jan. 8 in Miami).”
And if the Gators win both, as they did in 2006, that means Estopinan and his fellow seniors will get one more chance to step on the turf of “The Swamp” – at a second-semester celebration.
“I tried to get the seniors as involved in this game as possible,” Meyer said. “Just because you’re a senior doesn’t entitle you to that, but they deserve it. To sustain four years of college football these days is hard. They’re going to achieve all that we ask of them. One hundred percent of them will graduate. That’s amazing. I am very proud of them.”
Estopinan accounted for 1/705th of Florida’s offensive output on a blustery late November afternoon against the Bulldogs, who at least got a nice paycheck for their efforts, which is more than some of Florida’s SEC opponents can say. At least the Bulldogs, who yielded season-high efforts both rushing (394 yards) and passing (311) to the Gators, finished with 317 yards of offense themselves and scored three touchdowns.
The Citadel’s 19 points were more than all but one of Florida’s previous six victims in what is now a seven-game winning streak since a 31-30 loss to Mississippi on Sept. 27. LSU had 21 points in its 51-21 night-time pummeling in “The Swamp” on Oct. 11.
Estopinan, of course, is the least worry for the Seminoles, who will attempt to break a 4-game losing streak to Florida when the Gators pay a visit to Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee next Saturday. The kickoff has yet to be determined.
“I thought our guys could have played better, we dropped some balls, we didn’t tackle as well as we should have,” Citadel coach Kevin Higgins said. “But a lot of that is because of who were were playing, a great football team.”
A team that is now averaging 52.7 points a game over the last seven games and has won those seven games with an average margin of victory of 41 points.
Tebow, who played about a quarter and a half, completed 9 of 11 passes for 201 yards and 3 touchdowns – 16 yards to Louis Murphy and 43 yards to Riley Cooper in the first quarter as Florida took a 21-0 lead, and 31 yards to Deonte Thompson in the second quarter as the Gators were racing to a 49-6 halftime advantage.
The 6-foot-3, 240-pound Tebow, who has accounted for 16 passing and 9 rushing touchdowns during the winning streak, also gained 34 yards on two option carries before he called it a day and left many among the 90,374 fans watching whether they might be seeing Tebow playing in “The Swamp” for the last time. The junior could opt for the NFL Draft but has been hinting lately that he might return for his senior campaign in 2009.
With Tebow at the controls, the Gators scored on their first six possessions of the first half and then increased it to seven in a row under the direction of redshirt freshman John Brantley, who was 8-for-11 for 110 yards and one touchdown, a 12-yarder to David Nelson that followed Estopinan’s short TD run and the second of three touchdowns by The Citadel that increased the Florida lead to 63-13 after three quarters.
Not only couldn’t The Citadel stop Estopinan, they couldn’t harness Florida’s deep stable of speedy running backs, who helped the Gators to average 10.7 yards a carry in 37 attempts. Redshirt freshman Chris Rainey gained 142 yards on 7 carries (an average of 20.3 yards) with one touchdown. His 73-yard scamper in the second quarter set up the first of two touchdowns by senior Kestahn Moore, who rushed for 50 yards on 6 carries (8.3) and TD runs of 2 and 22 yards.
Redshirt sophomore transfer Emmanuel Moody also got his share of touches, carrying the football 13 times for 116 yards (8.9) and 1 touchdown, while Harvin averaged 16.3 yards on three carries, including an 11-yard scoring scamper. Florida used nine runners to amass its 394 rushing yards, marking the first time since 1996 that the Gators have had back-to-back 300-yard rushing games.
Meyer started substituting liberally in the second quarter and was using walk-ons at the end of the game against the Bulldogs, the Gators only non-Bowl Championship Subdivision opponent this season. Five of the Top 10 teams in the latest BCS rankings have used Bowl Playoff Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) teams to fill their 12-game regular-season schedules, with No. 2 Texas Tech having played two – Eastern Washington (49-24 victory) and Massachusetts (56-14 victory).
Defensively, the Bulldogs’ 214 passing yards on 17-of-37 passing were the fourth highest of the season against the Gators, who picked off three passes (one each by Janoris Jenkins, Will Hill and Wondy Pierre-Louis) and also had four sacks of quarterback Turner, who was 15-of-30 passing for 169 yards and one TD (a 15-yard toss to Taylor Cornett to end the game’s scoring with 28 seconds remaining) and two interceptions.
Turner also had a TD reception himself on a 29-yard razzle-dazzle reverse in the second quarter. Turner took the snap, handed off to Terrell Dallas, who got it to wide receiver Scott Flanagan on a reverse. But Flanagan stopped and heaved the ball to Turner, who had headed upfield after the handoff.
Betcha the Gators don’t get fooled again on that one.
HOW THEY SCORED
FLORIDA 70, THE CITADEL 19
At Gainesville
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at Florida Field
Scoring by quarters 1 2 3 4 — Final
The Citadel 0 6 7 6 — 19
Florida 21 28 14 7 — 70
FIRST QUARTER
UF–Louis Murphy 16 pass from Tim Tebow (Jonathan Phillips kick good) at 10:34. Drive: 6 plays, 49 yards, 3 first downs, 2:13 time elapsed following Janoris Jenkins’ interception and 16-yard return to Citadel 49. Key plays: On third-and-5 at Citadel 44, Tebow hit Murphy on a square out for 8 yards. Following a 2-yard run by Jeff Demps, Tebow then ran the option right for 18 yards to The Citadel’s 16. Score: Florida 7, The Citadel 0.
UF–Chris Rainey 7 run (Phillips kick good) at 8:07. Drive: 5 plays, 61 yards, 3 first downs, 1:24 time elapsed following Citadel punt. Key plays: Harvin started the drive by taking a direct snap from center while in motion and scooting 25 yards. Tebow later had a 16-yard option run to set up the touchdown run by Rainey, who went behind blocks from Phil Trautwein and Jim Tartt untouched into the end zone yards. Score: Florida 14, The Citadel 0.
UF–Riley Cooper 43 pass from Tebow (Phillips kick good) at 3:27. Drive: 5 plays, 84 yards, 3 first downs, 1:29 time elapsed following Citadel punt. Key plays: Tebow was 4-for-5 for 84 yards on the drive, hitting Percy Harvin on a 23-yard third-down play just before the touchdown pass to Cooper. Score: Florida 21, The Citadel 0.
SECOND QUARTER
UF–Percy Harvin 11 run (Phillips kick good) at 14:51. Drive: 5 plays, 89 yards, 4 first downs, 1:25 time elapsed following Citadel punt. Key plays: On the first play of the drive, Tebow hit Harvin for 53 yards. Two Kestahn Moore runs totaling 12 runs set up a Harvin 13-yard run with a direct snap on the final play of the first quarter. On the touchdown run, Harvin started right and then reversed himself and outran the Bulldogs to the end zone. Score: Florida 28, The Citadel 0.
UF–Deonte Thompson 31 pass from Tebow (Phillips kick good) at 13:16. Drive: 1 play, 31 yards, 1 first down, 0:08 time elapsed following Will Hill interception and 23-yard return. Key play: On the touchdown, Tebow had all sorts of time before firing a strike to Thompson, who had run a square out in the end zone. Score: Florida 35, The Citadel 0.
UF–Kestahn Moore 2 run (Phillips kick good) at 9:46. Drive: 3 plays, 84 yards, 2 first downs, 1:26 time elapsed following Citadel punt. Key play: On first down from the Florida 16, Tebow handed to Rainey, who went left and found no hole. Rainey then reversed his field, found a hole and scooted 73 yards, getting two blocks from wide receiver Deonte Thompson. Moore ran 9 and 2 yards on the next two plays for the touchdown. Score: Florida 42, The Citadel 0.
CIT–Cam Turner 29 pass from Scott Flanagan (Sam Keller kick no good) at 5:14. Drive: 10 plays, 78 yards, 4 first downs, 4:32 time elapsed following Florida kickoff. Key plays: Turner did it all on the drive – he ran once for 15 yards and completed 2-of-4 passes for 23 yards. The touchdown came on fourth-and-2 when Turner handed off to Terrell Dallas, who gave the ball to Flanagan on a reverse. After handing the ball off, Turner continued downfield and caught the touchdown pass. Score: Florida 42, The Citadel 6.
UF—Moore 22 run (Phillips kick good) at 1:52. Drive: 7 plays, 64 yards, 2 first downs, 3:22 time elapsed following Citadel kickoff. Key plays: Emmanuel Moody ran 28 yards on third-and-3 play from 43 and Moore got his touchdown on a fourth-and-2 play, running through a big hole and into the end zone untouched. Score: Florida 49, The Citadel 6.
THIRD QUARTER
UF–Javier Estopinan 1 run (Phillips kick good) at 10:36. Drive: 9 plays, 65 yards, 3 first downs, 4:24 time elapsed following second-half kickoff. Key plays: The Gators converted on two third-down plays, including Estopinan’s touchdown run, and QB John Brantley set up the touchdown with a 29-yard pass to David Nelson, who went out at The Citadel 8. Score: Florida 56, The Citadel 6.
CIT–Asheton Jordan 1 run (Keeler kick good) at 3:02. Drive: 14 plays, 74 yards, 4 first downs, 7:34 time elapsed following Florida kickoff. Key plays: The Citadel and QB Cam Turner converted 2-of-3 third-down plays for first downs and also converted a fourth-and-4 play from the Florida 41 when Turner hit Andre Roberts for 20 yards. Score: Florida 56, The Citadel 13.
UF–David Nelson 12 pass from John Brantley (Greg Taussig kick good) at 0:10. Drive: 5 plays, 69 yards, 3 first downs, 2:35 time elapsed following Citadel kickoff. Key plays: Brantley was 2-for-2 on the drive for 40 yards and Emmanuel Moody rumbled 40 yards on a third-and-1 to set up the touchdown pass on the next play. Score: Florida 63, The Citadel 13.
FOURTH QUARTER
UF–Emmanuel Moody 5 run (Caleb Sturgis kick good) at 9:44. Drive: 6 plays, 49 yards, 3 first downs, 3:01 time elapsed following Citadel punt. Key plays: Moody rushed four times for 27 yards on the drive. Score: Florida 70, The Citadel 13.
CIT–Taylor Cornett 15 pass from Turner (Keeler kick no good) at 0:28. Drive: 12 plays, 77 yards, 5 first downs, 4:57 time elapsed following Florida’s only punt of the day. Key plays: Turner was 6-of-8 passing for 72 yards on the drive and converted three-down plays, the last the touchdown. Score: Florida 70, The Citadel 19.
GAME SUMMARY
Time of game: 3:04. Kickoff: 1:36 p.m. End of game: 4:40 p.m.
Officials (assigned by SEC): Thomas Ritter, referee; Rick Lowe, umpire; G.A. Gus Morris III, head linesman; Terry Walters, line judge; Bobby Ailler Jr., field judge; Michael Williams, side judge; Stan Murray, back judge; Robert Rougeou, replay official.
Weather: Sunny, cool, 59 degrees. Winds from ENE at 16 miles per hour with occasional gusts.
Coin toss: Florida won the toss and deferred to the second half. The Citadel defends the South goal as Florida kicks off.
Attendance: 90,374.
Records: The Citadel 4-8, Florida 10-1.
Next games: The Citadel’s season over; Florida at Florida State Nov. 29.