The Gators had a chance to beat UCF in the Gasparilla Bowl on Thursday night in Tampa. They led 10-9 at halftime and 17-16 midway through the third quarter.
However, you’re not going to beat a solid team like UCF by making as many mistakes as the Gators did. Quarterback Emory Jones misfired on a handful of deep passes that should’ve been touchdowns.
The defense allowed Ryan O’Keefe to run roughshod over them. They missed a couple of field goals, failed to recover a muffed kickoff that was there for the taking and got pushed around by UCF’s offensive line in the fourth quarter.
UF’s lack of discipline was astounding. The defense committed 30 yards’ worth of penalties on the drive that put the Knights on top for good. Linebacker Ty’Ron Hopper, who was sensational in the first half, was ejected from the game for throwing what the officials deemed to be a punch after an extra point. The offensive line committed a few false start penalties. After the game, several Gators engaged in an on-field scuffle with the Knights instead of heading to the locker room.
While UCF deserves credit for making the plays that they needed to make to win the game, UF’s mistakes were the difference in UCF’s 29-17 win. It marked UCF’s first win against the Gators in school history in three attempts and meant that Florida finished with a losing record for the third time in the last nine years.
“It’s been a lot of different things – personal foul penalties, jumping offside penalties, holding penalties tonight, all of it,” UF interim coach Greg Knox said. “All of it came into play again. You can’t win big ballgames when you make those amount of mistakes.
“I thought our guys played hard, and we just were not able to overcome the mistakes we made.”
UCF’s duo of O’Keefe and Isaiah Bowser accounted for all but 86 of the Knights’ total offensive yards. O’Keefe caught seven passes for 85 yards, including a 54-yard touchdown late in the third quarter that pretty much ended any hope the Gators had of winning the game. He also ran for 74 yards on an end-around to set up another score. He racked up 110 rushing yards on four carries overall. He was named the game’s most valuable player.
Bowser, meanwhile, carried the ball 35 times for 155 yards and two touchdowns. The Gators (6-7, 2-6 SEC) did a nice job of keeping him contained early but wore down in the second half. UCF (9-4, 5-3 American Athletic) finished with a whopping 288 rushing yards as a team and averaged nearly six yards per carry.
Jones, who will reportedly enter the transfer portal soon, didn’t finish the season the way he wanted to. He completed just 14 of 36 passes for 171 yards and was sacked twice.
“I’m just trying to bottle up everything that just happened on the field,” he said. “Like Coach Knox said, the seniors, just thinking about those guys right now, and I wanted to send those guys out the right way, and we didn’t get that done. So, I’m kind of dealing with that right now.
“I’ll go talk to my mom, my family and the people that are important to me, and I’ll make a decision.”
The Gators were able to run the ball effectively to the tune of 28 carries for 208 yards when you factor out the sacks (7.4 yards per carry). Malik Davis led the way with 86 yards and a touchdown on seven carries, while Dameon Pierce tallied 13 carries for 57 yards and a score.
Justin Shorter led UF in receiving with three catches for 57 yards. Unfortunately, he took a vicious (but legal) hit to his head and neck area and didn’t appear to move for a while. He left the field on a cart, and the ESPN sideline reporter said that he was talking to the trainers at one point. Some videos seem to show him moving his hands ever so slightly as well. Knox said that there is no update available on his status as of yet.
Hopper looked like the best player on the field in the first half, as he made several impressive tackles in space and always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. He finished with four tackles and a career-high 1 ½ sacks prior to his ejection.
Defensive tackle Gervon Dexter led the team with a career-high-tying nine tackles.
With Florida leading 10-9 early in the third quarter, UCF quarterback Mikey Keene faked a handoff to the right to Bowser and flipped the ball to O’Keefe, who was sprinting in the opposite direction. The play-call completely caught UF off guard, and they didn’t have anybody in position to tackle O’Keefe. He ran for 74 yards down the left sideline before cornerback Kaiir Elam brought him down from behind at the 4-yard line.
Bowser scored on the next play with minimal resistance. Hopper was then ejected following the extra point that put the Knights up 16-10.
The Gators answered back quickly. Jones connected with Rick Wells for 20 yards over the middle of the field, and Davis juked his way for 32 yards around the left edge. Four plays later, Davis exploded through a gigantic hole up the middle that was paved by Richie Leonard and Kingsley Eguakun to put UF back on top, for the final time as it turned out.
An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on UCF’s Quadric Bullard allowed the Gators to kick off from midfield. They opted to squib kick it, and Chris Howard’s kick bounced off of a Knight and right toward two or three Gators. Somehow, they all failed to recover the ball, and UCF took over possession.
If the Gators had recovered that kickoff, the outcome might’ve been different. They would’ve had all of the momentum on their side and a chance to go up by eight points.
Instead, they melted down defensively.
Dexter was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct after the first play after he stood over a player and said something.
Two plays later, the Knights were awarded 15 more yards after Brenton Cox was found guilty of roughing the passer.
On third-and-goal at the 4, Keene threw a pass right at UF linebacker Amari Burney, only for Burney to drop the interception. Daniel Obarski’s 21-yard field goal gave UCF a 19-17 lead. That was yet another missed opportunity for the Gators to seize control of the game.
On Florida’s next drive, Shorter beat UCF’s secondary deep on a post route on third-and-19. All Jones needed to do was put it somewhere where he could’ve caught it, and it likely would’ve been a touchdown. Even if he had underthrown him by five yards, Shorter might’ve scored; that’s how wide open he was.
However, Jones did the one thing that he couldn’t do – he overthrew Shorter, and the ball fell incomplete.
“I think Emory’s a heck of a ballplayer,” Knox said. “If he stays at Florida or leaves, whatever he does, that’s his decision. I think he’s a great leader. I think he knows his potential and understands what he’s capable of doing.”
On the first play of UCF’s ensuing possession, Keene hit his deep shot to O’Keefe for the 54-yard touchdown that served as a dagger.
“Our goal was to get him at least 15 touches today, and you saw what he did with it when he got the ball,” UCF coach Gus Malzahn said. “He is one of the best playmakers in the game.”
In some ways, the way this game unfolded was the perfect way for the Gators to end their season. They played well enough at times to make you think that they might win the game, but they just couldn’t stay out of their own way with all of the missed opportunities and undisciplined play.
That’s the exact same way that their season as a whole played out. They were good enough to be competitive in most of their games but too sloppy to finish the deal more often than not.
“It’s kind of been that way this year; we made a lot of mistakes,” Knox said. “Penalties, you can’t make the mistakes we made and expect to win the ballgame, and we didn’t. We made big mistakes, and we were not able to overcome those tonight.”
The book on the 2021 Gators is now closed, and the Billy Napier era began in earnest as soon as the clock hit zero. While he won’t be around next year, Davis believes that better days are right around the corner for the program.
“I think they’ll improve,” Davis said. “I believe we’re moving in the right direction, and I think the guys that are here will have a better year next year and change things around.”