Florida football finally gave their home crowd something to cheer about early in the game, scoring a touchdown on their opening drive against the UCF Knights on Saturday night. Graham Mertz’s 13-yard touchdown pass to Elijhah Badger marked the first lead Florida has had at home against a power four opponent in 2024. It was also Florida’s first opening drive touchdown since Nov. 18th, 2023, vs Missouri. A true breath of fresh air for Gator Nation. The Gators would go on to hold the lead for the remainder of the game behind a dominant defensive performance, defeating UCF 24-13.
“I think today was a product of a lot of hard work the past two weeks,” head coach Billy Napier said postgame. “I think we made a ton of progress in the open date. I can’t compliment the players and the staff enough in terms of their attitude towards the work we’ve been doing the last two weeks and then I thought that carried over.”
With co-defensive coordinator Ron Roberts in the booth for the second game in a row, Florida held UCF to just 273 yards of offense and didn’t allow a touchdown until 7:50 left in the 4th quarter. The Gators recorded a season high five sacks in week six, dominating a UCF offensive line that struggled to pick up blitzers for four quarters.
The Gators stopped UCF’s 2nd ranked rushing attack the best you can, holding the Knights to 108 rushing yards on 40 attempts, an average of 2.7 yards per carry. 108 yards is the third lowest rush total UCF has been held to under Gus Malzahn. Florida held star running back RJ Harvey to 75 yards and 4.7 yards per carry, both season lows for the senior.
“I think that we played with better gap integrity. I think we got after it up front. I thought we tackled. There was a lot more pursuit, gang-tackle, knock back, Napier said on the run defense. “I think we’re on the same page and ultimately we played well on all three levels, I think you got to do that if you’re going to play good run defense. We’re close to playing even better. There’s a handful plays where the ball kind of rolls off the table or breaks contain. We could have definitely play better.”
One of the key factors in the game was Florida’s redzone defense. After scoring a touchdown to open the game, the Gators were able to hold UCF to a field goal on the Knights’ opening script. To start the second half, UCF had the ball for over eight minutes but only came away with three points, which was a massive win for a Florida team that held a three-touchdown lead.
Florida also came away with two 4th down stops in the first half, which helped the Gators mount a 24-3 lead at halftime.
The Gators fell flat on offensive in the second half, failing to score another point in the final 30 minutes. However, UCF’s offense couldn’t gain any rhythm through the passing game and had several uninspiring drives that took up way too much clock. Florida’s large lead at halftime forced the Knights into a style of offense they don’t execute efficiently, and the Gators’ defense capitalized.
Florida improved to 3-2 (1-1 SEC) after week six’s victory over UCF. The Gators are set to take on Tennessee in Knoxville next week.