Luke Del Rio spent five days thinking about his first play . The adrenaline was flowing against UMass and Del Rio launched the furthest ball he can ever recall throwing. The pass sailed over Antonio Callaway’s outstretched arms, incomplete.
“I was really juiced up. I was excited, absolutely,” Del Rio said following the UMass game. “That was probably the furthest I’ve ever thrown a football. I threw it and was like, ‘Oh my God; that is way too far.’ I didn’t think I could overthrow him, but I did.”
Jim McElwain took his team to task after its first game saying the Gators didn’t register a single explosive play against the Minutemen. The Gators came out and established the run early against Kentucky. The 15-play drive that covered 84 yards and resulted in a touchdown featured 11 rushes for 62 yards. Mark Thompson added the exclamation point to the drive with a three-yard touchdown plunge. It was the longest scoring drive (in terms of time) since Nov. 30, 2013 (vs. Florida State) when they reeled off a 14-play, 83-yard drive that took 8:29 off the clock.
“That was great. You always want to establish the line of scrimmage,” center Cam Dillard said. “It was great to be able to do that and assert and take a team’s will. I feel like that’s what we did tonight.”
Establishing the run early allowed Del Rio a second chance. The same play call came up, play action, with Callaway streaking down he field. For the second week in a row Del Rio got a clean pocket and a streaking Callaway.
“It’s funny because it felt the exact same as last week’s throw, so I think it was like, ‘I threw it too far again.’ But this time I threw it to where he could run inside and get it,” Del Rio said of his first quarter pass. “Last week it was over his outside shoulder, we harped that this week and we wanted to work on it. Miss inside if you’re going to miss. That guy is blazing fast. He caught up to it.”
He caught up to it for a 78-yard score, the longest touchdown pass and catch since Treon Harris hit Ahmad Fulwood for an 86-yard touchdown in the Birmingham Bowl. Back-to-back touchdown drives, one takes seven and a half minutes, the next just 12 seconds.
Del Rio wasn’t done. The redshirt sophomore tossed four touchdowns, all over 26 yards, and threw for 320 yards. Del Rio is the first Florida Gator quarterback to throw for at least 320 yards and four touchdowns since Rex Grossman (Oct. 6 2001 vs. LSU).
The Gators dominated in every sense of the word on Saturday night. The Kentucky Wildcats aren’t a good football team, far from it, but unlike in the season opener the Gators did what they’re supposed to do to inferior teams.
“There is not a whole lot to say other than we got our butts kicked,” Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops said. “We got handled.”
Jim McElwain called out the offense to be more explosive, they answered that call and Kentucky didn’t have an answer.