After more than a month of clamoring to see more of Anthony Richardson, Gators fans finally got their wish on Saturday against Georgia. The redshirt freshman quarterback from Gainesville made his first career start.
Unfortunately, his day didn’t go as well as anybody in orange and blue had hoped for or expected. He completed 12 of 20 passes for just 82 yards and gained just 26 yards on 12 carries. He lost a fumble and threw two interceptions on three consecutive drives late in the first half, including a pick-six.
Those mistakes allowed Georgia to turn a 3-0 lead into a 24-0 blowout in a matter of minutes.
Richardson left the game after getting hit in the head after running the ball early in the third quarter. He went to the medical tent and eventually the locker room. He didn’t return, and Emory Jones finished the game. Coach Dan Mullen didn’t provide an update on Richardson after the game nor did he say who would start for them against South Carolina next week even if Richardson is available.
It was a tough day for Richardson, but Mullen said that this game will serve as a valuable learning experience for him.
“We’ve got a lot of things he still has to grow and develop on,” Mullen said. “I think he has a great work ethic. He’s an extremely talented young man. I think he puts in the effort and puts in the time in learning the offense, learning the defenses, making reads and going through that. Obviously, a tough situation and tough scenario when you’re playing a great defense like Georgia has, and give them credit for having some really good defensive guys. Overall, he did some things really well and made a couple of errors, as well.
“Don’t think for a second that Anthony is not a competitor and wants to go out and is going to continue to work to get better. That’s a lot on me of coaching him up, helping him through, pointing out the things of areas that he can improve on out there on the field, and I talked to him about this. The talent’s there, and we’ve just got to get him coached up on the intangibles.”
Mullen said that the way Richardson played against LSU was the deciding factor in his decision to elevate him to the starting role. Richardson replaced Jones starting with the second series of the second half against LSU and led the Gators to four consecutive touchdowns to get back into the game.
“We were playing against LSU, I thought he had such a hot hand, played really well in the second half of that game,” Mullen said. “We split reps evenly pretty much in practice. And so, both guys were really ready to play, and I kind of just kept sticking with where we were when we finished the last game. Today, we’re going to go with Anthony right here, and Emory be ready.
“I think Anthony did some really good things out there on the field. A couple of mistakes here and there. Unfortunately, a couple of them were big, big mistakes for us.”
While the Gators never scored when Richardson was in the game, he did make some good plays early, as Mullen mentioned. He completed an 18-yard pass to Kemore Gamble on a wheel route. He completed an 8-yard pass to Justin Shorter on a perfectly timed throw on a curl route.
On one drive in the second quarter, Richardson completed a 16-yard pass to Jacob Copeland and rushed for gains of five and nine yards, the latter converting a fourth-and-2.
Then, after the Gators gained possession at their own 1-yard line following Rashad Torrence’s interception with 3:11 to go before halftime, the wheels fell off.
On second down, Mullen called a quarterback draw to get them away from their own end zone and give them some breathing room. Richardson powered through multiple defenders and got within a couple of yards of picking up a first down. Just as he was about to go down, though, UGA linebacker Nolan Smith ripped the ball out of his hands for a fumble recovery.
Bulldogs running back James Cook scored an 11-yard touchdown on the next play.
OK, so Richardson made the freshman mistake of not securing the ball well enough while being gang tackled, and Smith made a great play; that’s nothing to be overly concerned about, right?
Unfortunately for the Gators, Richardson imploded afterward.
On the second play of their next drive, he tried to squeeze a pass into Xzavier Henderson over the middle of the field. Travon Walker deflected it, and Smith intercepted it. One play later, Georgia was in the end zone again, this time on Stetson Bennett’s 36-yard strike to Kearis Jackson.
Finally, after Richardson led the Gators to near midfield with 17 seconds to go, he stared down a receiver and threw a pick-six to Nakobe Dean.
In the blink of an eye, a highly competitive game and an encouraging debut by Richardson turned into a disaster for both him and the team.
Running back Dameon Pierce said that he liked the composure that Richardson showed even after all of his major mistakes, and he doesn’t think he’ll have any trouble bouncing back from this game.
“When he made the mistakes in real time, like on the last one when he threw a pick, he gave the effort to try to go run the guy down,” he said. “He didn’t hang his head. He tried to go make the play on his end for his mistake or whatever. And that’s all you really ask for, effort. It wasn’t a play where he hung his head; he tried to learn on the fly. Being thrown in that situation, especially as a young quarterback like he is, trying to learn things, trying to get used to the game speed and the tempo of things, especially in the SEC matchup, is big.
“He’s not an experienced player yet. Experienced players know that with the game of football, it comes good days, bad days, even horrible days, and especially at that quarterback position. The type of person Anthony is and the type of athlete he is and the way he approaches things, I’m 98 percent sure that this really won’t affect him. Is he disappointed? Yes. Did it not go how he wanted to? Maybe not. It probably didn’t go how he planned it to.
“But, Anthony, he’s a smart kid. He’s a strong kid, mentally. I think this game is going to be a great learning point for him. He’s going to learn from all of his mistakes he made. He’s going to understand the game just that much more, and this is only going to help him as a player in the future.”