The Gators faced a proverbial fork in the road moment this week. After losing two consecutive games and three of their last four, they could’ve rallied together and beaten a South Carolina team that barely beat East Carolina, Troy and Vanderbilt to help squelch some of the negative energy that is surrounding the program.
Or they could’ve given up, lost to one of the worst teams in the SEC and let this season become an unsalvageable disaster.
It became pretty clear which path this team is heading down on Saturday in Columbia. South Carolina didn’t just upset the Gators; they dominated them in every phase of the game from the opening kickoff to the final snap to win 40-17.
“I didn’t see it coming,” UF coach Dan Mullen said. “I’m obviously really disappointed. You give them credit. Their guys played really well, made plays that were there to be made. I’ve coached a long time, so I don’t know that that stuff is stunning really ever to me, but, obviously, [I] wasn’t seeing the game play out this way.
“Give them a lot of credit. They played well, made a lot of plays out there, able to run the ball and control the tempo of the game and capitalize on some mistakes that we made. Disappointed in what we did, and we’ve got to work and find a way to get better.”
Offensively, Florida gained just 340 total yards against a defense that ranked near the middle-of-the-pack in the SEC. They ran for just 82 yards at a 3.2 yards-per-carry clip against a defense that ranked 11th in the conference against the run entering the day. They picked up just 13 first downs and turned it over twice.
Even with the Gamecocks’ struggles against the run this season, the Gators didn’t try to establish their running game, throwing it on 10 consecutive plays to open the game, with some success. The running backs combined for just 14 carries the entire night.
“I think part of that for them was putting everybody at the line of scrimmage, and that’s why we were able to hit some explosive plays early on in the game throwing the ball down the field,” Mullen said. “Then we’ve got to be better at the line of scrimmage, up front, our offense, offensive, defensively, on the line, we’ve got to play better.”
Defensively, the Gators (4-5, 2-5 SEC) were soft along the interior of the defensive line. The linebackers were frequently out of position and didn’t make the plays when they were in the correct spots. The secondary made a transfer from St. Francis University look like an All-American.
South Carolina, which entered the day ranking 13th in the league in total offense and scoring offense, took advantage of the Gators’ horrific defensive play to score 40 points and gain 459 yards, including 284 yards on the ground. They surpassed their season rushing average in the first half and nearly matched their total yardage average as well.
The Gamecocks (5-4, 2-4) scored on their first five drives of the game for the first time since 2013.
Jason Brown, who was making his first start at South Carolina after opening the season as the third-string quarterback, completed 14 of 24 passes for 175 yards and two touchdowns. The Gators were only able to sack him once, which allowed him to look like a seasoned veteran back there.
Josh Vann caught seven of his passes for 111 yards and a score. Running backs Kevin Harris (16 carries, 128 yards) and ZaQuandre White (13 carries, 111 yards) helped the Gamecocks average 6.8 yards per carry.
The Gators have now given up more than 280 rushing yards in two of their last three games, and they got burned by the same counter play that LSU ran against them over and over on a few occasions against South Carolina.
“Something we’ve got to look at that,” Mullen said. “Maybe just schematically some things going on, some missed tackles. We’ve got to be stouter up front. We’ve got to be better and more physical right at the line of scrimmage and the point of attack with our defensive front.”
Despite how hard the game was for their fans to watch and how ugly the stats look, Mullen said that he doesn’t believe that his players quit. They had 20-30 players miss practice each day throughout the week with the flu, and quarterback Emory Jones tested positive for the flu on Saturday morning. The sick players didn’t choose to not play in the game, which they easily could’ve done. They gutted it out and played.
“I don’t want to make excuses for those guys, but I want to give our guys credit for battling, for facing adversity,” he said. “We had a bunch of guys dealing with sickness. We had to fly some guys up separately from the team, keep everybody separated. Those guys, they still went out. Even though the large number of guys that missed practice, we had quite a few that our training staff tried to do a good job today of IV-ing guys and try to get them ready to be able to go out and perform.
“That’s what I love. I think our guys compete, and they’re going to work, and they’re going to fight, and they’re going to give everything they have. We as coaches have got to do a better job to put them in the positions for the effort they give, to put them in position to be successful.”
The game started out looking like it would be a shootout.
The Gamecocks used a 16-yard completion from Brown to Vann and runs of 12 yards by White and eight yards by Harris to advance to the Florida 21-yard line on their opening possession. Parker White’s 39-yard field goal gave them the 3-0 lead.
On the ensuing possession, Jones (17-for-30, 258 yards, two touchdowns, one interception) connected with Justin Shorter (five receptions, 92 yards) for 52 yards to the South Carolina 23. Three plays later, Jones hit Xzavier Henderson on a slant for a 12-yard touchdown to give the Gators the 7-3 lead, which proved to be their only lead of the night.
White answered right back for South Carolina by sprinting through a gigantic hole in the UF defense for 54 yards. Juju McDowell finished the drive with a 2-yard touchdown run to reclaim the lead.
A 61-yard completion from Jones to freshman receiver Marcus Burke (two catches, 73 yards) led to a game-tying 30-yard field goal by Chris Howard.
Back came the Gamecocks, this time with a 39-yard run by Harris around the left side of the Florida defense, which couldn’t have done much worse of a job at setting the edge on the play. White drilled a 35-yard field goal to give South Carolina the 13-10 lead.
As it turned out, the shootout didn’t last long. Only one team was able to maintain their outstanding scoring pace.
UF went three-and-out on its next possession. On the first play of their next drive, Brown connected with Vann for 50 yards down the left sideline to the Gators’ 26. Three plays later, Brown and Vann teamed up for a 24-yard scoring strike.
Completions of 18 yards to Traevon Kenion and 19 yards to Nick Muse led to a 40-yard field goal by White to extend South Carolina’s lead to 23-10 on their next possession.
The Gators got the ball back with 1:05 to go before halftime and tried to cut into the lead. Instead, Jones got way too loose with the ball while scrambling on second down at the 19, and Aaron Sterling knocked the ball free. Jabari Ellis picked up the fumble and returned it 18 yards for a touchdown to make it 30-10 at halftime.
That was basically the game, as both teams added meaningless touchdowns in the second half, the Gators’ coming on a 9-yard throw from Jones to Rick Wells early in the fourth quarter.
Saturday’s game was one that Florida fans would like to have permanently erased from their memories, and yet they’ll probably remember it vividly for the rest of time.
The Gators had a chance to get back in the win column and quiet the Mullen hot seat talk for at least a couple of weeks. Now the hot seat noise will be louder than ever and impossible to ignore.
Mullen will enter the final three games of the regular season still searching for answers.
“We’ve got to make sure we’ve got the guys and the right guys in the right position to make plays,” he said. “We’ve got to continue to build confidence with the guys right there. It’s not one little thing. You go look throughout the season, there’s a lot of little things that have gone wrong. We’re not doing things that you play winning football at. We’re not playing great at the line of scrimmage. We’re turning the football over. Those are two huge things.
“We’ve got to get better at special teams within the kicking game. If you look at that, we’re not doing the things you need to do to play winning football. We did that early in the season, but you can’t not control the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, and then you’re turning the ball over in other situations. That’s not a recipe for success.”
But it is the recipe for a season that has sunk quicker than the Titanic.