The No. 10 Gators committed just about every major mistake that you can possibly think of against Kentucky on Saturday night.
Offensively, quarterback Emory Jones threw an interception on UF’s side of the field. The nation’s third-ranked rushing attack was limited to just 4.4 yards per carry. A slip by Jacob Copeland cost the Gators a game-tying touchdown in the final minute.
Defensively, they gave up a long touchdown by missing multiple tackles on a screen pass for the second week in a row.
They had a field goal blocked and returned for a touchdown.
And none of that was even the worst part of their night. Gators fans will probably be seeing yellow flags in their nightmares for the next week.
They committed a mind-boggling 15 penalties for 115 yards. For context, that’s more than half the number of total yards that Kentucky’s offense gained (224). Eight of the infractions were false start penalties. It was the most penalties committed in a game by the Gators since they were also flagged 15 times against Mississippi State in 2001.
Many of the false starts came on third- or fourth-and-short situations, which made the Gators’ offense have to fight an uphill battle for the entire game. They converted just four of 13 third downs, largely because of the unfavorable situations that they put themselves into.
All of the mistakes created a hole too deep for the Gators to dig themselves out of during a fourth-quarter rally. Kentucky (5-0, 3-0 SEC) dealt Florida a deflating and stunning 20-13 defeat for their first home win in the series since 1986. The sellout crowd at Kroger Field celebrated the historic moment by rushing the field.
“You’re not going to make all the mistakes we made in the course of a game and expect to win,” Florida coach Dan Mullen said. “You’re not going to win in the SEC doing that.
“I’ll get with [offensive line coach] John Hevesy, and we’ve got to get better. That’s something we’re going to look at with a problem. But, give their crowd credit. They had a great crowd. They had a lot of energy. Their guys played hard. But, you can’t do that; that’s a lack of mental toughness.”
The game started off innocently enough for the Gators (3-2, 1-2). On their second series of the game, they drove 60 yards on seven plays. Dameon Pierce produced two runs of 13 yards, while Jones connected with Xzavier Henderson for 22 and nine yards. Jones finished the drive by connecting with Ja’Quavion Fraziars for a 7-yard touchdown on a screen pass.
On the ensuing possession, Kentucky quarterback Will Levis lofted a screen pass to Wan’Dale Robinson from the UF 41. Robinson broke two or three tackles and sprinted into the end zone to tie the game at seven.
The rest of the first half was a defensive battle (or an offensive struggle, depending on how you want to look at it.) Back-to-back false starts by running back Malik Davis and left guard Ethan White turned a third-and-1 situation into a punt early in the second quarter.
The Gators added a field goal on their next drive to take a 10-7 lead into halftime but not without some controversy.
Florida got the ball back at its own 13-yard line with 1:56 to go and all three of its timeouts. Rather than trying to aggressively push the ball down the field and pad the lead, Mullen opted to run the ball, throw a couple of short passes, not use his timeouts and go into the locker room.
If Mullen had chosen to be aggressive there, it might’ve changed the outcome of the game. Then again, Jones just as easily could’ve thrown a pick-six, and fans would be questioning his aggressiveness.
Mullen stands by his clock-management decision.
“You’re on the road, your back’s to the wall, we’re making some errors right there,” he said. “You’re looking at the clock, you’ve got about 30 seconds, I think it was. We got the ball on our 30-yard line. Like I said, I thought we’re doing some good things, let’s just go kind of settle everybody down and not create a potential issue right there.”
On their opening drive of the second half, the Gators advanced the ball into Wildcats territory thanks to a pass-interference call and two Jones completions for 21 yards.
Facing a third-and-3 at the 37, center Kingsley Eguakun was flagged for a false start. Jones’ pass on third-and-8 was broken up. Instead of having a better chance at converting the third down or having the option of attempting a long field goal, the Gators were forced to punt.
Jones took part of the blame for the never-ending parade of false starts.
“I can be a lot louder,” he said. “Part of that was my fault and my job, but we just have to go back to the drawing board and try to get better with that.”
It looked like the Gators finally got the big play they needed to bust the game open on the ensuing Kentucky drive. Tre’Vez Johnson intercepted Levis’ pass and returned it to the Kentucky 16. However, nose tackle Antonio Valentino was penalized for an illegal blindside block, which moved the ball back 15 yards.
That penalty, along with a holding call on Eguakun that wiped out a first-down run by Pierce, proved to be the pivotal sequence in the game.
Jace Christmann’s 48-yard field goal attempt was blocked by Josh Paschal and returned 76 yards for a touchdown by Trevin Wallace to give the Wildcats their first lead of the night. Valentino somewhat atoned for his earlier mistake by blocking the extra point attempt to keep it a 13-10 game.
It was the first blocked field goal returned for a touchdown against the Gators since Miami did so in the Peach Bowl following the 2004 season.
“You can’t have a blocked kick,” Mullen said. “That was seven points. That’s a 10-point swing right there. That’s a big, big deal, so we’ve got to get that fixed.
“You cover the ball and try and get them on the ground, but we have a bunch of offensive linemen in there. So, you fan out and try and get them on the ground. I’ll be honest with you, we do spend a lot of time on snap counts, but we don’t spend a lot of time on tackling drills with the offensive linemen. We do them in training camp but just to teach the technique overall.”
A holding call on White negated a 9-yard completion from Jones to Henderson and put the Gators behind the chains to begin UF’s first drive of the fourth quarter.
Two plays later, Jones stared down Davis over the middle of the field and was picked off by J.J. Weaver. If it had been second-and-1 instead of second-and-16, things may have played out differently on that drive.
The Wildcats ran the ball down the Gators’ throats on the next drive, picking up all 29 yards on the ground, punctuated by Chris Rodriguez’s 9-yard score.
“We had a lot of guys trying to go for the ball, strip the ball and things like that,” UF defensive end Zachary Carter said. “We just have to finish better in the fourth quarter.”
The rest of the fourth quarter was dominated by the Gators, and you thought that they just might find another way to escape Kroger Field with an unlikely victory.
Jones led the Gators on a 13-play, 59-yard drive to the Kentucky 11. Mullen initially planned to go for it on fourth-and-2, but a false start call on White forced him to send Christmann out there for a 33-yard field goal. Not getting a touchdown on that drive came back to haunt the Gators in the end.
“We weren’t locked in on offense at all times, and it got to us at one part of the game,” Jones said. “So, we just have to go to the drawing board and get better with that.”
Florida drove 54 yards on 11 plays on its final possession but committed two more false start penalties along the way. Jones completed a screen pass to Copeland for what should’ve been a walk-in 5-yard touchdown, but Copeland slipped while trying to turn upfield, and his knee touched the ground at the 7-yard line.
Jones’ fourth-and-goal pass from the 8 was intended for Trent Whittemore but was swatted away by Jacquez Jones to seal the upset win for the home team.
The Gators dominated the stat sheet against the Wildcats. They outgained them 382-224, outrushed them 171-137 and outpassed them 211-87. They also allowed Kentucky to convert just one of 10 third and fourth down opportunities.
With those statistical advantages, the Gators probably win this game 99 times out of 100. But the one scenario where they lose was if they committed 15 penalties and gave away seven points on special teams.
Florida simply deserved to lose this game.
“The penalties weren’t little, like, ticky-tacky things,” Mullen said. “You’re talking taking third downs off the board, third down and backing us up, taking conversions, taking first-down runs off the board with holding penalties. Those were the issues. There’s a lot of things you’re going to point out and say, ‘Guys played really well playing the game.’ You can’t do that and expect to win a game making that many mental errors.”