Difficult would be an understatement if I wanted to describe watching the Gators lose to Vanderbilt Saturday. I know I’m not alone when I say I’m really disappointed in where we are right now.
You are what your record says you are. The Gators are 4-5 and playing like it. You can be a 4-5 that is a pretty good team only it doesn’t get the breaks but you can’t say that this year. Our offense is good for about 17 points a game. Our defense seems unable to make the plays like it used to. We are not stopping the run in critical situations although we held Vanderbilt to less than three yards a carry. Their quarterback made some big plays with his feet when he had to and we just didn’t get the job done.
Special teams didn’t help. We used to be good at blocking punts and field goals and turning them into points. I guess I took it for granted.
We’re not getting the same game-breaking turnovers that we got last year. I really can’t remember when we got our last interception. Arkansas maybe? We used to get fumbles and interceptions that we were able to turn into six easy points because we had field position. Not anymore. It’s been a rough year.
We averaged less than two yards per carry with the run against Vanderbilt. One of their defenders said they knew if they stopped the run they would win. They certainly stuffed us in every critical situation.
Tyler Murphy’s shoulder must still be hurting. It was a bad time for him to implode. His passes seemed inaccurate, late and behind, which tells me that shoulder isn’t 100%. I saw what he did earlier and he looked good before he got hurt against LSU.
Out entire offense seems out of synch. We are 109th in the country in offense. First and goal on the one, we ran the speed option. It was an audible, but why was that play even in our red zone game plan? I’m still wondering where that play came from. Instead of a touchdown to get us back in it, we had to settle for a field goal.
It’s hard to win with three picks and a fumble by the quarterback. Even though our defense held them to less than 200 yards, we gave Vanderbilt a short field to work with thanks to those turnovers.
I thought we were going to get back in it when we scored in the third quarter to make it 24-10, but then we couldn’t get a stop. They drove 75 yards on 17 plays and took more than seven minutes off the clock to go up 31-10.
When your offense isn’t making plays and your defense can’t get the other team off the field in critical situations, you lose games, which is what we did. Disappointing to say the least.
We travel to South Carolina to see the “Ball Coach” this week. Maybe he’ll take it easy on us, but I doubt it. The cry in Hogtown used to be “wait until next year.”
I guess that’s what we have to look forward to.
Go Gators!!
John Reaves QB7