The Week That Was: Five thoughts on the UCF game

The Gators (6-7, 2-6 SEC) concluded their 2021 season on Thursday night with a 29-17 loss to UCF in the Gasparilla Bowl in Tampa.

Here are my five thoughts on the game.

1. Hopefully Justin Shorter will be OK.

His health is the biggest concern for the Gators following the game. It didn’t look good to see him lying there without moving at all for at least a few seconds before the television cameras cut away from him.

You could tell by the way his teammates reacted that they were worried that this was something serious.

Fortunately, ESPN’s sideline reporter said that Shorter was talking to the trainers as they carted him off of the field, and he also seemed to move his hands slightly.

As of the time this article was written, the latest update is that he is at the hospital undergoing tests. Hopefully, this is all precautionary, the tests won’t reveal any major damage and he’ll back to living his normal life soon.

2. This loss doesn’t really mean anything to the program other than the humiliation of watching UCF celebrate like they won the national championship.

Whether they had won or lost this game, Billy Napier was going to have some major work to do to rebuild this program. The Gasparilla Bowl was essentially a one-off exhibition game that will have no bearing on how the 2022 season or beyond goes.

Napier’s going to have recruit more talent and depth in the trenches, find the right quarterback, get more SEC-caliber speed at receiver, hire the right defensive play-caller and improve the overall culture surrounding the program. All of those things would’ve still been issues even if they had won this game by 20.

Maybe this loss will actually be a good thing in that it will make the players more likely to buy in to a new way of doing things heading into the offseason. What they did this season clearly wasn’t good enough, so why not give Napier a shot?

3. Instilling discipline needs to be one of Napier’s top priorities.

Dumb, easily avoidable penalties have killed the Gators all season, and it hurt them one final time against the Knights. There was the one drive where Gervon Dexter was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct after he stood over a player and said something.

All he needed to do was walk away from the situation and let the UCF player know about his feelings via social media after the game if he felt so inclined. Instead, he made a selfish mistake that eventually cost his team points.

Then, two plays later, Brenton Cox was penalized for roughing the passer. Cox has to lead the nation in roughing the passer calls over the past two years, but he apparently still hasn’t learned how to control himself when he has a free shot at the quarterback.

Ty’Ron Hopper was ejected after he shoved a player in the back following an extra point. Yes, there seems to be a lot of evidence that the UCF player spit in his face and Hopper didn’t punch him like the officials ruled, but he still has to be more careful to not even put himself in a position where the referees can think that he punched someone.

And, then, after the game, there were a few Gators who decided to make up for not beating UCF by trying to beat them up. Just get off of the field. All you’re doing by fighting is hurting yourself. Napier saw that, as will the scouts and general managers of NFL teams and the coaches of other college teams.

This should be a fairly simple fix for Napier. He’s just going to have to make them run so much that their legs are on fire if they make undisciplined mistakes like this in practices, games, meetings and even classes. He may even have to sit one of his best players for the rest of the game if they commit a penalty like this early next season, even if it costs them the game.

This could be a situation where Napier has to lose a battle to win the war. He has to send a strong message to the players that you’re not going to play at the University of Florida if you’re going to do stuff like that no matter how many yards you gain or how many tackles you make.

The culture is the biggest problem with the program.

4. The trenches need massive improvement, and that’s going to be more of a long-term thing.

I don’t care how many defensive linemen and linebackers the Gators were missing; there is no reason that they should ever give up 288 rushing yards to UCF. It was very alarming to see Isaiah Bowser take the handoff and not even be touched until he was five yards down the field, which happened on a couple of occasions.

Of those 288 yards, 196 of them came in the second half. That comes down to depth and conditioning. There’s a pretty big drop-off between Gervon Dexter and Jalen Lee and an even bigger drop-off between Lee and the next defensive tackle on the depth chart.

On the other side, while the Gators rushed for 205 yards, they couldn’t get much going up the middle at times. They were very dependent on the outside running plays, where the tight ends and receivers did an excellent job of blocking.

While Napier can bring in some transfers to provide immediate help on both lines of scrimmage, this is going to take two or three recruiting cycles to fix.

5. It was good to see some of the young defenders play well.

Princely Umanmielen and Derek Wingo made their first starts, while Lee, Dexter, Hopper, Jason Marshall, Scooby Williams, Donovan McMillon, Chief Borders, Antwaun Powell and Justus Boone all recorded stats.

Hopper was outstanding prior to his ejection, registering four tackles and a sack. He flew to the ball and wrapped up well. Dexter made a career-high-tying nine tackles, while Lee made a bone-crushing tackle-for-loss that led to a missed field goal early in the second half.

Marshall didn’t have any noticeable issues in coverage, and Williams made a couple of tackles.

It was encouraging to see the future of the defense show flashes of brilliance. The talent seems to be there for a quick defensive turnaround. It will just be a matter of whether the new staff can develop that talent and install a good scheme or not.