COLUMBIA, SC — The effects of the first quarter offensive stimulus plan began wearing off before the half and by the time the third quarter wound its way down to a close, the Florida Gators were in need of a timely bailout plan and who better than the nation’s top-rated defensive unit to come up with another defining play in a season in which almost all the defining plays have been made on that side of the ball?
As the Gators took the field for the start of the fourth quarter, South Carolina had the momentum of a drive that had its beginnings when the Gamecocks made a defensive stand of their own. When Eric Norwood led a charge of Gamecocks to stop Tim Tebow in his tracks at the South Carolina 29 — the third time in the quarter the Gators had gotten into South Carolina territory only to come up empty — the energy of that play made its way to an offensive unit that had managed only five total yards in two previous third quarter possessions. Ten plays later, the Gamecocks had the ball on the Florida 22, needing three yards on third down to keep alive a drive that had dagger to the heart written all over it.
“It was third and two and they were driving the ball, had a chance to go either field goal or touchdown,” Florida defensive coordinator Charlie Strong said after Florida’s 24-14 win over South Carolina Saturday night.
Strong’s defensive call from the sideline brought the blitz from the right side and called for the corners to get into passing lanes. It was the perfect call for the play that totally changed the outcome of the game.
At the snap, middle linebacker Brandon Spikes got into the South Carolina backfield from the right side, backing the tackle into quarterback Stephen Garcia’s throwing lane. Garcia tried to strong arm the ball past Spikes, but nickel back Markihe Anderson got a hand on the ball.
“Everybody broke on a slant and Markihe hit it up in the air,” cornerback Joe Haden explained.
Anderson’s deflection changed the trajectory of the ball just enough that the normally sure-handed Moe Brown couldn’t make the catch. Instead of an easy catch for a first down, the ball bounced off his face mask.
“Markihe tipped the ball,” Strong said. “We were running a blitz and he was coming right into the face of the blitz. Spikes was right in the throwing lane and Markihe was right there and it bounced right off of his hand. Markihe came right under it and Moe Brown didn’t see the ball.”
The ball bounced back toward the line of scrimmage where Trattou came down with it and it was off to the races. He sprinted past the South Carolina offensive linemen and broke to the sideline where he picked up a convoy of teammates to block for him. Fifty-three yards later he tripped over teammate Jermaine Cunningham at the South Carolina 26.
“He was running like he was getting chased by a dog,” remarked defensive end Carlos Dunlap, who batted two Garcia passes in the air and spend a good portion of his evening collapsing the pocket.
With the field flipped, this time the Gators converted. It took four plays — a Tebow to Brandon James pass for 11 yards, runs of six and eight yards by Jeff Demps, and a one-yard blast over the left side by Tebow — to get the touchdown that got Florida off the hook with 13:25 remaining in the game.
With the cushion of a 10-point lead to work with, Florida’s defense took over the game and turned it into a shark-like feeding frenzy, holding South Carolina to -20 yards on 11 fourth quarter plays. Florida sacked Garcia six times for 45 yards in losses on the night, but four of them, good for 28 yards in losses, came in the fourth quarter when the defense completely took over the game.
“The second half was dominance with defense as well as I have ever seen,” Florida coach Urban Meyer said. The numbers told the story. In the first half, South Carolina moved the ball for 206 yards and two touchdowns. In the second half, the Gamecocks had only 41 total yards and the drive to the Florida 22 was as close as they came to scoring.
South Carolina’s offense wasn’t the only one that bogged down in the second half. Florida’s offense, which produced 17 points (touchdowns by Riley Cooper and Emmanuel Moody and 32-yard Caleb Sturgis field goal) and 215 yards on the Gators’ first three possessions of the game, came out cooking and looking like the offensive woes that have plagued the Gators throughout the season were a thing of the past.
But just like some better known recent stimulus plans, this one hit a wall. After that hot start, the Gators managed only 124 yards the rest of the way. Part of it had to do with good South Carolina defense, but the lack of production had plenty to do with a funk of predictability and missed opportunities highlighted by two dropped touchdown passes by Cooper, three missed field goals by Sturgis (51, 54 and 29 yards) and three golden opportunities to put the game away in the third quarter.
The Gators began their first drive of the third quarter on their own 40 and that was their worst starting field position of the second half. That drive fizzled after the Gators moved into South Carolina territory, fueled by a first down sack of Tebow.
The second possession of the quarter began in good shape at the South Carolina 49 but once the Gators got to the 30, they went backward thanks to a four-yard loss on an attempted sweep by Jeff Demps and a third down sack of Tebow. Sturgis came on to try a 54-yard field goal but it missed wide left, his second miss of the game.
The best scoring chance of the three third down possessions was set up by a 49-yard punt return by Brandon James that gave the Gators the ball on the South Carolina 37. On first down, the Gators went for the dagger to the heart and Tebow delivered a strike to Riley Cooper in the end zone but instead of a touchdown, Cooper let the ball slip through his fingers, the second sure touchdown he dropped.
“They [the two dropped passes] were close but any good receiver has to come down with them,” said Cooper, who caught a 68-yard touchdown pass from Tebow on Florida’s first offensive series of the game. “I got to come down with those especially in games like this.”
Two plays later, the Gators elected to go for it on fourth and one at the 28 but South Carolina filled all the gaps and All-SEC linebacker Eric Norwood knocked Tebow back for a one-yard loss.
For the next 10 plays, South Carolina seemed to have everything going its way. The Gators brought pressure from every angle and on every play, but Garcia seemed to sense where it was coming from and he got the ball to open areas. He scrambled for one first down and delivered a staggering blow for another first down to the Florida 29 when he escaped at least two tacklers on a fourth-and-two for a six-yard run to the Florida 29.
After an incompletion and a false start against the South Carolina offensive line, Garcia found tight end Weslye Saunders for a 12-yard gain to set up the play that changed the entire game.
South Carolina came to the line of scrimmage looking for a first down. The Gators came to the line of scrimmage needing a bailout but they were confident that someone was going to come up with the big play to make this rescue plan successful. Such anticipation had its roots in the summer when the entire defense trained together every day in the hot Florida sun.
“We train hard in the whole offseason so in times like that, we expect somebody to make a play,” Dunlap said. “It doesn’t always have to be the biggest playmaker like Brandon Spikes or Ryan Stamper on our defense. We expect everybody to make a play the way we trained the whole summer.”
Because they made the critical plays in the fourth quarter, the Gators dodged another bullet and ran their record to 10-0 and their winning streak to 20 straight even though this was another one of those games too close for comfort.
“We did not play perfect and I’m not sure we have played perfect in quite awhile,” Meyer said.
No, the Gators weren’t perfect but they didn’t have to be. For the tenth straight Saturday they were simply the best team on the field and that’s all they had to be.