The Florida Gators have a long way to go before they can match Michigan’s legendary “point-a-minute” football team of 1901.
You remember that team, don’t you? You don’t? Well, let me tell you about it. Coach Fielding Yost’s team went 10-0 in the regular season, beating the leather helmets off of Albion, Case, Indiana, Northwestern, Buffalo, Carlisle, Ohio State, Chicago, Beloit and Iowa by a combined 506-0. That’s right, 506-0, thanks to 128-0 and 89-0 home spankings of Buffalo and Beloit.
Ten games, 600 minutes … well, not quite the “point-a-minute” team but close. And just for good measure, Yost’s youngsters went out to Pasadena, Calif., to play in the very first Rose Bowl (officially the 1902 Rose Bowl) and beat Stanford, 49-0.
Monte, hit the cash register – 555 points in 660 minutes.
Flash forward now 107 seasons and you have Urban Meyer’s Gator juggernaut run through the Southeastern Conference that has made Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman march to the sea through Georgia seem like a Sunday drive in the country.
The Gators, now on a six-game winning streak during which they have outscored their SEC brethren – Arkansas, LSU, Kentucky, Georgia, Vanderbilt and South Carolina – by a 299-63 margin, showed their Ol’ Ball Coach, Steve Spurrier, that he and his Gamecocks would get no mercy in “The Swamp.”
When Florida’s 56-6 victory over USC – a 50-point margin of victory that Spurrier, in his Gainesville days, would have said was “hanging half a hundred” on the opposition – was completed, there probably were a lot of smiles around the rest of the SEC. To a lot of folks who endeared losses to Spurrier’s Gators from 1990-2001, Spurrier was Sherman.
The fifth straight game Florida has scored 42 points or more, which matched the second longest streak in school history. The 1996 and 2001 Gators, coached by Spurrier his own self, also won five straight games by 42 points or more. It also tied Oklahoma for the longest active streak in the country.
Moved Meyer to 16-5 all-time against ranked competition, including 14-5 at Florida. He has led Florida to wins over eight of its last 10 ranked opponents and 13 of the last 16.
USC remained winless in Gainesville, moving to 0-12 all time. Florida now leads the series 22-4-3 and has won 16 of the last 17. Spurrier is 1-3 against his former team and has now lost three consecutive meetings.
Prior to Saturday’s game, the most points the Gamecocks had allowed this season were 24 and they were allowing just 15.6 points a game. The Gators had 28 points in the first 19 minutes of the first half.
The Gamecocks came into the game as the No. 3 team in total defense, behind national leader Southern California and Texas Christian, giving up an average of 256.5 yards a game. Florida had its best offensive performance of the season – 519 yards, including 346 on the ground and 173 through the air. USC had been limiting its opponents to 101.4 rushing yards a game and allowed just 12 touchdowns all year. Percy Harvin accounted for a career-best 167 yards on just eight carries and scored on touchdown runs of 26 and 80 yards. Florida totaled five rushing touchdowns.
Florida’s last 300-yard rushing effort came on Sept. 13, 2003 against Florida A&M (309 yards). The last time the Gators had 300 or more yards rushing in an SEC game was Oct. 12, 1996 against LSU (308). The 346 rushing yards was the most in a game since Florida had 362 yards against Vanderbilt on Oct. 14, 1989.
For the first time in his career, Tim Tebow has thrown multiple touchdown passes in six straight games with his scoring tosses to Deonte Thompson (46 yards) and Aaron Hernandez (5 yards). He also added a 1-yard scoring run in the first quarter. In his last three outings, Tebow has accounted for 13 touchdowns rushing and passing. For the season, he has 11 rushing touchdowns and 19 touchdown passes.
Not only were the 167 rushing yards a career best for junior Percy Harvin, but he has now scored touchdowns in 12 straight games, tying him nationally with Michael Crabtree of Texas Tech, which was idle Saturday. The 80-yard touchdown run on the first scrimmage play of the second half also was a career long for Harvin. With his 476 rushing yards this season, Harvin now owns the three best season rushing efforts in Florida history. He had 764 yards last year following 428 in 2006.
Brandon Spikes’ 12-yard interception return for a touchdown was his third interception of the season and his second return for a TD. He joined Darryl Gamble of Georgia and Sean Weatherspoon of Missouri as the only linebackers in the country with two interception returns for touchdowns. The interception return for a touchdown was the fifth this season by Florida, the best in the nation.
Sophomore safety Ahmad Black had his sixth interception of the year, setting up Harvin’s first touchdown run of 26 yards that gave Florida the second of its three first-quarter touchdowns in a span of 2:15 seconds. The six interceptions tie Black for the national lead.
Freshman safety Will Hill had his first career interception and returned it 30 yards in the fourth quarter, giving Florida three for the game and 17 this season. The opposition only has intercepted Florida three times.
The four turnovers (three interceptions, one fumble recovery) by the Gators gives them 25 takeaways this season (17 interceptions, 8 fumble recoveries). The Gators only have coughed up the ball three times on interceptions and seven times on fumbles, including two Saturday. Florida now is +15 in turnovers, and the Gators three interceptions are the fewest in the country after Penn State had an interception in its victory over Indiana.
Florida converted all four turnovers into touchdowns Saturday. Florida now has scored 15 touchdowns and two field goals off turnovers this season (96 points) while surrendering just 17 points (two touchdowns and a field goal) off its own turnovers.
Brandon James set a new single-season mark with his 427 punt return yards, eclipsing the previous best of 392 by Jacquez Green in 1997. He had six punt returns for 60 yards, including a 39-yarder in the third quarter in front of the South Carolina bench. He is the school’s all-time leader in punt return yardage with 1,044 yards, well past Keiwan Ratliff’s 860 between 2000 and 2003.
The Gators have scored on 40 of 43 trips into the red zone (the opponents’ 20-yard line) and did not allow USC to enter the red zone the entire game.
Florida has outscored the opposition 101-0 in the first quarter in its last six games and is 125-7 on the season. Florida has allowed just two first-half touchdowns this season and is outscoring the opposition 199-26 before halftime.
