The Florida Gators football program went into Death Valley on Saturday with little national respect and a SEC East Championship on the line. In the most emotional game of the season, Florida came away with a 16-10 win and achieved a season-long goal in the process.
One thing was almost guaranteed, the team prepared to play the most physical football game from start to finish would get a victory. The Gators proved to be that team when the game was on the line. There’s a lot for Florida Gators fans to be happy about this week.
Losses
Yes, there is plenty of good to take away from the game, but the game could have gone the other way very easily. For that reason, there are still a couple of losses this week.
LOSS #1: Gators could not take advantage of clear-cut opportunities
It is kind of annoying how often Florida misses out on opportunities throughout games. Luckily, LSU missed out on even more in this one. It all started on Florida’s first drive of the game. Austin Appleby, with a little (or a lot) of help from Jordan Scarlett and Antonio Callaway, drove the Gators all the way down to the LSU 37-yard line. Scarlett misread the blitz and left a clear path for LSU’s Dwayne Thomas. Appleby was sacked and out of field goal range when Florida needed to put points on the board early. Early in the second quarter, Caleb Brantley forced a huge LSU fumble with the Tigers threatening on Florida’s 7-yard line. It was rewarded only with a quick three-and-out by the offense and put LSU back in decent field position to start the next drive. Finally, with a 13-10 lead and just 4:29 to go in the game, LSU fumbled on a kickoff return and Florida got the ball back on LSU’s 21-yard line. With a chance to go ahead by two scores and likely put the game away, the Gators could not move the ball and had to settle for a field goal to take just a six-point lead.
With all of those opportunities, the Gators came away with just three points. Three points. It’s like LSU was saying ‘Hey Florida, please accept this football as an early Christmas gift’ and Florida was like ‘That’s okay. You can have it’. In all seriousness, though, good football teams take advantage of what is given, and the Gators did not do that.
LOSS #2: Poor offensive play calling in certain situations
This one really goes hand-in-hand with the first loss. The Gators ended up not paying for bad play-calling on a few drives, but play-calling would have been a major point had Florida lost the game. Florida’s already conservative play-calling gets taken to a whole new level in bad starting field position. This is obviously not including the 98-yard touchdown pass. The Gators did not gain a single yard in two possessions that started inside of their own 20-yard line in the first half.
The most questionable calls came in the second half. Florida started a drive in the third quarter at its own one-yard line. Scarlett drove the Gators 29 yards up the field in four plays and was gashing an exhausted LSU defense. Florida then went on two pass plays in a row that were both incomplete and ended the drive. One of those plays could be blamed on Appleby, because he could have taken two more steps and had a first down, but instead attempted a pass to Lamical Perine. It just did not make sense to go away from the run when it was working. Florida needed to continue to feed the hot hand that was Scarlett. At least the coaches learned that the next drive, or so it seemed. After a couple of pass plays, the Gators fed Scarlett and Perine ten times in a row and they shoved it down LSU’s throat all the way to the one-yard line. Then the play-calling went south again. Florida tried to be cute with an attempted pitchout to Perine on third down that went wrong but was luckily recovered and ended in a field goal. Had it been a good pitch by Appleby, the play was probably a touchdown, but it is just another case of going away from what is working. Just hand the ball to Scarlett and let him power it into the end zone.
It is a lot easier to call plays from the living room, but it seemed like several of those calls were just no-brainers and Florida tried to do too much. There is no reason to sweat over that stuff now, but those would be the calls that would give many Florida fans nightmares in a different outcome of the game.
Wins
There is much more to be happy about than there is to worry about. Worries can wait until the next game. The Gators are going to the SEC Championship. This game was the first game in quite some time that defined why it is great to be a Florida Gator.
WIN #1: The offense as a whole came together when it mattered
Florida’s offense is not built to come back from any kind of deficit. It would have been no surprise had the game ended with the halftime score of 7-3, but the Gators came out with a different mindset in the second half. The offensive line has really grown up this year. Florida’s offensive line pushed LSU’s defensive line. Those are words that are not spoken very often. The offensive line has gotten very little respect this season. It deserves some now. It also helped Scarlett to pick up his third 100+ yard game of the season. Along with Scarlett’s talent and refusal to go down, obviously. Finally, the coaches used Scarlett as the workhorse he is and got rid of this running back rotation completely. He got 22 carries, while Perine came in and got seven carries to give him a little break. It was beautiful.
Tyrie Cleveland grew up a little bit this weekend too. He has made it clear what he is capable of many times this season, but he had his real moment to shine against LSU. Appleby hadn’t hit a deep pass yet (not that it was tried very many times), but with the Gators backed up on their own two-yard line, he threw a pass just good enough for Cleveland to make a play. It looked like a play that would get Florida to about mid-field, but he shook off the LSU defender and gave Florida its first lead of the game. The Gators were in desperate need of a spark and Cleveland provided it with 124 receiving yards on his three catches. Cleveland is a guy the Gators have to utilize. More times than not, Antonio Callaway is going to be locked down by opposing defenses, because he has proven to be Florida’s best receiver. Now, there’s more than one guy to worry about, and they’re both underclassmen. The future looks bright.
WIN #2: Defense was business as usual (with a little extra business in the red zone)
423 yards from an opposing offense might not exactly spell business as usual for Florida’s defense. Again, it came through when it mattered. When LSU marched down the field for a touchdown on its very first drive, it looked like it could be a long day for Florida’s defense. Derrius Guice had his way with the Gators for a while, but the defense eventually wore him down when it seemed like it would be the other way around. He and Leonard Fournette are considered the best running back duo in the country, but were held for one of their worst games of the season. LSU pushed Florida’s defense to its limits with four more trips to the red zone, but only came away with three points in those trips.
The most important stop of all was one for the ages. There’s no need to explain it because it has been replayed over and over again on every sports network that covers college football since the game finished. With every ounce of fight that was left in the Gators’ defense, they provided one final stand just inches from the goal line to end the game. That play was the defining moment for this team and what it stood for in that game.
WIN #3: Jim McElwain is building a team to be proud of
These players truly play for each other, not themselves. That is something that has been missing from Florida football for a while. Florida might not be the most talented team in the country, but something has clicked since the Arkansas game. With seven starters out with injuries, there were questions about where leadership would come from, but it’s almost like the starters are still out there. There have been a few bumps in the road with some guys playing their first valuable minutes of their careers in the last couple games, but the drop-off has not been extreme.
Three freshmen/redshirt freshmen linebackers played on Saturday in the place of Alex Anzalone and Jarrad Davis. All three of them made major contributions to the game. David Reese is already a star for the Gators. He has now led the team in tackles two weeks in a row. Kylan Johnson struggled a little to start the game but finished with eight tackles and a fumble recovery. Vosean Joseph recovered a fumble and put the major hit on Danny Etling at the one-yard line to keep him out of the end zone that eventually led to LSU’s mishandled field goal attempt.
The point is, the Gators have refused to let a little adversity and disrespect define this season. It would have been easy to drop every single game left on the schedule after the embarrassing loss at Arkansas, but that didn’t happen. Now, Florida is two (very tough) wins away from a SEC Championship and possible playoff contention, and it’s just McElwain’s second season.