The Florida Gators are fresh off two consecutive too-close-for-comfort wins, and if the last two games against the Vanderbilt Commodores are any indication, this week could shape out the same way.
Vanderbilt redshirt senior running back Ralph Webb returns to his hometown to take on the Gators for the final time, and he’s out for blood, again. As a 3-star recruit out of Gainesville High School, Webb chose Vanderbilt after a long wait for a Florida offer that never came.
Whether it is his goal to put some regret into the hometown school that looked over him or something else, he has certainly made a statement against Florida in each of the last three years.
He rushed for 83 yards on the Gators’ defense as a redshirt freshman, then proceeded to put up a combined 228 yards over the last two seasons. The last time he was in Gainesville, he broke off a 74-yard touchdown run in the first half and nearly pushed his team to victory. Florida needed a late field goal to escape with a 9-7 win over the Commodores in 2015.
“That guy is really good,” head coach Jim McElwain said of Webb. “He’s been a Gator killer the two years I’ve been here. And whether he plays with a little extra chip, I know what it’s like when you go home, to a place, a university, where maybe you grew up watching and didn’t play there. So, for us, we have to tackle the guy, maybe he gets that pregame dinner or something at home that gives him the extra go, but we’re not the only guys that haven’t tackled him.”
That’s true. Webb is Vanderbilt’s all-time leading rusher, with 3,511 yards (and counting) to his name. The Commodores have centered their offensive scheme around him for the last three seasons and he has established himself as one of the top running backs in the SEC. He’s ran for 100-plus yards twice against the Gators and 13 times in his Vanderbilt career.
Webb hasn’t quite gotten his normal game going yet this season, after being held to 55 yards or fewer in all four games so far, but there is no more appropriate time for him to get things back on track than in this game. Vanderbilt was embarrassed in a 59-0 loss to Alabama last week and has come so close to knocking off the Gators the last two years, Webb and the Commodores are sure to come in hungry.
It will be a test for a young Florida defense that is still trying to find its identity.
“I’ve had the opportunity to play him four years in a row now,” said redshirt senior defensive end Jordan Sherit. “He’s a great running back and he makes you have to dial down and play your gaps. He will find that one gap. If someone gets out of their gap, he will find it. It’s a good test for our defense, we’ve had some problems with some gap-control recently. I think that helps us this game, focusing on that specifically in practice.”
Week in and week out, Florida has stressed the importance of tackling, but it doesn’t seem like much has changed. The Gators are going out and looking for the play to make the crowd roar instead of wrapping up.
Florida can emphasize better tackling all it wants during the week, but it means nothing when it does not translate to Saturday’s. Things will have to actually be cleaned up this week or Webb will take full advantage and the Gators could find themselves fighting to hang on for the third week, and third year, in a row.
“He’s run all over us for two years,” McElwain said. “He plays with a little extra juice. Obviously, his hometown, you know I think two years ago he ran all the way home, had lunch, came back and did it again. That’s a guy we got to stop. As you know tackling has got to be something that we continue to work on. We missed some open field tackles again. We can’t let this guy get into the open but when we do we better get him brought down.”