Week 14: #6 Florida Gators 31, Tennessee Volunteers 19 - 12/5/2020

[DRU2012]

WE CONTINUE to look sloppy.
Copeland drops an easy ball.
I don’t LIKE it!
This is where we need a “keep ‘em honest” running game.
No, I just do not see this team going anyfurther than the SEC Championship Game—and after that, well, wherever a 2-loss team can find themselves on New Years Day. My guess is probably going against Miami in the Orange Bowl at Hard Rock.
NOT where we will generally be AIMING in Januaries-to-COME, but probably about all we really “deserve” THIS time.
Even discounting the slow FIRST halves, I doubt ANYONE is particularly impressed with our sputtering, inconsistent performance here in the SECOND. We are BETTER than this!
But at least our D has been responding.
The shame of it is that they’ve HAD to.

 

[DRU2012]

Yes. Would anyone argue that this has been any kind of “satisfactory” or “encouraging” performance by a “CHAMPIONSHIP”-caliber Florida team???
No, me neither.

 

[DRU2012]

Whole quarter left—and as for what we might “WORK ON” with that amount of time left against an SEC defense we OUGHT TO BE burying, well, let’s see what Mullens and Trask cook up for us here.
They are definitely NOT interested in “shutting it down” yet...

 

[DRU2012]

31-7 now. And the SAFEST way to protect everyone AND the lead is simply to just keep doing what you’re doing:
Make THEM work for everything, then when YOU get it just “keep on matriculating the ball down the field”.

 

[DRU2012]

But there’s no reason to give them extra downs. That’s TWO 1st downs-by-penalty here. Cox needs to be smarter.
We need to be CLEANER.
We WERE headed for a nice, one-score defensive performance...Now it won’t LOOK so pretty.
And I still don’t like what it says about our chances against ELITE TEAMS.

 

[DRU2012]

It’ll take a MIRACULOUS PERFORMANCE, top-to-bottom and beginning-to-END, in order to beat Alabama.
And we all KNOW IT!

 

[DRU2012]

Trask with the POOCH PUNT...
Now THAT’S “a Heisman Moment”!
LOL ...I LOVE it!

 

[DRU2012]

I just wish UF did everything just a little tighter, a little cleaner—They are just NOT QUITE “Top Shelf”...except at QB and TE, of course. Should Jones be able to bump him aside JUST because his TEAM wins the head-to-head? Even if all the OTHER criteria go on TRASK’S side of the ledger?
Ask Kyle, and HE’D take the GAME OVER the trophy—I guarantee it!

 

[DRU2012]

Aw nuts! They throw the late long TD in garbage time. It’s against the 2’s and 3’s, so it isn’t that big a deal from a performance P.O.V., but we still could have done without it!
It was a nice throw by their what? 3rd, or 4th-string QB (depends on where you put Guarantano in there now)?
Not OUR problem, but it DOES raise the question, “What does this tell you about your choices, and what you learned today, about who your “future” is at QB from here?”

 

[DRU2012]

Long as he continues to keep the Gator offense looking so good, Kyle Trask OUGHT TO BE the hands down front runner for the Heisman. Period.
I know it’s popular to include “winner of the head-to-head battle” between he and Jones in the SEC Championship, but at this point, if THAT’S the ONLY point where he takes “the checkmark”, then it’s Kyle TRASK’S Heisman, in my view.

 

[DRU2012]

Next up, LSU.
And then—well, you know...

 

[Leakfan12]

A good game though I wished the D didn't allow those last two touchdowns but a win is a win. Also, Trask pumping up his numbers of his resume for the Heisman. Also, does a quarterback wearing the number 11 need a kicking moment?

 

[DRU2012]

A good game though I wished the D didn't allow those last two touchdowns but a win is a win. Also, Trask pumping up his numbers of his resume for the Heisman. Also, does a quarterback wearing the number 11 need a kicking moment?

LOL—I was thinking the very same thing at the time, LF!
I had trouble getting this game in my area—didn’t actually get things straightened out till late in the 2nd qrtr, but was able to see that 2nd Gator drive to make it 17-7 AT the half. Saw the rest of the game without difficulty—including that 3rd qrtr as we took control and pulled away. We got kinda lax again on defense in what amounted to “extended garbage time” in the 4th qrtr—so the final score LOOKS like it was a different kind of game than it in fact WAS. (It’s almost the same score as the A&M vs Auburn game—but the two games were in fact practically OPPOSITE EXPERIENCES FOR OUR TWO DIFFERENT SQUADS, at least as far as the RHYTHM of how things played out; In the end though we were BOTH “dominant winners”.)
Then again, even WITH my following the comments here AND listening to the RUF radio feed over THAT (all while frantically trying to solve my technical problems!), my overall impression based on WHAT I SAW today in OUR team and game seemed mostly that of a team “taking charge, dominating play and smoothly pulling away once they’d seen enough and had an opportunity to DO SO...”
However, at the same time, I have a feeling it might look a good bit DIFFERENT when I watch the replay, beginning to end, next day or so.
Lemme know how you see it—similarly or not.
No matter WHAT: We still have a lot of work to do if we are to even keep it CLOSE AGAINST the Tide in a coupla weeks—and only the LSU game and a couple of intervening practice weeks between now and then.
So. We will see.

 

[Leakfan12]

I was hoping that Auburn and VT would have beaten their opponents and Auburn was close but in the end, Clemson and A&M are still ahead.

 

[DRU2012]

I was hoping that Auburn and VT would have beaten their opponents and Auburn was close but in the end, Clemson and A&M are still ahead.

At least A&M, though ahead of us still in the rankings, the way things work also STRENGTHENS OUR “record” in winning by still ALSO being our “ONLY LOSS” (a CLOSE ONE, on the road, too)...we get the chance to pass them by beating Bama—in a “must-win-game we always had in front of us in ANY event”; that was ALWAYS gonna be a complicated obstacle for us NO MATTER WHAT...
Now, Clemson’s a whole different deal: They would have theoretically opened things up for BOTH OF US, the two remaining SEC teams just outside the “Top 4”, had THEY lost yesterday—but I’m not so sure whether that alone would have helped us in any way if OSU is not somehow left out too (not impossible—but seemingly fading towards a “forlorn hope” with yesterday’s (albeit meager) win over MSU, with Michigan and a B1G-ruling between all of us and “the stretch run”).
I don’t know what’s coming, my friend. All I know for certain is that we can forgo this “guessing game” and all the complicated minutiae of the various possible repercussions of whatever happens to HAPPEN by “simply WINNING”—which, since we are talking about “BEATING ALABAMA”, isn’t “simple” at ALL!
We are a good team right NOW—and steadily improving as the season moves towards its climax...The question is, “Are we GOOD ENOUGH?”. And:
“Are we getting ‘better enough’, ‘FAST enough’, to catch and beat the Tide here at the end??!”
I just don’t know the answer—or what else to SAY about it!

 

[DRU2012]

One last thing.
Just watched a fast-forwarded review of Alabama vs LSU, and here’s a bit of intell:
Bama’s really good.
Yes, this may come as a big surprise, but their offense is lights-out TOO.
OK, here’s an honest, NON-sardonic take: They match our passing game, PLUS THEY have a running game while (relatively speaking) WE do not...Our ONLY hope is that the D can stop them at least a COUPLE of times each half, and then OUR offense can outscore theirs—basically play a near mistake-free, can’t-stop-us, drive-the-field-everytime game...and even then it STILL might take a score or two off of turn-overs to beat them in the end.
NOT saying it CAN’T happen—but it’s gonna take our showing more, start-to-finish, than we’ve managed for even HALF a game so far to put us in position to win this game. Might HELP to show OURSELVES we can manage it against the likes of LSU first; but really, we will simply have to raise our play ACROSS-THE-BOARD in order to transcend our own heretofore proven limitations and become “The Best Team in the Land” for one sparkling performance in order to emerge victorious.
But that’s the thing about the college game: Such things DO HAPPEN sometimes.
For now, let’s at least enjoy this “glimpse”, this time “back in the spotlight” and “life at the top” for at least another couple of weeks, including a complete, dominant game against LSU next Saturday and the following week composing ourselves, before we either “find our future excellence as a TEAM NOW”, OR the clock strikes MIDNIGHT and the carriage turns back into a pumpkin—but at least we’ll have CAUGHT A GLIMPSE of what is surely coming FOR GOOD soon enough under Coach Dan Mullen...well, maybe NOT “soon enough” for our current hopes and dreams—but IS ON ITS WAY...we can ALL somehow FEEL IT!

 

[Escambia94]

The Gators control their own destiny. Forget the A&M loss and forget how they play down to competition. The Gators are SEC Junior Division Champions for the first time in four years!

 

[Escambia94]

[TWEET]https://twitter.com/secnetwork/status/1335369111724052480?s=21
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[Escambia94]

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[Escambia94]

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