THE QUICK SLANT
No. 20 FLORIDA 42, VANDERBILT 0  

WHAT HAPPENED: Quarterback Emory Jones threw a career-high four touchdown passes, tailback Dameon Pierce found the end zone three times, and the 20th-ranked Gators made homecoming bait out of the Commodores in Saturday’s game at Spurrier/Florida Field. Jones, the fourth-year junior, completed 14 of 22 passes for 273 yards, including touchdown tosses of five and nine yards in the first, then 61 and 25 to start the second half and kick in the blowout. Pierce, the senior, had a pair of 1-yard scoring runs, but in between was on the receiving end of that 61-yard bomb from Jones. The Gators, looking to bounce back from last week’s crushing defeat at Kentucky, scored on the first two drives of the game, but had their momentum stalled for a spell when backup quarterback Anthony Richardson had a turnover and a three-and-out on his scheduled possessions. UF got back on the board with just under four minutes to go in the first half, with Jones rolling left and finding Trent Whittemore for a score and 21-0 lead. The Gators needed barely six minutes of the second half to double that margin on three quick-strike TD drives. A tipped-ball interception by Jones midway through the third quarter set up Vandy at the UF 30 and looked to doom the Gators’ quest for a shutout, but Vandy kicker Joseph Bulovas, who missed two field goals in the first half, was wide left for a third time and UF finished the goose egg, the program’s first since beating Vanderbilt 56-0 in 2019. Florida finished with 479 yards of total offense, including 181 rushing (the second week in a row with less than 200). Vanderbilt managed just 287 yards, with minus-11 rushing yards in the second half. The Commodores came in ready to throw the football, with quarterback Ken Seals attempting 43 passes before giving way to his backup. Seals completed 22 for 192 yards and two interceptions. 

WHAT IT MEANS: Make that eight straight wins over the Commodores, as well as 30 of the last 31 in the series, dating to 1989. The victory kept the Gators in their middling spot in the SEC East Division standings, where they’ve not only lost control of their destiny but must rely on not one but two teams (Georgia and Kentucky) to collapse. 

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Clearly, UF coach Dan Mullen wanted Jones to get in a rhythm and stay in it, opting to keep his starter in the game (as opposed to letting Richardson finish up) after going up 42-0. Jones had a career-best afternoon. As for Richardson, he got the last two offensive series, behind the backup offensive line, and finished 4 of 6 passing for 25 yards, plus five rushing attempts for 11 yards. And let’s give a shoutout to Pierce, who came into the season with 12 career touchdowns and now has eight on the season. 

STAGGERING STATISTIC: Vanderbilt ran 80 plays for the game, compared to Florida’s 62. At halftime, that discrepancy was 49-31, and the Commodores had just 15 fewer yards of total offense (215 to 200) than the Gators. Go figure. 

UP NEXT: The Gators (4-2, 2-2) will leave the state for only the second time this season, with a road date at LSU (3-2, 1-1) next Saturday at noon. That, of course, means an 11 a.m. kick Baton Rouge time, so pace yourself, UF fans, who no doubt will be heading to New Orleans. The Tigers, who handed UF that devastating defeat at the “Swamp” in the 2020 regular-season finale, are coming off a home loss to Auburn and play later Saturday night at 16th-ranked Kentucky, which handed the Gators an equally devastating loss a week ago.

Florida’s Ben Hill Griffin Stadium is one of the iconic college football cathedrals in the land. Affectionately known as “the Swamp,” it’s considered one of the toughest places to play as a visitor in the country, especially when the Gators are competitive.

And now, it appears that the University of Florida is attempting to improve the fan experience on Saturdays. According to a report from the Gainesville Sun’s Graham Hall, the stadium will undergo a number of changes by the beginning of the 2024 season, including chairbacks in the lower bowl, scoreboard and sound improvements, as well as upgrades to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The pre-design phase is set to begin on Nov. 1 and be completed by Jan. 3, 2022. Construction is expected to begin after the start of the 2022 season, and it’s expected to conclude on Aug. 2, 2024, just in time for the team’s home-opener against the Miami Hurricanes.

This is one of many facilities upgrades currently being undertaken by the football program. A stand-alone football facility at the site of the old McKethan Stadium, which cost $85 million, is expected to open in the spring.

From the Vanderbilt website Anchor of Gold.

It was hard to figure out what to expect from Florida’s defense heading into this season. Last year, the Gators frequently got torched by good offenses, but the defense’s ability to shut down bad offenses made the overall numbers look not terrible.

As for the first part, well, Florida has only played one good offense in five games this season — and actually, against Alabama, the defense was credible, surrendering just 331 yards on 5.3 yards per play, though they did give up 31 points.

Anyway, for a matchup against Vanderbilt, the second part is probably more relevant — and on that front, Florida’s defense has performed well. Against Florida Atlantic, the defense gave up 14 points (all in the fourth quarter), though it did allow five yards per play. Against South Florida: 20 points (17 in the second half, when the game was already well in hand) on 4.2 yards per play. Against Tennessee: 14 points, albeit on 6.2 yards per play (granted, after last week it’s fair to say Tennessee’s offense might be closer to good than bad.) Against Kentucky: 4.9 yards per play and 14 points (the Wildcats scored a touchdown on a blocked field goal in a 20-13 win.)

In other words, this is probably a defense that is going to shut down Vanderbilt’s offense, which is probably the worst offense they’ve faced this season and really only South Florida is even in the ballpark.

The pass defense is fine, too; Bryce Young picked on this defense (but what defense doesn’t he pick on?) but other than that, nobody has been able to beat the Gators deep. They have a couple of active safeties in the redundantly-named Trey Dean III and Tre’Vez Johnson, though star cornerback Kaiir Elam has missed the last two games with an injury.

In other words… well, this defense is probably shutting down the Vanderbilt offense.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Florida Gators football Head Coach Dan Mullen is set to join the 2021 edition of Gator Talk, presented by McCall Service, on Thursday, October 7 to discuss the team’s homecoming game against the Vanderbilt Commodores (2-3, 0-1) on October 9 at 12 p.m. 

Mullen will sit down with program host Jeff Cardozo from Spurrier’s Gridiron Grille at Celebration Pointe beginning at 7 p.m. and fans are welcome to attend the live show. Mullen will appear in 10 of 15 shows, with assistant coaches joining Cardozo for the Nov. 11 show. Fans must be 21 years or older to attend Gator Talk in Visors. 
 
Gator Talk, presented by McCall Service, is the weekly hour-long program covering the latest in Gator Football. The show is available across the Gators Sports Network from LEARFIELD, on GatorVision, and by downloading the Varsity Network app, now available on the App Store and Google Play.

From a great Gator site, Gatorcountry

1. Why in the world did the Gators not go with a silent count on offense?When you commit eight false start penalties in a game, it’s pretty obvious that you’re experiencing major communication issues.

You would’ve thought that after the third or fourth penalty that Dan Mullen or John Hevesy would’ve said, “Our guys cannot hear Emory Jones’ cadence; let’s switch to a nonverbal form of communication.”

Instead, they had Jones yell out the calls and clap his hands throughout the duration of the game. It was the definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Mullen spoke all week about how hostile the environment was going to be in Lexington, so I’m not sure what happened. Did they underestimate the volume of the crowd? Do they not even work on silent counts in practice?

Regardless, it’s clear that this offense was ill-prepared to play this game, which was shocking for a Mullen-led unit.

2. Special teams have been an abject disaster this season.

Major errors on special teams have contributed to both of the Gators’ losses this season.

They missed an extra point and muffed a kickoff out of bounds at the 1 against Alabama. Against Kentucky, they had a field goal blocked and returned for a touchdown. They also had a delay-of-game penalty on a field goal attempt that they were fortunate to make anyway.

There have also been some punts that they’ve allowed to roll for an additional 15 or so yards instead of catching them, and they’ve made some poor decisions on whether to bring kickoffs out of the end zone or not.

Special teams were a strength of this team over the past couple of years, and the coaches seem to emphasize special teams a ton. Still, this is a major area of weakness this season.

3. I have no idea what Mullen was trying to accomplish with that game plan.

He displayed zero creativity in this game. Of Jones’ 31 pass attempts, it felt like 25 of them were thrown within five yards of the line of scrimmage. His longest completion was just 22 yards. I can’t even remember one deep shot that they took.

Instead of trying to get points at the end of the first half, Mullen opted to run the clock out despite having nearly two minutes left and all of his timeouts.

Even when they tried to mount a comeback in the fourth quarter, they went on long drives instead of trying to pick up yards in large chunks.

Mullen either doesn’t trust Jones as much as he claims to publicly, or he thought that the only way Kentucky could beat them was if they made major mistakes on offense and decided to go ultra-conservative.

This offense is supposed to be a spread offense that makes the defense defend the entire field, from sideline to sideline and from the line of scrimmage to the end zone. So, when you decide to play the game in a 10-yard box for most of the night, it shouldn’t be a surprise that these are the results that you get.

4. The defense played its most complete game in a while.

This is the only positive to take away from the game. They limited the Wildcats to 224 total yards, including just 87 passing yards. They allowed UK to convert just one of nine third downs and stopped them on their lone fourth down attempt. They intercepted a pass.

Really, their only blemish was the 41-yard touchdown catch and run by Wan’Dale Robinson where they missed two or three tackles. They gave up less than 200 yards and just seven points on the other 46 plays, and those seven points were a product of Jones throwing an interception and giving UK a short field.

You can’t blame Todd Grantham for this loss.

5. They’ve got to stop losing to an inferior opponent every year.

You can pretty much count on Mullen beating a team he shouldn’t and losing to a team he shouldn’t every year.

In 2018, the Gators beat LSU and Michigan but lost to Kentucky and Missouri. In 2020, they beat Georgia but lost to one of the worst LSU teams in years at home.

This cycle has to stop for this program to go anywhere. You’ve got to take care of business against the teams that you’re better than before you can start worrying about chasing down Alabama and Georgia.

Otherwise, they’re going to continue to lose two or three games every year but leave their fans with just enough reasons to be optimistic about the next season.