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It wasn’t always pretty, but Gators find their way back to Atlanta for SEC title game
By John Crist
Published:
Florida wrapped up the SEC East on Saturday with a 16-10 win at Death Valley, turning LSU away on 4th-and-goal from the 1-yard line.
Neither team was impressive offensively, but the Gators made the keys plays on defense. There were none bigger than stuffing running back Derrius Guice at the goal line on the Tigers’ trademark power pitch as time expired.
Visiting UF advanced to 8-2 and 6-2 in conference play, which officially eliminated preseason favorite Tennessee — and made a Week 4 defeat to the Volunteers in Knoxville a moot point — from the division race. As for the host Bayou Bengals, they fall to a disappointing 6-4 and just 4-3 in the league.
While Jim McElwain will go to Atlanta for a second straight year, Ed Orgeron can say goodbye to any chance of making his employment permanent.
In the battle of ex-Purdue quarterbacks, Florida’s Austin Appleby was a rather ineffective 7-of-17 passing for 144 yards, although he did throw 1 touchdown and was not intercepted. The TD he fired was a big one, too.
On the first play from scrimmage after LSU botched a short field-goal attempt, Appleby found wide receiver Tyrie Cleveland — just a true freshman we’ll be hearing more from soon — down the right sideline for a 98-yard score in the third quarter. Before that play, the Gators had only managed 60 yards of total offense.
From that point on, Appleby let tailbacks Jordan Scarlett and Lamical Perine do the rest with 148 combined yards rushing on 29 carries.
UF deserves a lot of credit not only for finding a way to win this game, but for finding a way to capture the East. This program hasn’t gotten quality quarterback play since Will Grier was suspended by the NCAA in the middle of the 2015 campaign.
Bouncing back and forth between Luke Del Rio — a two-time transfer himself — and Appleby (above), Florida has been unable to throw the ball consistently by any measure. While Scarlett has come on strong lately, the running game isn’t explosive, either. A bruised-and-battered offensive line is perhaps the root cause of those problems.
Still, the Gators can play some D. The list of injuries before Week 12 was comically long, yet a patched-up unit held the Tigers to 270 total yards.
Guice, coming off a 252-yard effort just seven days before, managed only 83 yards and a score in 19 attempts. Leonard Fournette, who wasn’t supposed to go due to injury but suited up anyway, was a non-factor with 12 carries for 40 yards.
As a result, UF will go the SEC Championship Game for a rematch with Alabama, which put a bow on the West a week ago. Needless to say, not a lot of experts — or even their own fans, at least the realistic ones — will give the Gators a chance. The Crimson Tide are undefeated and on a roll like never before.
This date with LSU was supposed to be the beginning of the end for UF. Tennessee was on the verge of back-dooring its way to the ATL.
The jawing back and forth between the Gators and Tigers lasted more than a month. With the game originally postponed because of Hurricane Matthew, the rescheduling delay led to speculation that Florida was trying to avoid playing altogether.
After allowing a 12-play, 80-yard drive in the first quarter that ended with Guice in the end zone, Florida put the clamps on the Bayou Bengals. Even without the services of stud linebackers Jarrad Davis and Alex Anzalone — both injured — reserves David Reece (a team-leading 12 tackles) and Kylan Johnson (8) filled the void admirably.
This will be the ninth meeting between Florida and Alabama in the title game. That’s by far the most frequent pairing. LSU-Georgia is next, having played three times.
Back at Media Days in July, the Vols were most everyone’s pick to win the East and officially claim their program resurrected under fourth-year coach Butch Jones. That triumph over UF in September was arguably their biggest test.
But while UT eventually crumbled with a three-game losing streak — including a head scratcher at rebuilding South Carolina — Florida continued to run the ball and play suffocating defense more often than not. In their six conference victories, the Gators surrendered a grand total of 54 points. That’s just 9 per game.
That being said, it’s going to take more than 9 points to beat the Tide at the Georgia Dome. A lot more, as a matter of fact.
A year ago, the Gators proved to be overmatched against Alabama in the conference championship game. Even if the final score was just 29-15, the Crimson Tide were never truly threatened and borderline dominant in all three phases.
UF won’t have the luxury of resting up to prepare for ‘Bama. McElwain and Co. travel to Florida State during Rivalry Week, as Sunshine State pride — and a three-game losing skid to the Seminoles — is on the line. The Tide can essentially mail in the Iron Bowl. A loss won’t hurt their College Football Playoff chances.
In order for the Gators to make any case for the playoff, the need to defeat both FSU and ‘Bama … and then pray for all kinds of chaos.
More than likely, Florida won’t get anywhere near the national-title hunt. Currently ranked No. 23 in the CFP poll, jumping up into the Final Four in the span of two weeks would be unprecedented. Crazier things have happened, though.
It might not have been such a hot season, but the Gators are going back to Hot’lanta. No matter the outcome Dec. 3, they deserve a tip of the cap.
John Crist is the senior writer for Saturday Down South, a member of the FWAA and a voter for the Heisman Trophy. Send him an e-mail, like him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter.
John Crist is an award-winning contributor to Saturday Down South.
