The night began with conference title and College Football Playoff hopes for Florida. It ended with Kentucky’s fans storming Kroger Field after beating the Gators for just the second time since 1986 (and first time at home since then).
None of Florida’s previous five coaches suffered a single loss against the Wildcats, but Dan Mullen has now given up two in four tries. Florida (3-2, 1-2 SEC) was dominated up front on both sides of the ball in this one as the Wildcats held on for a 20-13 lead.
The Gators held a slim three-point lead at the half, but a blocked kick returned for a touchdown in the third quarter gave UK the lead, and it never relinquished it.
After coming up just short against Alabama two weeks ago, it seemed like Florida had started to turn a corner. That was obviously an overreaction, and this team still has clear problems that are holding it back from national contention.
Here are five takeaways from the game.
So much for those postseason aspirations
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While this loss doesn’t technically end Florida’s chances at winning the SEC East, it does in practice. The Gators would need to beat Georgia and have the Bulldogs lose an additional game, which seems exceedingly unlikely at this point.
That means no rematch against the Crimson Tide in Atlanta, no shot at a College Football Playoff appearance and another year for Mullen where the New Year’s Six seems like the best-case scenario.
Florida is still building its program, and it’s not currently on the level of Georgia or Alabama. Sure. Fine. That is to be expected.
What is not to be expected is to lose a game to Kentucky in which the team was thoroughly dominated physically. Make no mistake, Wildcats played well and were deserving of the win. They genuinely look like the better team right now. But Florida is now in Year 4 of Mullen’s tenure. It’s time to start competing.
And based on the way the Gators looked on Saturday, they still have a long way to go to get there.
What’s with the offensive line regression?
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Florida’s offensive line has been its limiting factor on offense the last two seasons, and that looked to be the case once again in 2021. Then, the unit held its own against Alabama’s ferocious front. The Gators led the nation in rushing heading into this game, and the play of the offensive line was a big reason for that.
But the play of the group against Kentucky seriously calls all of that into question. Flat out, this group was dominated by Kentucky’s front seven. Though the offensive line played alright in the early portions of the game, the running lanes it was opening up closed soon after.
UF still ran for 171 yards, largely thanks to quarterback Emory Jones (13 carries, 63 yards) and running back Dameon Pierce (eight carries, 54 yards). But while the group had some success, the Wildcats started to key into the run game. Florida had to run the ball 39 times to get to that total.
On top of that, the line caused a number of costly penalties, especially holding calls and a multitude of false starts (eight, to be specific). Florida gave up 115 yards on 15 penalties, and the offensive line was responsible for the majority of them.
The group at least avoided giving up a sack, but it gave up three quarterback hurries and forced some bad throws from Jones. We thought this unit had come a long way this season. While it’s better, it’s not even close to being good enough to compete with elite teams in the trenches.
Emory Jones is improving, but he’s not the guy right now
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It’s starting to feel like a pile-on a bit, but I can’t deny what’s obviously apparent: Emory Jones just isn’t the guy to lead this team to a national title. At least not right now.
To be clear, Jones isn’t bad. Florida fans know what a bad quarterback situation looks like, and this is not bad. For most of the game against the Wildcats, in fact, Jones was fine. He finished 23 of 31, tossing for 203 yards, a touchdown and a pick.
But the touchdown came early in the game, and the interception (his sixth of the year) was particularly costly. Jones made some nice throws, but for every memorable connection, there was a key miss. His accuracy is inconsistent, and when he doesn’t have a clean pocket to throw from, he’s not very good at improvising.
Jones is a liability through the air, there’s just no way around it. He has more interceptions than touchdowns on the year. What makes him such a threat is his legs, and while he had some success in that regard against UK, leading the team in rushing, the implementation of the quarterback run game is just too bland and predictable.
I don’t know if Anthony Richardson gives the team a better chance to win. He certainly dazzles whenever he sees the field, but we haven’t really seen him in extended action, and there’s not necessarily a reason to believe right now that he wouldn’t struggle in the same areas Jones is. But what Florida’s doing at the quarterback spot isn’t currently working, and when the running game isn’t dominant, the offense can’t score the ball with any semblance of regularity.
The defense isn’t to blame for this one
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Defensive coordinator Todd Grantham has been a popular scapegoat when things aren’t going well for the Gators, and while the defense didn’t exactly shut down the Wildcats, it’s not the reason Florida lost. Far from it, in fact.
Even without cornerback Kaiir Elam for the second-straight game, the secondary largely held its own. Quarterback Will Levis had his least productive game of the season, completing just 7 of 17 passes for 87 (nearly have of which came on a single pass to Wan’Dale Robinson, who got most of the yards after the catch).
The Gators were less effective in slowing down the run game led by Chris Rodriguez Jr., but that was to be expected. Rodriguez is one of the best backs in the SEC, and he looked like it on Saturday night, going for 99 yards on 19 carries. He was able to rip off some chunk yards, but the Gators avoided giving up any big plays in the run game.
The bottom line is this: the Wildcats won a game of American football going 1 for 9 on third-down conversions while only scoring 13 offensive points against one of the greatest offensive minds in the country. Grantham has his flaws, and I’m not saying Florida couldn’t upgrade.
But let’s place the blame where it’s due for this one. And that is not with Grantham and the defense.
Mullen’s play-calling cost Florida a chance to win
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Hindsight is always 20/20 in football, and it’s hard to gauge in real-time how much on-field struggles are coaching-based or execution-based. But there’s no real way to spin Mullen’s lack of aggressiveness in this game, especially at the end of the first half.
Florida got the ball at the end of the first half up by three with just under two minutes to play in the period. The Gators had all three timeouts. What did Mullen do?
Drain the clock, of course. To be fair, Florida was starting at its own 13 yard line. Mullen wanted to avoid a turnover that would allow the Wildcats to take the lead before the break.
But why? Why base your game plan around the fear of a turnover? The only explanation that makes sense is a lack of confidence in Jones. But this isn’t really much of an excuse. Though Jones struggled in the second half, he was having a very efficient first half (he had only thrown one incompletion at that point). Besides, if you don’t have confidence in Jones to lead a two-minute drill without handing the ball to the other team, why is he starting for a team that began the evening with national title hopes?
Things didn’t get any better in the second half. The Gators weren’t able to test the Wildcats secondary much until the final drive, and by then, it was too little, too late.
The sheer number of drive-killing offensive penalties certainly didn’t do the team any favors, but Mullen took his foot off the gas in this one. By the time he tried to put it back on, Kentucky had control of the game and wasn’t budging defensively.
I’m not sure exactly what the problem is, but one thing is obvious: Florida’s offense has some serious issues, and tonight probably won’t be the last we see of them.
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