The Florida Gators have lost three of their last five games to the Kentucky Wildcats- and two in a row- after beating them 31 straight times from 1987-2017. (Photo credit: Kentucky Wildcats)
We all know what happened Saturday night. It was bad. So let’s get into it.
1: Anthony Richardson had the worst game of his Florida Gators career.
Thanks to Dan Mullen, there aren’t exactly a ton of candidates for this title, and the one game he did start last year was against a historically stout Georgia defense. But Richardson was- his word choice, not mine- terrible. He tried to throw every pass 100+ mph, he missed a wide open JaQuavion Fraziars for what would have been a touchdown, and he just didn’t look comfortable.
It did look like Richardson might have gotten dinged up early in the game, and that would explain a lot- but that still doesn’t solve the puzzle on two particular plays. He threw two interceptions that directly led to Kentucky touchdowns, including one that looked like he was aiming for a wide open Wildcat defender and was returned to the house- a horrendous miscommunication between the QB and the receiver that, to be blunt, can never happen. There’s been speculation that AR had predetermined where he was going to throw the ball on the pick six, but that’s even worse for a bevy of different reasons.
Richardson did admit after the game that the injury scare got into his head, and that’s understandable, but he’s got to shake that off if this team is going to be successful this year. Bottom line, this team will go as far as Anthony Richardson takes them, and so he has to be better. And he knows that. And I trust him to get better.
2: The Florida Gators defense was fine, but not tremendous.
I’m a little worried about Florida’s linebacker play, and Florida again had issues stopping the tight ends, but overall, the defense did its job.
Patrick Toney’s defense looked a bit more relaxed and in a groove than it did against Utah, limiting Kentucky to 272 yards- and a good chunk of that was on a ball that got deflected up and forward to an open receiver for a 25 yard gain- as well as sacking Will Levis three times and blowing up two running plays for losses. And the tackling did seem better than last week. So that’s good.
Then again, Kentucky’s offensive line did look better against Florida than it did against Miami Ohio, and backup running back Kavosiey Smoke did pick up 80 yards on 14 carries. So let’s make no bones about it- I like where this defense is two games into the Billy Napier era, but it still has a ways to go.
3: Feed. Etienne.
In fairness to Napier, he’s better in the “play the best players” department than Dan Mullen was. Freshmen and newcomers do see the field. Playing time does not appear to be solely determined by age or class. That’s how it should be.
But the Gators appear to have one running back that is head-and-shoulders better than the rest, and it happens to be a guy that many Florida fans did not think would see touches this year: Trevor Etienne. Though Etienne did get the most carries, the tape he’s amassed to this point says he’s worthy of more than nine carries in a full 60 minutes of game action. The special playmaking ability that Etienne displays on every touch demands more than just one piece of a three-way shared workload with Montrell Johnson and Nay’Quan Wright- who are certainly above-average-in-the-SEC runners in their own right, but have not shown the same spark Etienne has thus far.
I’m hopeful that the staff will notice this and re-assimilate the plan for the running game to give Etienne a larger share of the carries, if not outright make him the clear-cut featured back. Johnson, Wright, and Lorenzo Lingard would all make fine clean-up backs to beat up a defense with fresh pairs of churning legs behind what’s become a solid offensive line, but Etienne needs to be the featured guy here.
4: The late-game decision making was… interesting.
There are a couple of good arguments for why Florida should have gone for it on fourth down in its own territory in the fourth quarter. One, Anthony Richardson is a phenomenal athlete who is always a threat to make things happen- particularly when you only need three and then later, six yards. Two, maybe Napier realized that the middle level of his defense was on the verge of wilting and getting eight-minute-offensed to death, and feared that he wasn’t going to get the ball back. I get both of those arguments.
But as it pertains to argument one, sometimes you have to realize when your star is simply having a bad night, and that he isn’t capable of performing at his usual level, and adjust accordingly. And as it pertains to argument two, that would tell me that Napier has an excellent level of awareness of his personnel that he could pinpoint his defense’s exact breaking point… but that would be a horrendous sign for the rest of the season, and it’s made even worse by the fact that Kentucky doesn’t even have one of the better offensive lines in the SEC.
As it turned out, the decision backfired; Kentucky missed its first attempt to put the game away with a field goal, but didn’t miss its second. And Napier- notorious for his “scared money don’t make money” slogan- will now have to reconsider where he draws the line between being bold and being foolhardy.
The Final Word: Beating Utah over-inflated expectations for a rebuilding year.
When Billy Napier first came along, he wasted no time dropping hints that a multi-year rebuild lay ahead. Florida was, to be frank, in a bad spot last winter. And though the statement is true to a lesser degree now that Napier’s cleanup project has begun, it’s still true. Florida has at least two, maybe more, years of rebuilding still ahead.
But beating Utah seemed to cause many to forget that. The Utes exposed weaknesses on Florida’s defense, primarily in the front seven. Amari Burney’s pick saved the day, but the totality of that game tape was simply not up to the Gators’ lofty defensive standards- and yet many forgot about the first 59:30 because of the result. Which, again, was awesome, but not grounds for simply forgetting about all that had transpired up to that point.
Kentucky brought Florida back down to earth. The Wildcats are not as strong of a team from top to bottom as the Utes were, and even gave Florida two free points. But the Wildcats also didn’t commit the fatal mistake at the end of the game that Cam Rising made, and worse yet, we saw just how dependent the rest of the Florida Gators are on Anthony Richardson’s success. There’s no backup path to victory if Richardson struggles. So let’s enjoy the wins this 2022 team gets, and realize that some more frustrating losses are coming. And yes, I fully expect Napier to perform that rebuild and eventually get this program back to where it should be, but as it pertains to this 2022 team, buckle up- because growing pains typically aren’t limited to just one game.
