(Photo credit: Florida Gators)
The Florida Gators pounded McNeese, 49-7, to begin a three-game home stand. What stood out along the way?
Graham Mertz was efficient
By no means did Graham Mertz blow me away with his game tape, but he was everything Florida needed him to be and more- for the second straight week. He completed 14 of 17 passes for 193 yards and one touchdown- and one of his three incompletions was a perfectly thrown ball that Dante Zanders simply dropped in the end zone. Most importantly: no turnovers. It’s likely that he’ll have to do a little more to beat the really good teams that are lurking on the schedule, but Mertz has been nothing but positive through two games with the Florida Gators.
The Florida Gators’ defense was terrific
Yes, I know, McNeese is bad. Really bad. But Florida’s defense absolutely shut them down- and that’s two weeks in a row. After a terrible start to the season in the form of a 70-yard touchdown from Bryson Barnes to Money Parks, the Gators’ defense did its job against both Utah and McNeese. The Cowboys could only muster 50 yards of offense through two and a half quarters against Florida’s starters, and by that point the game was out of hand. Specifically, Shemar James, Scooby Williams, Bryce Thornton, Jordan Castell, and Jaydon Hill were everywhere, flying all around the field putting good things on tape. Plus, Jamari Lyons made a huge play, breezing into the backfield and blowing up the play for a safety. Oh, and how about a more specific shoutout for the Gators’ third down defense? McNeese was just 2-10 on third down.
Execution issues do still linger for the Florida Gators
This is one of those games where it’s hard to make too much of the positives because of the horrible level of competition, but the mistakes become magnified for that same reason. And Florida made a bunch of them. Jason Marshall missed an open-field tackle. Dante Zanders dropped a sure touchdown pass with two steps of separation. Florida’s special teams was responsible for yet ANOTHER catastrophic meltdown. The offensive line missed a couple of blocks pretty badly. And so on. Florida does have another week to iron out those kinks, and the return of Kingsley Eguakun should help the offensive line, but those issues have me wary heading into the Tennessee game.
Welcome to the show, Treyaun Webb!
My heart goes out to Cam Carroll. This was supposed to be his role as head #3 of Florida’s three-headed monster on the ground. But one man’s misfortune is another man’s opportunity, and true freshman Treyaun Webb was more than ready for it. The Jacksonville native racked up 71 yards on 14 carries, scored twice, and even broke off a 16 yard run. Trevor Etienne and Montrell Johnson remain the co-bell cows of this ground game, but Webb seems to be a nice change of pace back who can make some real contributions- despite some fans not being so high on him as a prospect. Whoops.
The bottom line: we’ll know more after Tennessee
Because McNeese is so atrocious, it’s just not appropriate to make too many judgments on this game. One way or another, we’ll know what this team is made of after the Tennessee Vols come to the Swamp on Saturday night. That said, all you can do is place an opponent in front of the Gators and tell them to play them, and they did that about as well as you could realistically hope after a disastrous start to the season.