Is this the year the Florida Gators finally reclaim dominance against Kentucky? (Photo via Jason Marcum, A Sea Of Blue)
If you listen to or watch the In All Kinds Of Weather Forecast, there’s a talking point that yours truly loves coming back to regarding the Florida Gators football program.
Back in the summer of 2018, SEC Network analyst Greg McElroy was answering a question at SEC Media Days about Florida being a dark horse in the SEC East. He dismissed the possibility out of hand, telling viewers that Florida fans should have a different approach. I’m paraphrasing here, but the quote went something like this.
“Listen,” McElroy said into the camera, directly addressing Florida fans. “If you’re Florida, don’t worry about Georgia. Don’t worry about Alabama. Don’t even worry about FSU, who’s beaten you five straight times. You need to worry about Kentucky, who’s scared the daylights out of you three out of the last four times you’ve played them. You need to worry about South Carolina, who’s 5-3 in their last eight games against you. And frankly, you need to worry about Vanderbilt, who beat you just a few years ago and gave you fits the last three years.”
Fast forward five years later, and the sentiment rings true even more than it did in 2018.
Kentucky has graduated past the point of simply scaring Florida, like they did in 2014, 2015, and 2017. They’re outright beating Florida these days, having won the last two meetings and three out of the last five. For that matter, Vanderbilt has too, winning 31-24 last year in Nashville. And as for South Carolina, Florida is one game above .500 against the Gamecocks since 2010, with a 7-6 head-to-head record in that span.
Guess who Florida plays these next three weeks? Yep, those three teams.
And that sets up a three-game stretch that will tell us, one way or another, if this program is truly headed in the right direction under Billy Napier. Florida is just 2-4 against those three opponents in the last two years, a paltry figure that reminds us all just how far the mighty Gators have fallen.
We’ll zoom out a bit and talk more about the big-picture implications of this three-game stretch on the In All Kinds Of Weather Forecast on our Kentucky preview show (so be sure to click this link and subscribe!). For our purposes now, in this written piece, let’s just focus on Kentucky.
The truth of the matter is, we don’t really know a ton about what this Kentucky team is. They’ve proven nothing by beating Ball State by 30, Eastern Kentucky by 11, and Akron by 32. Their game against Vanderbilt raised some eyebrows, as Maxwell Hairston’s two pick-sixes made the difference in a 45-28 victory, but Kentucky also went up 24-0 and was more than happy to cruise from there. Florida, for its part, has split a pair of games against ranked teams, looking far better in the game they played at home than the other one.
But while the names on the backs of the jerseys and the individual players’ skills may change from year to year, the type of effort Kentucky gives Florida under Mark Stoops will not. We’ve learned that lesson over and over again, and it’s reached the point where Kentucky has to be treated with the same respect as a program as Georgia. That’s how Kentucky treats Florida, after all. Florida has out recruited Kentucky for decades now, but Kentucky simply plays Florida like it’s their Super Bowl- and the Gators actively refuse to match that intensity. It’s even gotten to where Kentucky feels confident talking smack about Florida and handing the Gators some bulletin board material– and then beating them by double digits.
JJ Weaver is still around, as are Dane Key (who caught the touchdown pass over Jalen Kimber in last year’s game), Tayvion Robinson, and Jordan Wright, but most of the players who had large roles in beating Florida the last two years are gone. Many of the players who had a hand in last year’s Kentucky victory, including Will Levis, DeAndre Square, Carrington Valentine, Keidron Smith, Kavosiey Smoke, and Chauncey Magwood, have departed. It doesn’t matter. The energy with which Kentucky will play the Florida Gators is certain to outperform any expectations that the recruiting rankings and relative inexperience may have set for you.
And for Florida, it’s time to stop using that as an excuse. Devin Leary is a perfectly decent quarterback. The offensive line of Marques Cox, Dylan Ray, Jager Burton, Eli Cox, and Jeremy Flax is a respectable front. Skill position guys like Dane Key, Ray Davis, and Tayvion Robinson are above-average playmakers. Some of them will make NFL rosters one day. That’s not the profile of a team that should be beating Florida on a yearly basis, which recruits far better than Kentucky, and yet take a second to think about this: if the Wildcats beat the Gators on Saturday, Florida’s current batch of juniors will need to beat Kentucky in the Swamp as seniors next year just to avoid going winless against them in their four-year college careers.
Even more worrisome than that horrifying hypothetical is the realization that the exact same traits that did Florida in the last two times they played Kentucky have been on full display at various points through four games this year.
Coaching malpractice in critical situations? Check. Dan Mullen’s obstinate refusal to try to push the tempo late in the first half or even give Anthony Richardson a drive cost Florida in 2021, and Napier’s foolish call to go for it- first on fourth and three and then again on fourth and six- well inside his own territory with several minutes left cost Florida in 2022. Now, through four games in 2022, we’ve got Napier dialing up screen passes on fourth and fourteen and shovel passes on fourth and four, draw plays to Montrell Johnson on third and long, and ordering field goals on fourth and one against wildly outclassed opposition.
Terrible special teams? Check. Special teams didn’t particularly help Florida last year against Kentucky, but a blocked field goal that got returned for a touchdown directly handed Kentucky the win the last time Florida went to Lexington. Now, through four games in 2022, we’ve got Florida running two players with the same jersey onto the field at the same time, field goals and extra points being blocked, and a mysterious inability for Florida’s special teams to line up with eleven players. (To the Gators’ credit, Trey Smack was great as the kicker these past two weeks, but that still doesn’t fix the other issues.)
Florida just generally beating itself in other miscellaneous fashions? Check. An array of false start penalties in the modestly-sized Kroger Field combined with an overall ugly game from Emory Jones doomed the Gators in 2021 and a pair of terrible interceptions from Anthony Richardson in 2022 made the difference in Gainesville a year ago. Now, through four games in 2022, we’ve got receivers running routes right into each other, the Gators’ offensive line missing a wealth of blocks against overmatched-on-paper opposition, and defensive backs biting on thinly-veiled double moves and head fakes.
None of this is to say that many of the issues outlined above will cost Florida against Kentucky this time around. The past is not a guarantee of the future; Florida could very well trot onto the field, play smart, fundamentally sound football, make the plays that present themselves, not self-destruct and allow their natural talent advantage to take its toll by the end of the fourth quarter. But at the same time, the past does deliver a warning for the present, and those who fail who remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
And so, here we go again. The Florida Gators, 1 and 1/3 years into Billy Napier’s tenure, find themselves in the same spot they’ve been in for the past several years: with a big game against the Kentucky Wildcats. The notion that this sentence would even exist would have been laughable in 2010, but it’s as perfect of a way to pinpoint exactly where this program is right now as any.
Beat Kentucky, and Florida improves to 4-1, with Vanderbilt- a game Florida should win- looming next. This would plausibly place Florida at 5-1, putting them right at the doorstep of the 5.5 over/under win total that Las Vegas projected, and indicate that the Gators are ahead of schedule under Napier. Lose, though, and Florida would find itself on the wrong end of a three-game streak against a program they’d beaten 31 times in a row from 1987 to 2017, with all the starch of the Gators’ win against Tennessee taken out.
So, what will it be?
