Senior defensive end Bryan Cox Jr., tries to fire up his teammates during Saturday's loss at Tennessee.
Gators Shift Into Bounce-Back Mode Headed to Vandy
Monday, September 26, 2016 | Football, Chris Harry
Share:
Coach Jim McElwain is anxious to see how his players respond following the crushing loss to Tennessee.
By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Jim McElwain is a 54-year-old football coach who's been in the profession for 30 years, so he's been on the losing side of some pretty difficult games.
The looks on his Florida players' faces Saturday night, though, were as long as he'd seen in some time.
"The mood in the locker room … there were a lot — a lot — of hurt guys," McElwain said Monday, less than 48 hours after the Gators fell hard in Knoxville, where the Tennessee Volunteers erased a three-touchdown deficit for a 38-28 win that broke UF's 11-game winning streak in the series. "I'm not sure [in] a couple of the losses last year I could feel that sense of hurt. I told them it should hurt. If it doesn't then something is wrong."
These Gators (3-1, 1-1), down four spots to No. 23 and now chasing the Vols in the Southeastern Conference East Division, obviously care. The best way to demonstrate that is by expressing their level of concern when Florida takes on Vanderbilt (2-2, 0-1) Saturday in Nashville. The Gators have won 12 straight in the Music City, dating to 1992, but they need no reminders right now that streaks don't last forever. The game will kickoff at noon, which for McElwain represents a red flag based on the team's performances at that time last season. In 2015, McElwain's first season at UF, the Gators had three noon (or thereabout) kickoffs. They snuck past Vanderbilt 9-7 at home on a late field goal in an outcome that clinched the SEC East, needed overtime to defeat Florida Atlantic 20-14, then were demolished by Michigan 41-7 in the Citrus Bowl.
"We put ourselves in position to play noon games, so we'd better get used to that," McElwain said.
All the same, the Gators don't need to rewind to last season to find things that need fixing. Plenty went wrong against the Vols — like giving up 35 unanswered points in a less-than 15 minute span and seeing the nation's (formerly) No. 1-ranked defense yield 498 yards — to preoccupy the coaches and players this week.
"The offense did their job. They gave us the points and we're the type of defense that, give us anything and we can roll with it," senior safety Marcus Maye said. "As a group, we feel like we didn't finish. We didn't complete the job. We all realize that we've got to play four quarters, can't relax, can't take anything for granted as a defense because things can happen pretty quick, which it did. As a defense, we all took it on shoulders and took responsibility."
The breakdowns in pass coverage were particularly surprising. The Tennessee offense had struggled the last two seasons hitting big plays in the passing game, yet in the second half alone -- and against the top-rated pass defense in the country -- the Vols hit touchdown strikes of 23, 20, 67 and 42 yards; all to different receivers and on four of five possessions. On three of those scores, there were no UF defenders close enough to as much as a lay a hand on the UT receiver.
McElwain didn't think there were a bunch of adjustments made by the Vols at halftime that fooled or out-schemed his defensive unit, but rather pointed out that Tennessee had several receivers running free in the first half on plays that ended with dropped balls. The second half was a continuation of that, only with passes being completed and plays being finished.
"Could we have been in better position, yes? Are there things that we worked on and talked about, yeah?" McElwain said. "But give them credit. They took advantage of it."
Offensively, the Gators churned out 402 yards and scored four touchdowns in a hostile SEC venue against the 14th ranked team in the country. With their defense, that normally would be enough.
UF offensive line coach Mike Summers meets with his unit during the UT game. The Gators gained 402 yards against the Volunteers, but went six straight second-half possessions when they were held to minus-9 yards of total offense.
But since it wasn't, the unit was left to ponder what happened during a six-series stretch in the second half when UF ran 16 plays for minus-9 yards and threw an interception. It just so happened that those ill-fated possessions happened while UT -- which trailed 21-0 in the second quarter, 21-3 at halftime, even turned the ball over on its first offensive possession of the second half -- was erupting for those five straight TDs.
That bad stretch undermined an otherwise solid performance from backup quarterback Austin Appleby, the transfer from Purdue who stepped in for injured starter Luke Del Rio (knee) to go 23 of 39 for 296 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. During those six ill-fated series, though, he hit just three of six attempts for 16 yards, was sacked twice and fired the pick.
"We've got to do a better job sustaining drives and making those key plays when we need them," Appleby said. "We kind of got caught on some third downs, a lot of third-and-long situations. It doesn't matter who you're playing, third-and-long is hard. We've got to do a better job on early downs of getting ourselves into third-and-manageable, where we can run or pass and we can open our whole playbook up. When it's third-and-10, it's pretty one-dimensional. We have to do a better job on early downs, and that's just executing. We'll get better."
Appleby is expected to be back under center against the Commodores, who are coming off a 31-30 overtime win at Western Kentucky, but rank next-to-last in the SEC in both total offense (312.5 yards per game) and defense (452.5 per game). Del Rio did dress out at UT, but more so to be on the sideline and in tune with the game.
As it turned out, he was very in tune with it afterward. Del Rio stood up and addressed his dejected teammates — some of them in tears — in the wake of a loss to an opponent the Gators had not dealt with since 2004.
"In a confident way, in a leadership way. It was cool," junior offensive tackle David Sharpe said. "He loves his team. He'll go to war with us, for us. Whether's he's playing or not, he's still there for us."
And he'll be in Nashville, where the Gators have won 12 in a row (dating to 1992), no doubt locked in, even though he won't be on the field.
But what of his teammates who are on it?
"It'll be interesting to see how we handle people writing us off, jumping off the ship, all of those type of things," McElwain said. "This is going to be a real test who each one of us are individually throughout the organization and how we handle [it] when things don't go well."
