In front of a record crowd of 93,129 at Tiger Stadium, the No. 1 Florida Gators (5-0, 3-0 SEC) took down the No. 4 LSU Tigers (5-1, 3-1 SEC), 13-3, Saturday, extending the nation's longest active 15-game win streak on the road. The Florida win snapped LSU's Saturday night 32-game win streak as the Gators held the Tigers to just 162 yards total offense in Baton Rouge.
Senior quarterback Tim Tebow (Jacksonville, Fla.) completed 11-of-16 passes and threw one touchdown in the victory. Junior tight end Aaron Hernandez (Bristol, Conn.) led the UF receiving corps, reeling in six receptions for 70 yards, while sophomore athlete Jeff Demps (Winter Garden, Fla.) amassed 86 yards on 16 carries to lead Florida on the ground.
After LSU was forced to punt on its first drive of the game, Gator sophomore kicker Caleb Sturgis (St. Augustine, Fla.) put the Florida on the board first on the Gators' first drive of the game, punching in a 28-yard field goal following a 13-play, 82-yard drive that ate 8:11 off the clock and gave UF a 3-0 advantage in the first quarter.
With 12:08 in the second quarter, a failed fourth-down conversion for the Gators gave LSU the ball on its own 20-yard line. A series of Florida penalties allowed the Tigers to advance 77 yards downfield for an 18-yard Josh Jasper field goal, knotting the score at three-all.
Florida responded with an 80-yard touchdown drive, the first and only touchdown score of the night, on a 24-yard connection from Tebow to senior Riley Cooper (Clearwater, Fla.), that brought the Gators ahead, 10-3, with 50 seconds to go in the half. After a Sturgis kickoff for Florida, junior cornerback Joe Haden (Ft. Washington, Md.) halted LSU's drive with an interception to take UF into the locker room ahead and keep Florida's 17-game streak with an interception alive.
A missed 25-yard UF field goal by Sturgis started off a slow second half of the game for both the Gator and Tiger squads, but Sturgis put the first, and only, points of the second half on the board when he connected on a 32-yard field-goal attempt with 7:27 the fourth quarter that extended the Orange and Blue lead, 13-3.
Sturgis found the uprights after UF strung together an 11-play, 44-yard drive after securing two rushing first downs by Tebow and Demps and one first down through the air on a seven-yard pass from Tebow to Hernandez.
The Gator defense proceeded to hold the Tigers on fourth-and-one on the first series of LSU's next possession after a Brandon Spikes (Shelby, N.C.) sack, but a Tebow interception by LSU's Jai Eugene on the LSU five-yard line put the ball back in the Tigers' possession.
After securing four first downs, Spikes struck again for a Jordan Jefferson sack forcing LSU to turn the ball over on downs, sealing the 13-3 victory in favor of the Gators in Death Valley, as Spikes finished with a team-leading 11 tackles and 2.5 sacks.
Florida returns home to Gainesville for a Homecoming weekend match up with the Arkansas Razorbacks Oct. 17 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. For game time and game day information, please visit www.GatorZone.com.
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