It's All About the Response

The Gators return home Saturday to open a three-game stretch at the Swamp, starting with Missouri on Homecoming. (Photo: Kate Venezio/UAA Communications)

It's All About the Response

Monday, October 29, 2018 | Football, Chris Harry

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Kyree Campbell is a sophomore defensive lineman for Florida. As part of the regular rotation up front, Campbell ranks fifth in tackles among the team's linemen, despite missing two games. He's been pretty darn solid this season.

As an assessor of the Gators' current situation, he was damn near perfect Monday.

"The way we handle this loss is going to determine the rest of the season," Campbell said.

There you have it.

Florida faithful may still be smarting from the 36-17 loss to the Georgia Bulldogs over the weekend, an outcome that eliminated the Gators from the Southeastern Conference race. Those Florida faithful can afford to wallow in their misery a while longer. The Florida players cannot. The Gators may have dropped from SEC contention, but their window to an outstanding season is still wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide open and it begins Saturday afternoon when No. 13 UF (6-2, 4-2) gets a homecoming call from Missouri (4-4, 0-4) at Spurrier/Florida Field.

The final score may suggest otherwise, but the Gators hung with the Bulldogs for most of the game, trailing by just six inside the final 10 minutes before UGA flexed its collective might for a pair of long touchdown drives to ice the game. Afterward, Florida coach Dan Mullen lamented his team's execution (a season-low 275 yards of offense), three turnovers (to none by Georgia), and the defense's inability to get off the field at critical moments (the Bulldogs were 8-for-14 on third down, with four touchdowns). Those were not the traits of a program ready for a prime-time matchup against the reigning national runner-up. If anything, they were signs that, despite a five-game winning streak in the run-up to heading for Jacksonville, the Gators were still very much in rebuild mode a year after going 4-7 and losing seven of the last eight games.

And part of a successful rebuild is learning how to rebound.

Bad outing. So what?

Now what?

"I think the big challenge for us, any time, after every game, win or lose, it's how you respond," Mullen said Monday, referencing back to the days after UF was beaten by Kentucky on Sept. 8, an historic defeat that marked the program's first loss to the Wildcats since 1986. "I think we handled it really well, then we started handling success pretty well, and now we want to see how we have to handle this adversity."

His interest in the reaction (whatever it may be) wasn't just directed internally, either.

"I'm also interested to see how the Gator Nation handles it," Mullen continued. "Last time we were here in the stadium we had an unbelievable home-field advantage [against LSU] and it really showed with how we played. I think that was such a huge deal for us winning that game. So it's a great challenge for everybody in the Gator Nation to pack the 'Swamp' again and create that home-field, exciting atmosphere, exciting energy and create that advantage for us. The challenges are out there for all of us this week to rebound, get a big win and get ourselves back on track this season."

[To read what Mullen had to say Monday about the quarterbacks, check out this story by colleague Scott Carter]

If the Gators, for example, can answer the challenge in similar fashion to the last loss — after Missouri, UF is home to South Carolina and Idaho, then finishes the regular season at Florida State — they could put themselves in prime position for a prime bowl game and potentially a double-digit victory season.

"Those two games we [lost] were definitely winnable games, and we know — we all know — how good of a team we are at every position," sophomore quarterback Feleipe Franks said. "We've just made mistakes, including me, that you want to have back. [Learning from them] will put us in better position to win bigger games. You can't dwell on it too much. You have to move on to next week, just finish up the season. We have a chance to have a really, really good record."

Plus, play three straight games at home, starting with a Mizzou team that bombarded Florida 45-16 last season — the first game after Coach Jim McElwain was fired and replaced by Interim Coach Randy Shannon — in what proved to be one of the low points of the 2017 campaign.

The Florida defense cannot let Mizzou gunslinger Drew Lock have the sort of efficient outing from the pocket that Georgia's Jake Fromm enjoyed Saturday.

The Tigers may be winless in league play through four games, but they have firepower. Witness their No. 3 conference ranking in total offense (469.6 yards per game), scoring offense (35.5 points per) and passing offense (284.0 yards), keyed by the big arm of senior Drew Lock, who's completed 61 percent of his passes for 2,144 yards, 16 touchdowns and six interceptions.

"He's a good quarterback, so we have to put pressure on him," Campbell said.

Lock is considered a lock as a future NFL draft pick (a high one, at that) and the UF defense will have to do a better job in pressure and coverage than it showed in allowing Georgia's Jake Fromm to shred the secondary for 240 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions and just one one sack. The return of cornerback CJ Henderson, who left Saturday's game on the opening drive with a back bruise, will be a welcome sight in the defensive backfield.

When Florida has the ball, the Gators have to take care of it. After turning the ball over six times through the first six games, they have six in the last two games alone. Franks had two, including a fumble at his own 1-yard line in the second half against Georgia that led to three points. Jordan Scarlett also fumbled on UF's first offensive possession, a turnover the Bulldogs converted into a touchdown.

"We had two fumbles, neither of them were on big hits or like spectacular plays. It was our lack of ball security. That's attention to detail," Mullen said. "We had two blown coverages. That's attention to detail. Really it goes to the coaching more than the players. I mean, it's us, because I can go back and call up the clips from practice and obviously we did not either stop practice and address it when we didn't see the exact attention to detail, you know? We're kind of like, 'OK, we're moving along, we're on to this scheme or that scheme,' instead of, 'Let's really pay attention to detail on little things that ended up being a lot of big things in that game.' "

So guess what? Monday's practice was about attention to detail, among other things. Including the notion of moving on. It starts with the first of three straight games at the "Swamp."

Not a bad place to start.

"Being at home, getting back to our home routine definitely is a good feeling," junior wide receiver Josh Hammond said. "We have that mentality to never lose at home, so you know that'll be our mentality moving forward."