Gators Rip Vandy in Rare SEC Shutout

Saturday, November 9

Gainesville, FL

12 PM

Florida Gators

8-2 , 5-2

Vanderbilt

2-7 , 1-5

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Vanderbilt

Florida

Graduate-transfer outside linebacker Jonathan Greenard rumbles 80 yards with a recovered fumble after freshman Mohamoud Diabate's sack-strip in the third quarter Saturday of UF's 56-0 shutout defeat of the Commodores.

Gators Rip Vandy in Rare SEC Shutout

Saturday, November 9, 2019 | Football, Chris Harry

Box Score

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Saturday was Staturday for both the Florida offense and defense.

Kyle Trask threw for the most yards by a UF quarterback since Tim Tebow's final game. His backup, Emory Jones, rushed for three scores, and the Gators' offensive unit tallied 560 yards and 33 first downs. The defense, meanwhile, put a 128-yard, three-turnover, six-sack clamp on overmatched and overwhelmed Vanderbilt at the "Swamp." The end result was a 56-0 wipeout for the 10th-ranked Gators that marked the program's first Southeastern Conference shutout in seven years and the most lopsided blanking of a league opponent since the 1996 national-championship season.

In bouncing back from last week's loss against Georgia, the Gators (8-2, 5-2) remained mathematically alive in the SEC East Division race, but more realistically very much in the hunt for New Year's Six bowl consideration.

"It was a good response," Florida coach Dan Mullen said.

Trask, the fourth-year junior, completed a career-best 25 of his 37 attempts for 363 yards, with touchdown tosses of 1, 66 and 15 yards, plus ran for a score. Jones, the redshirt freshman, rushed five times and found the end zone for scoring jaunts of 13, 1 and 3 yards. Freshman outside linebacker Mohamoud Diabate had half of the defense's half-dozen sacks, one of which ended with a fumble that graduate-transfer linebacker Jonathan Greenard returned 80 yards for a touchdown, part of a 28-point third quarter that turned a game that was scoreless after the first quarter — and just 14-0 at halftime — into a laugher.

The timing was good, given the sting of the defeat in Jacksonville was still fairly fresh.

"We just had to push ourselves," third-year sophomore wide receiver Trevon Grimes said. "We knew we had to come out and make a statement, and I feel like we really did that. We came out and executed on offense, defense, as well as special teams. We just went out there and had a phenomenal team win."

Quarterback **Kyle Trask** takes off for his second-quarter touchdown run from nine yards out that put the Gators up 14-0.

The Commodores (2-7, 1-5), who lost for the 28th time in the series' last 29 meetings, averaged just 2.1 yards per play, tallied 12 first downs, converted just three of 15 third-down situations, and threw three interceptions. Vandy came into the game forced to play third-string quarterback Deuce Wallace due to injuries and he went seven of 18 for 60 yards with an interception before giving way to Allan Walters, the scout-team QB. He was no better (or worse, actually).

Said Vandy coach Derek Mason: "When you're down to your fourth quarterback, it kind of is what it is."

And it was. Neither QB got much help from a running game that produced just 51 yards on 40 carries, with tailback Ke'Shawn Vaughn, the SEC's No. 4 rusher coming in at 98.8 yards per game, held to 28 yards on 15 carries.

CHARTING THE GATORS
Shutout victories by Florida against Southeastern Conference teams the last 30 seasons.

Score	Opponent	Date
35-0	Alabama	Sept. 14, 1991
16-0	LSU	Oct. 5, 1991
52-0	Vanderbilt	Nov. 20, 1993
31-0	@Tennessee	Sept. 17, 1994
65-0	Kentucky	Sept. 28, 1996
52-0	Mississippi State	Sept. 29, 2001
38-0	Kentucky	Sept. 22, 2012
56-0	Vanderbilt	Nov. 9., 2019

-- CHRIS HARRY

UF's first two offensive possessions ended with a four-and-out (when the Gators tried to go deep on fourth-and-1 to start the game), then with a 9-play, 62-yard drive that collapsed when Trask badly underthrew tight end Kyle Pitts on a post and was intercepted by safety Tae Daley.

"We were moving the ball up and down the field and we knew that we could get into the end zone," said Trask, who was on his way to tossing for the most yards since Tebow, in his final collegiate game, passed for 482 in the 2010 Sugar Bowl defeat of Cincinnati. "We really don't let that affect us negatively because we still have confidence that we can move the ball."

Turned out, the third time around was better.

Trask marched the Gators 82 yards in 15 plays, with his 10-yard run on third-and-2 a key conversion. A 5-yard completion to Lamical Perine on the final play of the first quarter set up a fourth-and-goal from the Vanderbilt 1 to start the second period. UF (to no one's surprise) trotted out the offense. The Gators (to the surprise of many, given a recent trend for short-yardage shotgun plays), lined up in the I-formation with Trask under center. He took the direct snap, optioned into the line, then up the line, pitching a forward pass in the motion of a basketball shot. The two-handed toss, with nice follow-through and practically laterally, went over a Vandy defender and softly into the hands of Perine, who walked into the end zone for a 7-0 lead.

On the Commodores' ensuing series, Wallace made a poor throw into a UF zone that safety Donovan Stiner picked off and returned 29 yards to the Vandy 23. Four plays later, facing a third-and-6, Trask dropped and saw nothing downfield, so took off to his left and went untouched on a 9-yard touchdown run to put the Gators up 14-0 four minutes into the quarter.

Vanderbilt tailback Ke'Shawn Vaughn ran into walls of Florida defenders like this one, led by **Zachary Carter** (17) linebacker **James Houston IV** (41) all afternoon in managing just 28 yards on 15 carries (1.9 per attempt).

UF had a chance to tack on more points before the break, but Evan McPherson was wide right on a 41-yard field goal attempt. And on his final possession of the half, Trask worked the Gators to the Vandy 17, but a pass at the front of the left pylon for wideout Van Jefferson was intercepted by Daley with 11 seconds remaining for his second pick of the game.

Total offensive yards to that point: Florida 277, Vanderbilt 18

The Florida lead: Just two scores.

So what happened the rest of the way that didn't happen before?

"We scored touchdowns," said Mullen, whose team was playing its first home game since Oct. 5. "With the exception of the ball crossing the goal line, really nothing. I thought we moved the ball really well most of the day. In the first half, we left a bunch of points out there."

The Gators quickly made up for those squandered opportunities in the third quarter. After forcing a three-and-out on the Commodores' first series, the Gators took over at their 34. On first down, Trask hit Grimes on a short out to the left sidelines. Vandy defenders converged, but Grimes escaped and sped up the sidelines for a 66-yard touchdown and 21-0 advantage.

A second straight Vanderbilt two-and-out, followed by a short punt, led to a two-play, 51-yard touchdown drive. Trask first hit Tyrie Cleveland for 36 yards to the Vandy 15, then fired a strike to Pitts slanting into the end zone, pushing the Gators in front 28-0 — and matching their first-half point production — barely four minutes out of the locker room.

"We just got back in the lab and worked and worked 10 times harder than what we did last week," Pitts said of the improvement over the seven days. "It was just about getting back to where we were and coming together as a team."

When Vandy finally got something going, as in an 11-play 57-yard drive to the UF 10, Diabate's third sack of the game forced a fumble that Greenard scooped up and took 80 yards to the house, making it 35-0. Not bad for a kid thrust into a major role after senior Jeremiah Moon suffered a foot injury last week that will keep him out for the rest of the regular season.

"Just being mature," Diabate said of his preparedness for the moment. "Learning my plays. Being able to execute when it's time to execute. Just doing your job, knowing that you don't have to make plays, you just have to do your job."

Stiner's second interception of the game soon set up the Gators deep in Vandy territory and eventually netted a 1-yard scoring run by Jones, his second of the day, for a 49-0 lead.

Vanderbilt tried to avert being shut out by summoning kicker Ryley Guay for a 45-yard field goal with four minutes to go in the game. Just before the snap, the Commodores were hit with a delay-of-game penalty. Of course, Guay's 50-yard attempt was yanked left.

Jones' 3-yard score, two plays after a 37-yard completion to redshirt freshman Jacob Copeland, coupled with a 15-yard roughing-the-QB penalty, came barely a minute later and wrapped the scoring for the day.

It also tucked the Georgia loss a little further back in the Gators' collective conscience.

"This was about making a statement to ourselves of making sure we get our edge back," Mullen said. "There was disappointment from last week, but if you're a competitor, you compete. You can't wait to compete."