Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Dan Mullen was barely three minutes into his weekly Monday Zoom call with the media, and the Florida coach four times had been asked about his postgame comments following Saturday's gut-punch loss at Texas A&M. Those would be the remarks encouraging UF fans to "pack the 'Swamp' " for the team's next game, the one upcoming this week against reigning national champion LSU. 

Each time, Mullen offered variations of the same answer, obviously more in tune with the sensitive nature of a potential COVID-19 super-spreader event than in the emotional moments following the team's first loss of the season.

"We moved on to LSU," was basically the message.

Doing so, however, will require a thorough evaluation of the defensive debacle that played out in the 41-38 loss to the Aggies, who shredded the Gators for 543 yards of total offense, including 205 on the ground, and converted a staggering 12 of 15 third downs. Mullen, of course, had quite a bit to say about that both after the game, and again in previewing the next one, which is really all that matters now. 

"It's my responsibility. I'm the head coach. I'm responsible for how we play and the performance of every phase of this team," said Mullen, whose Gators (2-1, 2-1) will square up with the Tigers (1-2, 1-2), who have their own defensive issues, for a 3:30 kickoff at Spurrier/Florida Field. "I went down and met with the defensive staff [Sunday]. We went through personnel. We went through each guy. We went through, 'Are we asking guys to do things they can do well? Where are we being mismatched? Where is their strength? Where is their weakness? And are we highlighting their strengths and protecting their weaknesses?' We certainly look at that. I probably spent more time during a normal day with the defense …  but I wouldn't expect me to be calling defensive plays or anything."

And what of potential changes on that side of the ball? 

"Tune in Saturday to find out," he said. 

CHARTING THE GATORS: Tale of the Tape

FLORIDA (FBS/SEC ranks)	CATEGORY	LSU (FBS/SEC ranks)
464.0 yards per (18th / 4th)	Total Offense	467.3 yards per  (17th / 3rd)
42.3 points per (T-8th / 2nd)	Scoring Offense	38.7 points per  (17th / 4th)
342.0 yards per (T-9th / 5th)	Passing Offense	370.7 yards per (5th / 4th)
495.0 yards per (72nd / 13th)	Total Defense	494.7 yards per (71st / 12th)
33.3 points per (58th / 11th)	Scoring Defense	32.0 points per (T-51st / 9th)
331.0 yards per (71st / 12th)	Passing Defense	380.7 yards per (75th / 14th)

UF did enough on offense against A&M to win the game, with fifth-year senior quarterback Kyle Trask maintaining his torrid touchdown-throwing pace with four more. He's now completed 71.8 percent of his passes for 996 yards, 14 touchdowns and just one interception. 

Against the Aggies, Trask engineered an offense that had 402 yards and 24 first downs. On eight drives, UF managed five touchdowns, a field goal, punted once, and turned it over once. Unfortunately, the latter miscue (a fumble by senior tailback Malik Davis near midfield) came on the Gators' final possession and with just 3:24 to play in a game where it just seemed the last team with the ball would win. That team was A&M, which led by quarterback Kellen Mond (338 yards, 3 TDs), tailback Isaiah Spiller (174 yards, 2 TDs) and wideout Caleb Chapman (9 catches, 151 yards, 2 TDs), had the ball nine times, scored five TDs, kicked two field goals (including the game-winner as time expired), punted once and turned it over once. 

With a defense providing so little a margin for error, one measly offensive mistake can be the one that turns the game. That was the case at A&M, but Trask said there will be no finger-pointing going on in the UF locker room. Everyone, even the offense, will be accountable.

"Our goal is to score every single time we have the football, and we look back on some of the drives we haven't scored on this season, and most of them are from us shooting ourselves in the foot," Trask said. "So if we just do our job and everybody does their [job] then we should be able to score every single drive. We have the talent to do so."

Indeed, they do. Florida now ranks 18th nationally in total offense at 464.0 yards per game and is tied for eighth in scoring at 42.3 points per game. Unfortunately, the UF defense is putting up (make that allowing) similar numbers. The Gators are surrendering 495.0 yards per game (58th nationally and next-to-last in the SEC) and 33.3 points (58th and 11th). 

But guess what? Those defensive digits are better than LSU's. 

The Tigers opened the season with a 44-34 home loss to Mississippi State and grad-transfer quarterback K.J. Costello, who threw for a SEC-record 623 yards and five touchdowns. Some context: In Costello's two games since he's passed for 545 yards, one touchdown and seven interceptions in a pair of losses, including an ugly 24-2 defeat Saturday at Kentucky. 

Back to LSU, which is coming off a 45-41 loss at Missouri, picked to finish next-to-last in the SEC East. In that one, Mizzou redshirt freshman quarterback Connor Baselak, making the first start of his career, hit 29 of his 34 attempts (that's 85.3 percent) for 406 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. 

"It was embarrassing," Tigers coach Ed Orgeron said afterward. "We've got to get it fixed."

Through three games, the Tigers are 71st nationally in defense (497.7 yards per game), which is last in the SEC, and tied for 51st in scoring defense (32.0 points per game). 

And while their offense is certainly capable of going up and down the field, LSU departed Mizzou lamenting a late-game breakdown when it had four downs at the 1-yard line in the final seconds, but quarterback Myles Brennan (430 yards, 4 TD, no picks in the game) and the offense could not score.  Said Orgeron, whose team dropped out of the rankings for the first time in nearly three years (a run of 43 consecutive polls): "We're LSU. We should be able to score from the 1-yard line. We've got to really look at what we're doing and do some soul searching."

Does that soul-searching part sound familiar? 

"Obviously, this season is even more unique," Mullen said. "Obviously, when you're playing right now, just a shortened, 10-game, SEC-only season, you've got to try to figure it out faster and it possibly gets exposed quicker with more consequences than maybe if we were playing the schedule we were supposed to play."