GAINESVILLE, Fla. – On a late December day in 1940, a heart attack felled renowned novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald while he worked to finish "The Last Tycoon."
The book was only half completed when Fitzgerald died 80 years ago, but as the story goes, one of Fitzgerald's most famous lines was discovered in his notes: "There are no second acts in American lives."
Don't tell that to the 2020 Florida Gators.
The sixth-ranked Gators (7-1) are in the midst of a second act that will result in a Southeastern Conference East Division title if they beat host Tennessee (2-5) on Saturday afternoon at Neyland Stadium. Florida has a five-game winning streak and a Heisman Trophy favorite in quarterback
Kyle Trask as the season enters the home stretch.
The Gators' first act ended with a last-second loss at Texas A&M on Oct. 10 and three days later, a total shutdown of the program as a COVID-19 outbreak engulfed more than 30 team members and head coach
Dan Mullen. In what has been an unprecedented college football season, Florida's early season hope faded into uncertainty as home games against LSU and Missouri were postponed and the Gators dropped from No. 3 in the country and out of the College Football Playoff chatter.
But since the Gators resumed their season, all they have done is win, including a victory over SEC East rival Georgia in Jacksonville that snapped a three-game losing streak to the Bulldogs and gave Mullen his biggest win in three seasons leading the program.
Trask and the offense are the headliners, but the Gators' resiliency is perhaps their defining trait.
"If you want to be successful, the path to success is not a short one," Mullen said this week. "It is a long, long journey. The easiest thing to do is quit or give up or stop trying. The hardest thing to do is to continue to push on."
The loss to the Aggies derailed Florida's momentum and cast doubts whether they could beat Georgia. Meanwhile, Mullen caused a stir with his postgame comments urging UF's administration to sell out Florida Field when the Gators returned home. Critics immediately attacked as Mullen became a punchline in the 24/7 news cycle for a few days, a spectacle heightened when he tested positive for COVID-19.
However, once the tweets and hot takes died down, the Gators returned from their two-week layoff and beat Missouri on Halloween night. They answered the season's biggest question when they beat Georgia the following week. Since the season-lifting victory over the Bulldogs, the Gators have beaten Arkansas, Vanderbilt and Kentucky to set up their shot at a championship on Saturday in Knoxville.
Despite all the challenges, the Gators are standing exactly where they want to be.
"I think the coaches just did a great job from the jump kind of getting an idea of how this season was going to go,'' said Trask, who elevated his status in the Heisman race by throwing for a career-high 474 yards against Georgia. "Coach Mullen said this was going to be a season with a lot of adversity and a lot of changes and that we're going to have to be able to do things on the fly and overcome things that we aren't expecting. So, we kind of already had that mentality going into the season."
Each stage of the season has presented different hurdles.
In the first three games, the offense sizzled while the defense struggled to put up much of a resistance. The defense showed improvement after the COVID layoff and despite a slow start in last week's 34-10 win over Kentucky, limited the Wildcats to 221 yards. Meanwhile, star tight end
Kyle Pitts suffered a concussion and facial injury in the Georgia game and missed two games. He returned against the Wildcats and caught three touchdown passes.
Through it all, the Gators have found ways to win when they had no other option if they wanted to reach the SEC Championship Game for the first time since 2016. Mullen, in his 12th season as a head coach, is seeking his first division title. The last time he was part of an SEC championship was in 2008 at Florida, his final season as offensive coordinator.
Regardless of all the prep work and planning, the midseason layoff tested everyone in the program in ways they had never experienced. The team's leadership really showed according to Mullen.
"We were able to get through it and move forward and so I think that has allowed our guys really to get back their focus on football,'' Mullen said.
In a game defined by X's and O's, the intangibles are often overlooked. Not this year. Mullen credited the team's attitude as the most important factor in reaching the brink of a division title.
"That's probably the thing I'm most pleased with,'' he said.
When other programs around the country experienced similar pauses, Mullen's phone started to ring. Coaches wanted to know how the Gators handled their situation. He was glad to help, but warned that it's day to day.
In 2020, nothing is according to last year's playbook.
"It's going to be a unique finish to the college football season,'' Mullen said.
Well, at least one aspect hasn't changed. Mullen refused to look past Tennessee and reveal what a division title would mean.
"If we come out on top, I'll let you know afterwards how it feels,'' he said.
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