UF wide receiver Justin Shorter finishes off a 75-yard touchdown reception on the Gators' first offensive snap, a play that gave his team the lead for good in a 52-17 defeat Sunday of EMU at the "Swamp."
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Anthony Richardson threw a 75-yard touchdown pass on Florida's first offensive play. In the second quarter, the Gators' quarterback slow-jogged off the field after appearing to suffer some kind of lower-body injury. Six plays later, though, Richardson was back in the game and moving his team into the end zone, part of a run of a half-hundred-plus consecutive points and easy win for the home team.
That was pretty much the extent of Sunday's drama in UF's 52-17 roughshod run over FCS-classified Eastern Washington at Spurrier/Florida Field, a game that was pushed back 24 hours due to the threat earlier in the week from Hurricane Ian.
Richardson completed 8 of 10 passes for 240 yards and two touchdowns. His one rushing attempt went for 45 yards. The sophomore from Gainesville was sidelined for five plays in the second quarter, giving way to backup Jalen Kitna, who went 8 of 12 for 152 yards and a 62-yard score to true freshman Caleb Douglas in the third quarter. Together, they helped the Gators (3-2) score 52 unanswered points and churn out 666 yards, equaling the seventh-most in program history, while winning a 15th consecutive regular-season game out of Southeastern Conference play, a streak that dates to the 2018 season opener.
UF coach Billy Napier, despite facing a severely overmatched foe, liked how his team started and how it played overall, tying the performance to a nice bounce-back week — amid the hurricane uncertainty, no less — after losing at Tennessee eight days earlier.
"I thought we were pretty sharp. I thought we had our best week of practice, offensively in particularly," Napier said. "Sometimes the opponent doesn't matter. I think it's about your urgency, your focus, your intensity. I thought our detail was better."
Better yet, the Gators' best players were on point.
Ricky Pearsall(1) races 76 yards for his end-around touchdown run during Sunday's second quarter. (Photo: Jordan McKendrick/UAA Communications)
Justin Shorter was on the receiving end of the first UF scoring play. The Gators scored on a couple short runs by tailbacks Montrell Johnson Jr. and Nay'Quan Wright, while wideout Ricky Pearsall had a 76-yard touchdown run on an end-around play. Wideout Xzavier Henderson caught a 21-yard TD pass from Richardson that had the Gators coasting 35-3 at halftime.
The score was 52-3, with Florida having banked the bulk of those 666 yards (392 passing, 274 rushing), with 17 different skill-position players touching the football along the way.
"I really like the way that, as a team, we came together," sophomore offensive lineman Richie Leonard IV said. "We were able to limit the distractions and perform."
EWU took the opening kickoff and went 49 yards in 13 plays, converting a pair of third downs, before settling for a 44-yard field goal from Seth Harrison to take a 3-0 lead almost seven minutes in.
Eleven seconds later, the Eagles trailed. For good, as it turned out.
On UF's first play from scrimmage, Richardson dropped, set and heaved a perfectly thrown bomb of a post route that found Shorter in stride for the 75-yarder and 7-3 advantage.
"We battled the entire day," said Eastern Washington coach Aaron Best, who liked the effort a whole lot better than his team's last crack at a power-five program, a 70-14 loss at Oregon on Sept. 10. "It was a different outfit on our end than we played in Eugene. There was more fight, more want, more plays made, and more consistency in a lot of ways."
Eastern Washington (1-3) took the ball right down the field again against the UF defense, but on fourth-and-1 at the Florida 17 an option pitch to tailback Justice Jackson to the right side was blown up by cornerback Jaydon Hill for a 1-yard loss and the Gators took over on downs. Four plays and 82 yards later — the first an electrifying east-west Richardson run of 45 yards — the Gators were up 14-3 on a 3-yard scoring run by Johnson.
The next EWU drive was another turn-away on downs. This time, the Gators took over with Richardson firing a sideline pass good for 19 yards to Henderson. He threw the pass awkwardly, however, collapsing to the turf and remaining there to be aided by trainers. To the relief of the announced crowd of 72,00-plus, Richardson gently jogged off and gave way to Kitna, whose first pass was a nifty rollout completion of 22 yards to Pearsall.
Backup quarterback Jalen Kitna (11) made his collegiate debut by hitting eight of 12 throws for 152 yards, including a 62-yard third-quarter touchdown pass to Caleb Douglas. (Photo: Courtney Culbreath/UAA Communications)
"We're still in the meat of the game. We're trying to put a drive together and we're not going to change the game plan for any of that," Kitna said of his first taste of collegiate quarterbacking by virtue of a battlefield promotion. "It's my job to come in there and operate the system. All the quarterbacks here are taught to operate the system the same way. Whoever came in, we're calling the best play for the situation."
Kitna executed. He got Gators to the Eagles' 4, but after a timeout Richardson was back under center. Wright's 4-yard touchdown run on Richardson's first play back pushed UF ahead 21-3. The next series, after a EMU punt, was UF's 1-play, 16-second drive, with Pearsall, the speedy transfer from Arizona State, taking a reverse pitch, then bobbing and weaving up his team's sideline for the longest scoring run of the season.
Another defensive stop, this time by a forced fumble, led to another quick UF drive; just four plays covering 40 yards and capped by a 21-yard Richardson-to-Henderson strike for the 35-3 halftime lead.
"AR's" work was pretty much done after that, with a second straight solid outing a week after setting a UF record with 515 yards of total offense in the 38-33 loss at Knoxville.
"I think he's getting more comfortable in his role and certainly the direction of our team," Napier said. "We're going to give him the opportunity to do what he can do."
He did a lot Sunday. So did a lot of his teammates.
