Gators quarterback Anthony Richardson under pressure in Saturday's loss to Georgia at TIAA Bank Stadium in Jacksonville. (Photo: Hannah White/UAA Communications)
Napier: Gators 'Not Good Enough' vs. Top-Ranked Bulldogs
Saturday, October 29, 2022 | Football, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
JACKSONVILLE — If the task was not clear enough on an overcast and foggy day at TIAA Bank Stadium, the No. 1-ranked Georgia Bulldogs wasted little time clarifying the challenge.
For the Gators to pull off the upset, they would have to play their best game under first-year head coach Billy Napier. The Bulldogs then announced their intentions by taking a three-touchdown lead less than 18 minutes into the game.
The game was not technically over, but it felt that way early in Georgia's 42-20 victory Saturday in front of an announced crowd of 75,868. Florida rallied to trim Georgia's lead to 28-20 late in the third quarter on quarterback Anthony Richardson's 78-yard scoring pass to Xzavier Henderson, but in the end, the comeback was nothing more than a mirage.
Georgia is No. 1 and the reigning national champions for a reason. And the Gators are 4-4 for different reasons.
"Not good enough," Napier said afterward. "Got to coach better, got to lead better, players need to play better. Simple enough."
The Gators didn't particularly do anything at a high level consistently Saturday, which is a recipe for a 22-point loss when you are playing the nation's top-ranked team.
The Gators had 371 yards of total offense. Georgia racked up 555 yards, its most ever in the rivalry.
Florida scored on two of four trips into the red zone. Georgia finished 4-for-4.
The Gators did force three turnovers and scored 10 points off those Bulldogs' miscues, but Georgia led 28-3 at halftime and barely broke a sweat.
You get the idea. Georgia is the better team, which showed in the 100th edition of one of the great rivalries in college football. A series that has turned in the Bulldogs' favor under head coach Kirby Smart. Georgia won for the fifth time in the last six meetings and has outscored the Gators 206-112 over that span.
"That's the No. 1 team in the country,'' UF defensive tackle Tyreak Sapp said. "They have every right to that."
The afternoon started promising for the Gators, who forced the Bulldogs to punt on the game's opening drive. However, after a three-and-out on their opening series, the Gators punted right back to the Bulldogs.
From there, the Bulldogs took over, scoring on their next two drives. First, tailback Daijun Edwards plunged in from the 1 to cap an eight-play, 66-yard drive. Next, running back Kenny McIntosh scored on a 4-yard run following another three-and-out by the Gators to put Georgia ahead 14-0 at the end of the first quarter.
The second quarter was much the same despite an interception by Gators cornerback Jadarrius Perkins and a career-long 52-yard field goal by Adam Mihalek. Georgia went ahead 21-0 on its first drive of the second quarter when tight end Brock Bowers hauled in a 73-yard touchdown catch from quarterback Stetson Bennett — Bowers gained control of the ball after it bounced off Gators linebacker Amari Burney's helmet. Mihalek's field goal got the Gators on the scoreboard, but the Bulldogs responded with a seven-play, 54-yard drive capped by Bennett's 7-yard touchdown pass to Ladd McConkey.
The Gators trudged to the locker room on the verge of being blown out.
Napier challenged his team to put up a fight in the second half, and the Gators responded with a 13-play, 75-yard drive to open the second half. Trevor Etienne's 3-yard run trimmed the lead to 28-10, and on Georgia's ensuing possession, Burney stripped McIntosh on first down, and Trey Dean III recovered at the Bulldogs' 27. Mihalek booted a 26-yard field goal seven plays later.
Florida maintained the momentum when Burney picked off Bennett on the next drive. Bennett, who finished 19 of 38 for 316 yards with two touchdown passes and two interceptions, entered the game with only one pick in 229 attempts. His second interception Saturday gave Florida additional life, and Richardson tossed a dart down the sideline to Henderson for a 78-yard score three plays later.
Suddenly, Georgia's lead was only 28-20 with 3:31 left in the third quarter.
"I will say what I respect about that group of men in the locker room is that they really care," Napier said. "They worked hard on getting to know each other, working together, playing this game the way it's intended to be played — and that's for each other. I think we saw a little bit of that.
"We were able to get a score, create some takeaways, get it back to a game. I gained a level of respect for that group in terms of how they responded at halftime. But a ton of respect for the football team that Georgia has. They have a fantastic team … and certainly, we learned a lot about what we need to do to get our program to where it can be competitive against a team like that."
As they did earlier in the game, the Bulldogs responded with another scoring drive.
Gators cornerback Jadarrius Perkins, No. 27, celebrates after his interception, one of the few first-half highlights for the Gators on Saturday. (Photo: Tim Casey/UAA Communications)
Edwards' 22-yard run put Georgia ahead 35-20 with 35 seconds left in the third quarter, and McIntosh added a 4-yard run in the fourth quarter for the final margin. McIntosh's run came after UF failed to convert a fourth-and-six, and the Bulldogs converted a fourth-and-seven after taking over on downs.
Richardson finished 18 of 37 for 271 yards and a touchdown pass but was bottled up in the run game with only 19 yards on 11 carries. He was sacked three times.
Richardson discovered plays hard to come by against a Georgia defense ranked first in the Southeastern Conference in every major statistical category.
"They just have great guys; they have a great scheme," Richardson said. "Whenever you have a team like that, it's easy for them to do what they do. They have people doing their job, and it's kind of hard to affect them."
Napier was asked about the talent disparity between the programs in his first taste of the Florida-Georgia rivalry. The CBS telecast amplified the talent gap by showing a graphic illustrating the two schools' recruiting efforts over the past five years: Georgia has signed 25 five-star recruits, Florida two.
The results have shown up on the field. Georgia won its 23rd consecutive regular-season game and 16th consecutive SEC regular-season game Saturday. The Bulldogs haven't lost in the regular season to a conference opponent since the Gators beat them in 2020.
"It doesn't matter if there was a talent gap or not,'' Napier said. "It matters who played the best today. Who executed the best today. We didn't execute the best today.
"To go where we want to go — to win an SEC championship, to win a divisional championship, to win our conference, to win a national championship — you've got to do it all really well. You've got to evaluate. You've got to recruit. You've got to develop. You've got to impact who they are as people. And those are all areas that we wake up every day and we work extremely hard at."
The Gators will wake up Sunday reminded of that by Saturday's loss to the Bulldogs.
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