Buddy Martin Blog: Close, But No Cigar. But Billy Won’t Call It ‘Moral Victory’ In Knoxville.

It was a gallant effort by Ventrell Miller, but not enough. (UAA Photo)

I saw Florida fighting with all its might only to lose in Knoxville, 38-33, so it should not be dismissed as nothing.

By BUDDY MARTIN

GatorBaitMedia.com Editor

The best thing that can be said of that Bad Day In Knoxville movie is that the Gators lost the game but may have rediscovered their quarterback.

On a day when an old rival rose up to smite its nemesis after over a decade of being dominated, that’s a tough trade to swallow. Perhaps come one day it might look and feel better for Florida. But even in the face of things that happened Saturday in Tennessee in the last 90 seconds, it felt pretty encouraging.

“No moral victories,” said losing coach Billy Napier. And he repeated it, “no moral victories – so back to work.”

Maybe there are no moral victories, or whatever you call them, but we know progress when we see it. The football newthinkers say that if you coach and play the right way with a good plan, even if you don’t achieve the result you were hoping for, there is a sense of accomplishment.

I saw the confidence and faith in Richardson restored.

I saw Florida fighting with all its might only to lose in Knoxville, 38-33, so it should not be dismissed as nothing.

I saw fire in the eyes of Billy Napier I have never seen before.

“I love that group in the locker-room,” he said. “I love their competitive spirit. And you know what they did? They did what we asked them to do today. They went on the road. We brought 70 here today and put the ball down. And they competed. Was it perfect? No. We didn’t do enough to win.”

Fans love to see their coach getting feisty with officials, scrapping for every inch of real estate, taking the “Scared Money Don’t Make Money” approach to play calling and never giving up until the last tick. Kind of reminds Gator Nation of another guy who was pretty successful with that style.

Many Gator fans had higher hopes. After a spritely first half in which they kept the offensive heat on Tennessee’s defense and kept the high-powered Hendon Hooker offense at bay until just before the half, it appeared Florida was going to be in control of the game. Until A.R. got hammered and stripped of the ball, really Richardson had very few mistakes and was back on his game. Lost confidence appeared to have been found. Then the Gator defense did its Swiss Cheese imitation.

Florida got 'Hookered' by Hendon in Knoxville (Tennessee Photo)

They were getting "Hookered," 38-21, when Richardson came back from that costly fumble and took his team in for one more score to make it 38-27. For some reason Napier chose the two-point conversion but Richardson’s pass fell incomplete. Maybe you didn’t care about the final score, but those gamblers who took the Gators and 10.5 points certainly did.

Alas, though, after a spectacular one-handed mid-air recovery of an onside kick by Diwun Black, here was Richardson throwing into Tennessee’s checkerboarded end zone for the win. It came up short. But by the end of the game I saw also fear in the eyes of Josh Heupel.

Heupel can brag all he wants about what a “beautiful college football setting Rocky Top is,” but if somehow that last Richardson pass had been caught by Justin Shorter for the winning score, the field would have been transformed into a toxic dump site of mustard bottles and X-Out golf balls.

The good news is that Billy Napier’s team showed up to fight. He played every fourth-down card in the deck, making 5 out of 6. In the end he went against the odds and lived up to his “Scared Money” mantra. He turned his QB loose for 594 yards and four touchdowns – two of them passing. I saw fight in the eyes of Billy Napier. You could also see the pride in his eyes for the effort his team gave.

“Anthony Richardson is a phenomenal young man,” Napier said. “And he takes so much pride in his role on the team. He worked. He’s humble. He cares and he competed today.”

Unfortunately, Napier also lost his cool and it cost his team. At the goal line when officials stopped the clock for what seemed an eternity just to see if they missed a call, it angered the Gator coach, who stormed to the middle of the field wind-milling his arm for the clock to start and it drew an unsportsmanlike conduct foul which gave Tennessee a fresh set of downs. Since the Vols scored the next play it didn’t matter except to Napier,

“I lost my poise today and I didn’t represent our team,” said Napier, “or the University of Florida in the right way. And I apologize for that.”

It was not a win, but neither was it not for nothing. I liked seeing the Florida Gators on the attack again.

True, the Gators allowed the 11th-ranked Vols to break their five-game losing streak. Also, Billy inexplicably went for two points after Florida’s last two touchdowns, and missed. This appeared to have cost everybody who took the Gators and 10.5 points there one last redeeming moment of losing gracefully. But it worked out in the end.

“We didn’t do enough to win today,” Napier said, citing coaching as one of the shortcomings. “But I love the loyalty in that lockeroom… But Florida beat Florida today.”

What was college football’s toughest September schedule is over now and Billy Napier is a .500 coach. He picked up some style points in Knoxville, but those won’t last forever. He has eight games to prove that he can get Florida back on a trajectory of excellence. He made a step in that direction Saturday by resurrecting a promising young quarterback with big-time potential. Stay tuned.