Florida Won the Punting Battle and Still Lost the Field

Photo: GatorBait Media

ATLANTA — Florida had the better punting day in Saturday’s 27-8 loss to Georgia at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and it hardly mattered. The Bulldogs’ average drive started at their own 37.3-yard line. Florida’s started at its own 27.5. That gap, nearly 10 yards a possession, was built from flags and giveaways, not from the kicking game.

Three 15-yard flags, three scoring drives

Florida was penalized eight times for 78 yards. Georgia was flagged four times for 32. Three of Florida’s penalties were 15-yarders, and each one landed on a Georgia scoring drive.

The first came in the opening quarter. Georgia had hurt itself with a holding call and a delay of game and was staring at fourth-and-15 from the Florida 46. Drew Miller’s punt went 45 yards to the Florida 1. Then Jaden Edgecombe was flagged for roughing the kicker, and the Bulldogs took over at the Florida 31 with a fresh first down. Nate Frazier scored from the 1 five plays later. Sumrall said of the block attempt: “We don’t leave our feet to block the punt.” He added that “our defense had gotten a stop after the pick and then to gift them a new set of downs gave them life.”

The second came in the second quarter. Demello Jones intercepted Aaron Philo and returned the ball 23 yards to the Florida 32. An unsportsmanlike conduct flag then moved the ball to the 17. Georgia gained 7 yards on three snaps, and Peyton Woodring kicked a 28-yard field goal for a 10-0 lead.

The third was a face mask on Cormani McClain. On second-and-10 from the Florida 41, Gunner Stockton’s pass fell incomplete, and the flag turned a likely third-and-10 into a first down at the Florida 26. Four snaps later, Bo Walker scored from the 1, and Georgia led 17-0 with 1:55 left in the half.

Those three flags took 45 of Florida’s 78 penalty yards and fed 17 of the 20 points Georgia’s offense produced.

The field-position math

Punting was not the problem. Alec Clark averaged 51.3 yards on four punts, and Miller averaged 49.0 on three. After Miller’s punts, Florida started at its own 19, at the Georgia 45 and at its own 33, an average of 35.7 yards from its goal line. After Clark’s four punts, Georgia started at its own 41, 19, 11 and 11, an average of 20.5.

The damage came elsewhere. Georgia started three drives in Florida territory: at the Florida 41 after an interception, at the Florida 17 after an interception and a flag, and at the Florida 31 after a Florida turnover on downs. Those starts averaged 70.3 yards from Georgia’s goal line. On Georgia’s other seven drives, the average start was its own 23.1, worse than Florida’s 27.5. Georgia ran 10 drives to Florida’s 12, but those three short fields account for the entire gap. Those are the numbers that matter more than any punt Florida launched.

A kickoff added to the tab. After Florida’s touchdown, Patrick Durkin’s kickoff went out of bounds, and Georgia started at its own 35.

The only touchdown took the hard road

When Florida finally scored, it earned most of it. The drive started at the Georgia 48 after Myles Graham’s 42-yard fumble return, and it needed nine plays and 48 yards. Along the way, a sack-fumble cost 10 yards before Jadan Baugh recovered. A third-and-20 produced only 11 yards. Tramell Jones Jr. then found Luke Harpring for 23 yards on fourth-and-9, and a fourth-and-goal pass from the 4 fell incomplete before a Georgia pass interference call put the ball on the 2. Jones ran it in with 6:59 left, and Baugh passed to Dallas Wilson for the two-point conversion.

It was a strange contrast with the third quarter. A Georgia roughing-the-passer flag had wiped out an interception of Jones and given Florida a first down at the Georgia 40. The Gators reached second-and-goal at the 3, and Jones was intercepted in the end zone. The Gators wasted that gift, then needed a fourth-down throw to get the next one.

Georgia closed the book

Georgia answered by running on 11 of its next 12 scrimmage plays and holding the ball for 5:49 of the final 6:59. Dwight Phillips Jr. opened the drive with a 26-yard run, Florida burned two timeouts, and Woodring’s 21-yard field goal with 3:34 left made it 27-8. After a Florida turnover on downs, Walker ran four times and Georgia reached fourth-and-1 at the Florida 22. Walker was stopped with 16 seconds left, which gave Florida a last defensive stop and nothing else. Georgia held the ball for 32:10 to Florida’s 27:50.

What Florida must clean up before Oklahoma

The trend is encouraging. Florida was flagged five times for 60 yards in the first half, three times for 18 in the second half and not at all in the fourth quarter. The trouble is that the first half decided the game.

Sumrall already has a plan for the film. “It’s the self-inflicted ones, the things that we do that are reckless, that hurt ourselves, that I really highlight,” he said. “We have a penalty report tape.” He said that “we have to clean that up.”

Florida (5-3, 3-3 SEC) gets its next chance against Oklahoma on Nov. 7 at 7:45 p.m. ET on SEC Network. A 27.5-yard average start is survivable. Giving the other team a first down and a free 15 yards is not, and the tape is already cued up.