No. 10 Florida Gators Championship Hopes Get A False Start, Falling To SEC East Foe, Kentucky
LEXINGTON, KY—The stadium pulsed. Not a tremble, not a slight waver…but a noticeable pulse, mirroring the racing hearts of a sold out crowd in Kroger Field, beating with 35 years of angst and pent up frustration.
For it was 1986 the last time Kentucky beat the Gators in Lexington. That was a 10-3 game. This one featured more offense, as football is apt to do so nowadays. But still leaned on the trenches like the game of years gone by. The trenches are where the Gators had made their bread and butter the first four games. But it’s what collapsed in Kentucky, as the No. 10 Florida Gators lost 20-13 to the Kentucky Wildcats (ranked No. 23 in the USA Today Coaches Poll).
In fact, it was an offensive collapse and defensive surrender, punctuated by special teams blunders and 115 yards in penalties for the Gators. Yes, you read that right. Florida racked up 15 penalties for 115 yards, surpassing what Kentucky gained in passing yards (74) and neared what they gained on the ground (137). In other words, a complete team loss for the No. 10 Florida Gators.
"In the SEC, you're not gonna come in and make the mistakes that we made, and win a game," admitted Head Coach Dan Mullen after the loss. "That's a good football team. Top-25 team, you're playing a top-25 team on the road, here in the SEC, great crowd. You know, Mark [Stoop]'s built a program up, that, we know that, they're gonna be a top-25 team year-in-and-year-out now.
"Then you give them credit, you know, they had great energy, their guys played hard, made plays at key times during the game. But, I mean, you're not gonna make all the mistakes we made in the course of a game and expect to win, you know, you're not gonna win in the SEC doing that."
Both offenses traded punts on their respective opening drives, before the Gators found their footing. It began with the reemergence of Anthony Richardson. After two weeks out recover from a hamstring injury, the redshirt freshman phenom faked the entire Wildcats defense on a draw play that picked up 11-yards. Then, the Power 5’s best rushing offense found room in the air on a completely balanced drive.
After targeting Trent Whittemore on the opening drive, Mullen had Emory Jones look for Xzavier Henderson twice for 29 yards and concluded with a screen to rarely used Ja’Quavion Fraziars. The receiver dove forward seven yards for his first career touchdown.
Then Kentucky and Will Levis (6-15, 74 yards, one touchdown, six carries for 21 yards) began attacking the Gators in the flat, picking up chunk yardage with relative ease. From the 41-yard line, Wan’Dale Robinson took a handoff, picked through the initial line and cut upfield for the explosive touchdown. After a week in which the Gator defensive players bragged on the extra work they did on cleaning up missed tackles, Robinson bounced off Florida defenders like a pinball machine, in route to the score.
After the score though, Florida’s defense buckled up, forcing the Wildcats into three punts to end the first half and another to start the half. But it was a decision on the front side of halftime that will be rightly questioned for a while. With all three timeouts, and receiving the ball with 1:56 to play till intermission, the Gators picked up 21 yards on four plays then rode out the clock to the locker room.
“You're on the road, you're back to the wall, we're making some errors right there," explained Mullen. "You get out, you know, in order to kind of … you're looking at the clock, you got about 30 seconds, I think it was. We got the ball on our 30-yard line. On the road, you're like, you know. Like I said, I thought we were playing, we're doing some good things, let's just go kind of settle everybody down and not create a potential issue right there.”
The rain began at halftime, when Florida was ahead 10-7 but seemed to be unsure of themselves. It had stopped by the time both teams returned to the playing field, but the mood was set. It was guaranteed to get strange. This game always is. It was guaranteed to be close. This game tends to be. And that’s what it became yet again.
After forcing Kentucky into another punt, the Gators offense took the field and seemed to be moving productively enough. Then facing a manageable 3rd-and-3, committed a false start. There had been three such calls on the Gators in the first half. Noteworthy but not panic inducing. The first of the second half though was the last pebble needing loosening before the avalanche.
Behind the sticks, Florida was forced to punt and before the game was complete, they’d accumulate eight false start penalties. Each in a more crucial situation than the last. One that negated a fourth down conversion in the fourth quarter, another that brought back the ball on third down and another in the redzone as the Gators were looking for the late tie. The last one was the knife in the gut, after Florida had gone from a first and goal at the 9-yard line, to a fourth and goal from the 8-yard line over the course of nine plays (including the penalties).
"I'll get with [offensive line coach] John Hevesy, and we gotta get better, you know? I mean, that's, I didn't ... that's something we're gonna look at with a problem. But, give their crowd credit, they had a great crowd, they had a lot of energy, their guys played hard. But, you can't do that, that's a lack of mental toughness."
To Mullen's point, there was a sold out crowd of 61,632 in attendance. And this was the Gators first true hostile road game since 2019. But there have been in louder stadiums and more intense situations. Eight false starts could be, as Mullen said, "a lack of mental toughness." It can also be a disconnect between quarterback and offensive-line, leading to the need to get with Hevesy.
"We weren't locked in on offense at all times and I mean it got to us at one part of the game. So we just have to go to the drawing board and get better with that," admitted Jones, adding of his cadence, "definitely. I can be a lot louder. Part of that was my fault and my job, but we just have to go back to the drawing board and try to get better with that."
It wasn’t just the false starts that were what brought down the Gators. There were only two penalties on defense, but one was arguably a game changer. After Florida corner Tre’Vez Johnson picked off Levis, he returned the ball to the Kentucky 16-yard line. The Gators would take over in the redzone. But a personal foul on Antonio Valentino brought the ball back to the 31-yard line instead. Workable, but not as easy.
Richardson received three more snaps but after Dameon Pierce (eight carries, 54 yards) picked up a first down, it was called back for a holding penalty. On 3rd-and-13, Mullen called in a quarterback draw that picked up three yards.
The edges weren’t there for the running backs all night—an area of the field they’d dominated before Lexington—and there wasn’t much up the middle either. Off tackle runs found space, but the quarterback draw become a favorite all night. Jones’ play there meant the Gators had to settle for a 48-yard field goal attempt. And seemed at odds with the conductor Dan Mullen, who typically knows how to make an offense sing.
It begged the question, had the offense sputtered? Had Mullen been out-coached?
“No, but 382 yards, I guess that's sputtering. I don't know. We had 382. They had 211 yards. I wouldn't think that would be the case. I think guys did some pretty good things right there, moving up and down. I think we got to really look at the penalties that we have and how to get ourselves in a better situation that way. I got to a better job coaching up the PAT/field-goal group. They’re a physical group. We outrushed them. We outpassed. We out-total gained them. The time of possession, we were better on third downs.”
So just the penalties then?
“I would say that's a decent part to it. I mean you can go a lot more. OK, special teams, you can't have a blocked kick. That was seven points. That's a 10-point swing right there. That's a big, big deal so we got to get that fixed. Third-down conversions I think would have been higher. We got ourselves in some third-and-long situations. We got to be better right there. Red zone, we got to a ball in the red zone. We have got to score touchdowns when we get down there.”
The 48-yard field goal would’ve made it 13-7. Instead, it was blocked by Joshua Paschal (seven tackles, 2.5 for loss) and returned 76-yards by Trevin Wallace for a touchdown. The Gators blocked the ensuing point after attempt, but the damage from the nine point swing was done.
"We get an interception and we got the ball in the red zone, starting right in tight to go take a big lead and we get a penalty," said Mullen, disbelief taking over his tone. "Then we get a first down on that drive and get a penalty. You guys are there. And then we just fall, let their guys run clean up the middle on a field goal block. Pretty easy to … I mean, you guys saw it all.”
"It was very deflating," added defensive lineman Zach Carter (three tackles, one sack). "You can't, honestly you can't win games like that and have as many mistakes as we did."
The defense held the Cats at bay as long as possible, but after a Jones’ interception (the first interception the Kentucky defense has nabbed all season) was returned to the UF 29-yard line, there was little fight left in the unit. The Wildcats scored five plays later, making it 20-10.
Florida looked to mount a small comeback, moving downfield at a clipper pace before stalling at the 11-yard line. Jones actually converted a fourth down there to keep their chances moving, but a false start forced Mullen to settle for the field goal. If the Gators had scored the touchdown, all they would’ve needed on the next drive to tie the game would’ve been a field goal.
Instead as the clock ticked down and security lined the walls in front of the student section, the rain started back and Florida couldn’t do much with an 11-play, 54 yard drive and 4:21 of game clock. They turned the ball over on downs, and Will Levis had just enough time to snap the ball in victory formation before the Kentucky students rushed the field.
Then once again, the stadium pulsed. Fans jumped and the stands swayed, driven by the heart beat of every Kentucky fan in attendance and across the nation, while at the same time, the hearts of the Florida Gators broke, knowing at 1-2 in the SEC, and 1-1 in the SEC East, their hopes of a playoff in a year of parity are likely gone.
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