No. 6 Oklahoma Sooners and Spencer Rattler Rattle the Shell of the No. 7 Florida Gators
Updated: Jan 15, 2021
In some ways, yes, Spencer Rattler rattled the Florida Gators. The Oklahoma Sooners quarterback cherry picked his matches against a shell of a Gator defense, as the No. 6 Sooners routed the No. 7 Gators 55-20 in the 2020 Goodyear Cotton Bowl.
After winning the toss and electing to receive, the freshman Rattler (14-23, 247 yards, 3 touchdowns; 40 yards, 1 touchdown on 7 rushes) drove down field like a seasoned veteran leading his troops. He found a matchup versus Donovan Stiner three different times and took advantage, ending with a 27-yard touchdown in the endzone to Marvin Mims.
Already up 7-0, a Gators turnover made it 14-0 Sooners before Gators Defensive Coordinator Todd Grantham could even get his play sheet turned right side up.
Florida was able to cut into a 17-0 Sooners lead, thanks in part to turnovers courtesy of the de facto veterans on a night when so many were missing. Khris Bogle chased the scrambling Rattler through the backfield, refusing to let him slip away, and sacked him from behind, causing a fumble that safety Trey Dean recovered.
The Gators followed that up with a Mohamoud Diabate forced fumble in a scrum, that corner Kaiir Elam emerged with victorious.
But those became anomalies on an otherwise lackluster night. Rattler took his time in the pocket, something he had ample of, and made easy work of what has been a questionable secondary all season.
Where Oklahoma really struck though was on the ground. The Sooners picked up 435 yards rushing, and three of their six offensive touchdowns were on the ground. Florida was without their leading tackler Ventrell Miller due to injury, and defensive lineman Kyree Campbell due to an opt out. But Diabate won’t let either absence excuse the Gators worst rushing defense of the season. It was also the most since Georgia Southern rushed for 429 in 2013.
“Obviously, Kyree's a great player and that would be a great help for our defense. But I'm not going to sit here and say we gave up a lot of rushing yards because Kyree wasn't there,” said Diabate.
"Because at the end of the day, Kyree was not there the first couple of games, and we played. Kyree's a great player. We need him. He's a big part of the 2020 team. But at the end of the day, just like Trey Dean said, players have to get out on the field and make plays. We're the University of Florida. We can't say we didn't have one guy. This is Florida. So you can't say we didn't have one guy who could make a play.”
In the second half alone, the Sooners five drives ended in a punt, a field goal and three touchdowns.
While the Gators defense being unable to tread any water as Oklahoma drowned them to the tune 684 total yards of offense was the primary reason Florida lost this game, it did not come purely at the hands of Rattler. The Gators themselves seemed rattled before the ball was even kicked off. Missing seven starters due to a variety of opt outs, COVID test and injuries, Florida stepped on to the field in Arlington Texas missing 65% of its production through the air (Kyle Pitts, Kadarius Toney, Tre Grimes and Jacob Copeland).
“It obviously was a little more challenging,” admitted Trask.
“I mean, when you just, you think about it, you've got a whole off-season to get timing down with that group of guys. And we essentially had about two or three days to get the timing down. Since we had so many opt-outs, we only had about two or three days of practice to get the timing down with the next guys up.
“That's not making excuses or anything, but that's just the amount of work that goes into this, you don't just flip a switch and everything, you end up in end zone. It takes a lot of work to get there.”
“With the number of people that were out for the game, we were under numbers, actually,” admitted Mullen.
“To be honest, we could have said I give our guys credit. We had the numbers to not play the game. But our young guys, I was really excited. They wanted to go play in that game. They wanted to get the experience. They wanted to be on that stage.”
Still, it took only two plays for Trask (16-28, 158 yards, three interceptions) to miss those who better knew his timing and tendencies. After a quick shot to Justin Shorter to get the chains moving, on the second offensive play of the game, Trask looked left for Rick Wells. The ball didn’t have enough air as it arced towards Wells, but without knowing the play, it’s hard to know if that was due to Trask misreading the route or Wells misreading his depth on the play based on where Trask would put the pass.
Regardless, Tre Norwood had the easy pick and nothing but grass in route to his 45-yard pick-six. In the blink of an eye, the Sooners were up 14-0.
Trask, who had thrown five interceptions all season, followed that drive up with a ball slightly behind Kemore Gamble, tipping off the tight ends fingers and into the waiting hands of Brian Asamoah.
A third interception in the first quarter—the last in the endzone for an Oklahoma touchback—it was clear this wasn’t the night for the Gators legend. An Evan McPherson field goal made it 17-3 and as the Gators began the second quarter, a Sooners punt put Florida back at their own 12-yard line.
Trask began the drive, using four plays to move the Gators 24 yards downfield and open up some breathing room. From there, Emory Jones took over for the remainder of the drive, using 11 plays himself to cap the 16-play, 88-yard drive. Letting Jones rush, throw screens as well as roll out and look deep, Jones did a bit of everything, before finally running up the middle 1-yard for the Gators first touchdown of the night, cutting the score to 17-10.
Jones wasn’t seen again until the second half, partly because he was seen “losing his lunch” so to speak, on the sidelines.
“He has to get in shape or something like that. You know what I mean? You've got to play those long drives right now. He's used to going in for a couple plays here and there and getting a breather and some water,” joked Mullen.
“We were going to play a lot of people. [Emory] was in. He had a couple plays. We just let him in to go finish the drive. To be honest with you, I talked to Kyle [Trask] at halftime. I said, I'm going to let you play the first series and make a decision in the second half.”
Mohamoud Diabate forced a second fumble on Rattler and another McPherson field goal helped erase what had been a 17 point deficit down to four, 17-13.
Then the Sooners and Rattler used textbook, simple movement to pick a part the Gators defense in whichever way they so deemed necessary at any given time.
By nights end, all three quarterbacks saw time.
“Emory obviously has gotten a lot of experience. I think Emory has learned an awful lot,” said Mullen of his quarterback.
“Sitting there with Kyle Trask, he has learned to prepare, to develop, to be ready. And I'm really excited to see what he's going to bring to the table here moving forward within the offense.
“And the same with Anthony. Anthony is just a young guy. You know, I'm really excited about us getting going in the spring and seeing a lot of these guys out here on the field, especially at the quarterback position…both Emory and Anthony are very different style quarterbacks than Kyle, which I think, as everybody knows, we always play to the strengths of our players. So we'll run. There will be a lot of similarities and a lot of differences in our offense next year, but we're going to build around the strengths of those guys.
“And then you know what? You look at this right now, Anthony Richardson is throwing a touchdown pass in the Cotton Bowl against Oklahoma. Emory Jones has played in a lot of big games and a lot of big moments, so he has the experience and he's really learned how to prepare to get ready to take over that main role…I’m excited.”
In a performance that should in no way diminish all Kyle Trask has done to cement his legacy with the Gators, he finished with his first career start without a touchdown. But on a night that Mullen said was a lot about seeing what the future held for the Gators, Emory Jones finished going 8-16 for 86 yards through the air and 60 yards and a touchdown on 10 rushes. Freshman and Gainesville native Anthony Richardson (1-1, 27 yards and 1TD; 42 yards on 3 rushes) threw the only Florida touchdown of the night—albeit in garbage time—a 27-yard rainbow to Texas Longhorns transfer, Jordan Pouncey.
In the end, this was a team who had their sights set on the playoffs and showed little interest in what was essentially a consolation prize. And as they trudge back to Gainesville in preparation to turn the calendar over to 2021, they must do so with hard earned lessons from their third New Years Six bowl game under Dan Mullen, but first loss in such a game.
The knowledge they brought that upon themselves will be what shapes the coming months.
“By playing so many players tonight, guys have experienced their stuff now that they know they can go build off of and learn from,” explained Mullen.
“They know now, hey, when I step on the field in a big game against a great football team, there are certain things that you know, when I was recruited when I was playing other high school football, you know, the last time I was really on the field, it wasn't like this, and it's a very different game.”
Added Diabate, “I feel like three losses isn't acceptable, but something I will say, I'm proud of the team because every other team did too, but we have to deal with a lot this year. It's a COVID year, no off-season, no spring together, having young players who didn't get to go through a spring. So it's like we're proud that we made it to this point.
“Even though we wanted to win and it wasn't our desired result at the end, we're still proud of ourselves because there's a lot of people going through a lot of things in this world, a lot of distractions going on in this world today and during this time, but we were able to come and finish the season. And whether we finished it with a win or a loss, we finished it like men and we finished it -- when that scoreboard said 0:00 with no time left, we finished it. So I'm proud of my guys, every single one of them, from K.T. [Kadarius Toney] to a walk-on. Every one of them. That's how I feel about it.”
“In the off-season, just prepare,” noted safety Trey Dean, who was a part of the two previous NY6 wins.
“We’ve got to go out there and work on the little things because I believe that this game is 90% mental and the rest of it is physical. So we've got to go out there and work on the little things. Just different things. We're going to go out there and listen to our coaches. And we've got to continue to be the Gator standard. And, at the end of the day or next year, we're holding up that trophy, the Lord's will.”
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