Missouri Tigers 38 Florida Gators 17: Mizzou spoils UF Homecoming in rout

The Florida Gators had their homecoming spoiled by Missouri and the arm of Tigers quarterback Drew Lock.

Well, so much for that 10-win season. So much for that New Year’s Six appearance, or even a big-time bowl game for that matter. Heck, so much for the Florida Gators being a contender of any sort. None of that applies after Saturday’s embarrassing Homecoming performance. These Gators regressed to Jim McElwain’s version of Florida football. And you can’t point the finger at one player, or even a few players. This was a full team effort, or should I say lack thereof.

For the third consecutive game, Florida found themselves in a difficult to manage first half hole. And against Georgia, that came back to get them, but I know that everyone just got the impression that at some point Florida would flip a switch and come surging back. But that never happened— far from anything close to that actually.

The abysmal outing came in all three phases.

First of all— this UF defense is a far cry from where we thought they were just a few weeks ago.

Missouri’s Drew Lock came into the Swamp with only 16 TD’s on the year, and only 1 in SEC- play compared to 5 INT’s. Lock left Gainesville following his best output of the season, throwing 3 TD’s and committing no turnovers. Florida also struggled to create any pass rush against Lock, only getting to him one time and that was on a play where he escaped the pocket and ran out of bounds for a loss. After leading the SEC in sacks and making a serious impact throughout the first seven games of the season— what happened to the UF defensive line? Jachai Polite, CeCe Jefferson, and Jabari Zuniga were virtually non-factors in the beatdown. And Drew Lock went to work dissecting the Gators on the backend. Numerous blown coverages, missed assignments, and a lethargic effort showed that this defense is a shell of what they were just a few weeks ago. First Jake Fromm and now Lock— for the second consecutive week, each have had far and away their sharpest outing of the season.

As far as the offense goes, Feleipe Franks dug deep into his past against the Tigers and was pulled in the third quarter in favor of fellow third-year sophomore Kyle Trask. After an erratic first half followed up with more of the same for the first two series after intermission, Dan Mullen went into his bullpen to maybe find a spark or just absolutely anything else. Franks completed just 9-of-22 passes for a measly 84-yards with the only drive of any significance coming just before the break. Franks missed open receivers repetitively and was pathetic at converting third downs. Trask did provide some very brief delight to the UF fans, who booed Franks and the sputtering offense prior to Trask being inserted. The sad part is that Trask’s entrance is seriously the highlight of an awful afternoon in Gainesville. Trask connected on a few nice throws including a 4th-down conversion to Josh Hammond for a touchdown, but that was really about it. And of course, Mizzou didn’t prepare to see Trask in this game, but they absolutely had Franks and this entire UF offense scouted and figured out. Franks could not hit on anything down the field, mostly overthrowing receivers that were open, and Mizzou was jumping on all of the quick screens that Florida likes to go with.

Florida couldn’t get much going on the ground against the Tigers either— run blocking was average at best and there just weren’t many lanes open for Lamical Perine and Jordan Scarlet to ever really become threats in this game.

To add to all of this— this was clearly Mullen’s worst called game of the season too, as there just wasn’t any dazzle in the Gators on the afternoon. It was just an all-around pathetic performance from the Florida Gators.

In all— Missouri gained nearly 500 yards against Florida, between Lock’s 250 passing and the Tigers gashing the Gators for 223-yards on the ground.

All of this coming from a team that was blanked and couldn’t even manage a first down in the second half last week against Kentucky.

So now where does Florida go from here? Well, I was certainly hoping for the 10-win season and a New Year’s Day extravaganza. The 10-win regular season is obviously now for sure out the window, but Florida will still have an outside shot at a nice bowl game. That will take an incredible finish however, and after what we all just witnessed— anybody thinking that’s even a remote possibility? These upcoming matchups with South Carolina and FSU are far from gimmes, and up until this weekend, I would have certainly liked Florida’s chances at a strong finish. Something happened to this team after the Georgia game and I can’t figure out what it is.

Mullen says that next week’s starter at QB will be determined in practice this upcoming week, so we’ll see how this all plays out. But there’s so much more to it than that— like what happened to this defense for example.

Florida’s positive start to this season came from a valiant team effort. You can’t pin this on anyone in particular. The Gators won as a team, and now have fallen down the path of losing in the exact same way.