Florida football: Gators dodge bullet at South Carolina, head to bye week

It was a challenge in the first half, but Florida football came back and scored 21 straight points in the fourth quarter to get past South Carolina Saturday.

It was a sleepy start to the game for Florida football.

But after managing just 10 points and 275 yards of total offense, quarterback Kyle Trask and the Gators woke up.

Trask ended the game with 200 yards on 21-for-33 passing and four touchdowns. He became the first Florida quarterback to have back-to-back games with three passing touchdowns.

Defensively, the Gators struggled initially with South Carolina as the Gamecocks managed to utilize the run game as weather and field conditions in Columbia were terrible.

While it was Mon Denson who scored first for South Carolina, Florida football had trouble containing Clemson graduate transfer Tavien Feaster who ended the game with 175 yards on 25 rushes and a touchdown.

However, it was Trask and the offense who came up big, especially in the second half.

After Feaster led the Gamecocks to a 17-10 lead in the third quarter, Trask and the Gators responded in a big way.

On the first play from scrimmage after the Gamecocks took the lead, Dameon Pierce scampered for 75 yards to tie the game at 17. Pierce had just eight yards before the big run and ended the game with a team-high 87 yards on seven carries.

The Gamecocks re-took the lead with three minutes left on a 31-yard field goal from Parker White.

But, in the fourth quarter, Florida football asserted its dominance.

On their first drive of the quarter, Trask connected on a 25-yard touchdown pass with Freddie Swain, who dove for the football into the end zone.

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It was the second of four receivers Trask would find in the end zone.

On the subsequent drive for South Carolina, the Gators’ defense found its rhythm by starting to do what it hadn’t done much of in the first three quarters — pass rush against South Carolina’s freshman quarterback, Ryan Hilinski.

Four plays into its next drive, the Gator defense flustered Hilinski into a mistake as he missed a hand-off to Feaster and was sacked by Zach Carter 14 yards behind the line of scrimmage.

But, in the process of the sack, Kyree Campbell knocked the ball free and recovered the fumble, giving Florida football the ball with a 24-20 lead.

And, the Gators made the most of the mistake.

It took just three plays — and a defensive holding call on South Carolina’s Jaycee Horn — to lead to Trask hitting tight end Kyle Pitts on a 5-yard touchdown strike.

Following the holding call, South Carolina fans began to throw white towels on the field.

The Florida defense held South Carolina to just eight yards on its next drive before the Gators went 37 yards — and was hit with another defensive pass interference penalty on Horn — and scored on a 5-yard touchdown pass from Trask to his fourth receiver, Trevon Grimes.

South Carolina would get one back on their next possession, but it was not enough as No. 9 Florida football gets past the Gamecocks.

Trask had another solid game with just one interception, while his counterpart Hilinski struggled on 17-for-35 passing for 170 yards and just one touchdown.

The Florida football defense did it all without the services of their best edge and pass rushers, Jabari Zuniga and Jonathan Greenard, who sat out with ankle injuries.

Jacob Copeland led the Gators with 87 yards receiving — including a 37-yard touchdown catch in the first half that tied the game at 10.

In the first half, the Gators struggled to find any offensive identity as the run failed miserably and the pass was not as effective as it had been in the past.

Trask had the worst first half of his career with Florida football, going 9-for-16 for 113 yards and a touchdown — still not half bad though.

The running game managed just 49 yards with Lamical Perine picking up 37 of those yards.

It was the Gamecocks who scored first after defensive lineman Luke Ancrum was flagged twice in the same drive for a neutral zone violation.

That helped South Carolina to a 1-yard run by Mon Denson, capping an eight-play, 75-yard drive which exploited the Florida football defense against the run without Greenard and Zuniga.

The teams traded field goals into the second quarter before Trask hit Copeland for a 36-yard touchdown that tied the game before halftime.

It seemed the weather was the biggest factor in the first half as neither team established any kind of dominance offensively.

South Carolina was more balanced with 72 yards passing and 75 yards rushing while Florida football had 113 yards passing and just 49 yards on the ground.

But, it was more what Florida didn’t do in the first half — run the football.

Still showing no confidence in either its running backs or offensive line, the Gators coaching staff elected to run the football just 13 times in the half.

Pierce had just nine yards while backup quarterback Emory Jones had two yards — coming in after Trask lost his helmet on a play in the second quarter.

No. 9 Florida now has a bye week before heading to Jacksonville for the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party against Georgia.