Florida football: 5 takeaways from Gators loss to Georgia

It sucked. I mean, it really sucked. To watch Georgia and Jake Fromm celebrate beating Florida football for the third time, and with so much at stake.

There is plenty of blame to go around for Florida football in the 24-17 loss to Georgia Saturday afternoon in the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.

Not the least of which is (and I am surprising myself for even saying this) is the defense.

We’ll get to that in a bit.

Now, it wasn’t all bad. Quarterback Kyle Trask hit eight different receivers for 258 yards in the air — the ninth consecutive game the Gators have thrown for more than 200 yards.

Tight end Kyle Pitts flashed signs of dominance throughout the game and the Florida football defense did a pretty solid job stopping Georgia’s tough run game.

Here are five takeaways from the loss in the Cocktail Party.

1. Third-down conversion

Florida football didn’t help its cause by allowing Georgia to go 12-of-18 on third down.

Yes, you read that right — 12-of-18.

It means the defense had to stay on the field that much longer and get that much more worn down against a Georgia offense that flexed its passing muscles by getting 279 yards and two touchdowns in the air.

Of course, the conversion works on the other side of the ball to as the Gators offense was just 2-of-9 on third-down conversions.

I think you know what that means, but in case you don’t:

Florida’s offense couldn’t convert when it needed to the most.

Now, to be clear, Florida football hasn’t been that great on third down anyway — they’ve only converted 42.45% of their third downs after the game — so it’s not really a shock, but they are going to have to get better on third-down conversions if they hope to compete for an SEC title.