Florida football: Top five performers against Florida State

5. Kadarius Toney

The 2019 season was expected to be a breakout year for Kadarius Toney.

A former high school quarterback with dynamic speed and lateral quickness, the junior from Mobile, Alabama received hype prior to the beginning of the season as possibly being this team’s version of former Gators superstar Percy Harvin. It was no wonder that Dan Mullen granted Harvin’s old no. 1 jersey to Toney for the 2019 season.

Florida Gators Football

After showing great promise in Florida’s season opener against Miami, Toney found himself missing six games following a shoulder injury sustained against Tennessee Martin in week 2.

Prior to Saturday night’s game, Toney had accumulated only 189 yards of total offense on a mere 15 touches. Luckily for Florida fans, Toney saved his best performance for this rivalry game.

Among the 10 Florida players to catch a pass against Florida State, Toney led the team in receiving yards with 65 total off four catches. Though Toney did not find his way into the endzone on Saturday night, he easily found his way onto the highlight reel against the Noles.

Toney’s biggest play of the night came on his first catch of the evening. After forcing the Seminoles to their first punt of the evening, the Gators started their third offensive drive of the game 85 yards away from the endzone with a 13-7 lead.

On the first play of the drive, quarterback Kyle Trask tossed the ball to Toney, who was already near full-speed running a jet-sweep route to the right side of the field. Darting through the open whole and breaking five tackles along the way, Toney scampered 47 yards down the right sideline to flip the field back into Florida State territory. This would lead to Florida’s third offensive touchdown of the night two plays later.

Toney had an opportunity to deliver Florida its fourth touchdown of the night two Florida drives later off a 13-yard pass from backup quarterback Emory Jones. However, Toney would trip on the end zone’s turf prematurely and the ball barely sailed over his outstretched hands.

Late in the third quarter with a 37-17 lead, Mullen and the offensive coaches called for a double-pass play while the drive had made its way to the Florida State 25-yard line. After catching a lateral pass from Trask, Toney threw a clean pass into the middle of the end zone to a wide-open Dante Lang. Unfortunately, butterfingers plagued the redshirt-freshman tight end as he dropped what would have been the easiest touchdown catch of the night.

Toney would take matters into his own hands the following play by catching a similar pass from Trask out of the flat and running it up the field himself. Toney once again ended up on the highlight reel by breaking an early arm tackle near the line of scrimmage, followed by nearly breaking the ankles of safety Akeem Dent near the 10-yard line by planting his foot deep in the turf to perform a juke move on the Seminole defender. The 19-yard reception would later lead to Florida’s final score of the game off a field goal by Evan McPherson.

For Toney, it was the third time in his career that he broke past 60 receiving yards in a single game and the most amount of catches he caught in a single game since Florida’s home finale in 2018 against Idaho (6).