Florida football : Takeaways from loss to UCF

Let’s start with the good news, the Florida football team has now officially entered the Billy Napier era. The bad news now, it was a retched performance turned in by the Gators (6-7) against Central Florida (9-4) on Thursday night. Florida lost 29-17 and UCF outscored them 20-7 in the second half.

Emory Jones

made his last start for Florida, and it was one to forget for his passing game. Emory completed just 38.8% of his passes and threw for just 171 yards. Jones did have success extending drives with his legs, he ran for 62 yards on the night and he didn’t turn the ball over, turnovers had been an achilles heel for Jones. When it came down to it, Jones missed several wide-open receivers last night, a few of these throws had a chance to go for long touchdowns as well. All you can say is, he didn’t turn the ball over.

We knew UCF had trouble stopping the run and they had trouble with it Thursday night as well. The Gators wracked up 205 yards on the ground at 6.8 yards per carry, yet found themselves throwing the ball 37 times as well. Not a recipe for success this season with Emory Jones at the helm. Gator drives stalled out when Jones would drop back on 2nd and 3rd down. There is just no way with the way this team is put together that they could expect to throw seven more times than they ran the ball while winning the game. Justin Shorter also looked to be severely injured, he was carted off the field with just a few minutes left in the game.

We also knew the Gators have had trouble stopping the run as of late as well. They got absolutely GASHED by UCF’s run game, particularly in the second half. The Gators let up some big plays in the first half, but were also able to bounce back well after a big play. They either completely ran out of gas in the second half, or just plain old quit. They got bullied by UCF in the second half, on both sides of the ball. UCF ended the game with 288 rushing yards, they passed just 25 times for a mere 148 yards. The Gators were without several key players on defense such as Zach Carter (opt-out) and a few other Gator’s who are now in the transfer portal. So it’s tough to put so much on this young defense, but nearly 300 yards on the ground, when you knew they were going to run the ball close to 70% of the time, is a tough pill to swallow.

Special teams, also horrible. Gator kicker, Chris Howard, made just one out of his three attempts in the game. I don’t blame Howard at all for his performance on Thursday night. I blame the coaching staff, most of the fan-base knew Howard had no chance of making both of those kicks. Sending Chris out there for a 51-yard field-goal was absolutely laughable. Does Greg Knox really have no idea of his kickers own range? That ball I’m pretty sure landed at the 2-yard line. Again, you can’t put that on Howard, he is what he is, Knox can not be putting him in that spot. Then Knox puts Howard out there to kick a 45-yard field-goal, in the 4th quarter to basically keep the Gators in the game. Way to much pressure for a guy who is shaky from inside 30-yards, never mind 45.

Just an overall frustrating night. It’s okay though Gator nation, in the big scheme of things that game really wasn’t a big deal. It should have no impact on the future of the team. Sure, it would have been nice to end on the high note. It just wasn’t meant to be, not with that roster on that night.

The Florida football team is officially ready to be sculpted by Billy Napier.