Florida finally attacked the quarterback, and the results outweigh one late scare

College football as a whole had some really questionable calls on Saturday. The ACC did everything it could to ensure Miami hung on against FSU. The Big 12 said screw it and didn’t grant Notre Dame one more second to run one last play. 

And in Florida’s game, there was a missed call that thankfully didn’t come back to haunt the Gators.

Florida almost burned by a missed hold against Jayden Woods

After Florida had staged its massive comback, the Gators needed just one more foruth down stop to seal the game. Florida sent a blitz, and it was the only time all game they didn’t get home as Arch Manning launched a pass downfield to Emmett Mosley V. The play got Texas down to the 9 yard line where they would eventually score a touchdown to pull within three.

But when you watch the play back, there is a borderline comical non-call on the right tackle from Texas. Jayden Woods had beaten him clean and had a clear step to Manning, but was held up from a clear grab of the horse collar.

When you compare it to the holding penalty that negated a Hail Mary from FSU, it's especially shocking that nothing was called, considering it was out in the open and in full view of the refs. 

It also supports that Brad White made the right call to blitz on this play, as it took help from the refs to make the play work.

As we have been saying in the aftermath of the game, we actually don’t mind the late-game aggression from Florida on that 4th down. Texas, and Manning especially, looked like they had never seen a blitz before. So even though the blitzes weren’t that exotic, or even well disguised, they worked because Manning panicked at the sheer thought of pressure.

Knowing Florida’s secondary has question marks and the front four generally can’t generate enough pressure on its own, we would rather the Gators go down swinging with an approach like this compared to the soft nature they had showcased the first six weeks.

Jon Sumrall seemed to agree after the game:

“We probably did pressure a little bit more today. I told Brad (White) middle part of the game. I just said ‘The hell with playing coverage. Let's try to come after them a little bit and see if we can affect them’. 

And sometimes maybe we need to call it with aggressiveness to help our guys go play with more aggressiveness.”

With a bye week and some confidence to work off of, we are just glad that missed call didn’t come back to haunt Florida, because it may have made the Gators question this approach. As it stands, hopefully we see more of this moving forward.

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