Gators Not Ready For Prime Time On Saturday
Photo: Bleacher Report
The much anticipated prime time match-up between undefeated Florida and undefeated Alabama at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium turned out to be a textbook lesson in "Old School" SEC football administered by an experienced, workman-like, physical Alabama team to an overwhelmed class of young Gators. Sadly for the Gators, Saturday's contest against Alabama turned out to be agonizingly similar to the last two meetings between the two schools---Saturday's 38-10 shellacking brought memories of last season’s 31-6 beat down by Alabama in Tuscaloosa, which was amazingly similar to the Tide's 32-13 win in the 2009 SEC Championship game in Atlanta.
The story of what happened is similar to Alabama's offense; simple, basic and brutally concise. Alabama controlled---no, not controlled, dominated---both lines of scrimmage, controlled the clock, controlled field position and ran the ball whenever they wanted to from start to finish. On defense, the Crimson Tide defense completely shut down Florida's running game, to the tune of a total of 15 yards rushing, or in other words, 400 less than last Saturday at Kentucky; smothered Demps and Rainey---the Gator dynamic duo had a total of 4 rushing yards a piece; wreaked havoc on Florida's passing game with a withering pass rush and eventually snuffed out any chance of Florida's making a game of it in the second half by knocking Sr QB John Brantley out of the game early in the third quarter. On special teams, 'Bama's punter kept Florida pinned on their own side of the field for most of the night and the kick-off return unit set up an early touchdown with a 70 yard kick-off return. Overall, classic textbook SEC/Alabama football taught in their brutally unforgiving style.
Photo: Miami Herald
Ironically, Florida took an early 7-0 lead when on the Gators first play from scrimmage, John Brantley hit Soph WR Andre DeBose with a beautiful 65 yard bomb. Before being forced to leave the game with an ugly lower leg injury after one of the smothering Alabama defense frequent sacks, Brantley was having one of the best passing games of his Gator career, going 11-16 passing for 190 yards including the dramatic TD bomb to DeBose. Even that faint bright spot was dimmed by the aforementioned sacks, which included being sacked out of makeable field goal range at the end of the first half, and an ugly interception, which was returned for a touchdown and helped Alabama pull away from the Gators in the second quarter.
Basically, a total domination by Alabama in terms of completely controlling both lines of scrimmage, running game, stopping the run, stopping the pass, pass rush, field position and special teams. To the point where Florida's only bright spot, an emerging down-the-field passing game and a nice passing night by QB John Brantley, was snuffed out when Brantley was injured early in the second half.
The Gators now go from a crushing home prime time beat down by a more physical, experienced Alabama team ranked #3 in the country to a trip to one of the most hostile environments in college football to take on the #1 team in the country, LSU, without their starting QB. Unlike last night's 8pm Prime Time national television venue, the Baton Rouge kick-off is scheduled for 3:30 pm.
Hopefully a matinee billing will be more conducive to a solid performance to this fledgling troupe of Gators.
