Advertisement
Published Nov 1, 2020
Five things we learned from UF's Halloween victory over Missouri
Conner Clarke  •  1standTenFlorida
Staff Writer
Twitter
@cj_clarke1

Fresh off UF's most impressive win of the season and now only one week away from a highly-anticipated matchup with SEC East rival Georgia, GatorsTerritory takes a look at five things we learned from last night’s matchup against Missouri.

1. Kyree Campbell is a huge part of Florida’s defensive success. I alluded to this in my roundtable post that Kyree being back in the lineup should give the Gators' defense a boost, but he had more of an impact than I expected.

First and foremost, he allowed the rest of the defensive line to get back to their natural positions and the Gators' front seven benefited from it greatly. Zach Carter, Brenton Cox and Tedarrell Slaton all turned in some of their best performances of the year with Campbell on the field, but Campbell also had himself a night. He looked slimmer and faster off the ball than he was last year, and it showed.

2. Kyle Trask looks like a Heisman contender. Trask set an SEC record last night by throwing for 18 touchdowns in his first four games of the season and has only thrown two interceptions on the year, one against South Carolina that I still question whether it was or not (replay should have taken a look at it) and the other last night when he was hit on the release and the ball floated in the air because of it.

You can tell he has a much better grasp of the offense and is able to make checks at the line and get Florida into the right plays. He is also making great decisions with the ball, getting it out on time and going through his progressions to find the open receiver.

3. The young guys had their opportunity and did not disappoint. True freshman Rashad Torrence received his first career start in place of the missing safeties Donovan Stiner and Shawn Davis and was all over the field flying around and making tackles. He did get beat on a deep ball, but his play was solid overall. Jaydon Hill got the start at corner opposite Kaiir Elam and held his own as well. When Trey Dean went down with an injury, Brad Stewart moved back to safety and freshman Tre’vez Johnson got his chance to show what he could do at STAR and played well, most notably a big hit across the middle separating the Missouri receiver from the football.

The list goes on and on with the number of young guys who got into the game and were able to make an impact, but I think the biggest one that sticks in my memory is when freshman defensive tackle Jalen Lee forced a fumble that was later recovered by fellow freshman Kamar Wilcoxson.

The future looks bright for Florida with all these young kids making plays. With the performance the defense turned in last night in the absence of a few upperclassmen that have been struggling this year, the future might need to be now.

4. Kadarius Toney is a complete player. Many people, including myself, were skeptical on if Toney could become a complete wide receiver and he has proved all of us wrong. But he’s done more than that. He has become a complete football player, and by that, I mean the kid can do everything. He is the Gators' second leading receiver, second leading rusher, kick returner, punt returner and can throw the ball on trick plays as we’ve seen in the past.

It doesn’t matter where Toney is lined up. He is a threat to score every time he touches the ball and has shaken off that “boom or bust” label just like he shook off several defenders on his way to three touchdowns last night.

5. No McPherson, no problem. The Gators were without the most accurate kicker in school history last night and it did not seem to matter. Back up kicker Chris Howard stepped in and knocked both field goal attempts and all five extra points right down the middle with confidence.

Florida has come a long way from the days of stressing whenever they saw the kicker run out the field.

Stay tuned to GatorsTerritory.