The first half may have had some mistakes, ones that had Dan Mullen chirping in his year, but Emory Jones had the best passing day of his career. Jones completed 14-of-22 (64%) pass attempts and set career highs for yards (273) and touchdowns (4). Jones has his flaws and is far from a perfect quarterback but he continues to progress in the offense.

*With 273 passing yards vs. Vanderbilt, quarterback Emory Jones surpassed 1,000 passing yards for the 2021 season – marking his first-career 1,000-yard passing season.

*Jones recorded his first-career game of three-plus passing touchdowns,

throwing four touchdown passes, and also setting a career-high with 273 yards passing.

*Jones is the 13th Gators quarterback to throw four touchdown passes in a game since1996.

Missed tackles are becoming part of Florida's defensive identity. They hurt the Gators in the first half and without the inaccurate foot of Joseph Bulovas, Florida wouldn't be celebrating a shutout.

If ifs were fifths we'd all be drunk and Florida did earn the shutout.

Florida’s 42-0 win, today’s game represents Florida’s first defensive shutout in 21 games – since November 9, 2019, when the Gators defeated Vanderbilt at home by a score of 56-0. It's Florida’s fourth shutout under Mullen including the team’s second SEC shutout during his tenure. The previous three all came during the 2019 season. Florida’s 21-0 halftime lead marked the Gators’ largest shutout lead at half in 34 games – since November 17, 2018 vs. Idaho (Florida would go on to win that game 63-10).

It wasn't a perfect game but Florida was able to come back and play well in the second half and they were able to force two turnovers as well, with senior defensive tackle Daquan Newkirk recording the first interception of his career.

This Vanderbilt team was supposed to provide an opportunity for Florida to exorcise the demons from Lexington but at halftime, Florida had a 21-0 lead that could have been 21-13 if not for missed field goals and a touchdown that was overturned. It was not what Florida fans expected and it definitely didn't leave you feeling confident after 30 minutes of football.

Emory Jones was decent in the first half but even on some of his longer passing plays the ball was underthrown causing his receivers to stop or come back for a ball preventing touchdowns. Jones had a good day overall but the Gators still have yet to put together a full 60-minute game. On defense Florida allowed Vanderbilt to run 50 plays and accumulate 200 yards of offense in the first half. This is a Vanderbilt team that totaled 77 yards against Georgia in four quarters.

Do we know what Florida is? Six games into the season is this what they are? A flawed football team that has the potential to be great but won't realize it because of the small miscues that seem to pop up every game?

After his first two performances, many in Gator Nation were wondering if Anthony Richardson was from planet Krypton. Saturday the Commodores threw Kryptonite his way and Richardson looked human.

Richardson was 4-of-6 with his first interception of the season (second of his career) on the first play he saw Saturday. Richardson added just 11 yards on five carries and was, according to Emory Jones, down after the game.

"I know him so well so I can tell if he's feeling some type of way. I just went up and hugged him and grabbed him, I told him, 'Everything is OK. You still learning, you still getting those reps and you still just gaining experience.' I told him I went through the same things for three years and I know how hard it is," Jones said. "I mean basically I just told him, 'Just keep going, keep doing what you're supposed to do, whether you know it or not even as a backup quarterback the guys in the whole locker room still hold you up to a certain standard and still look at you a certain type of way.' So I just told him to make sure he's always being positive and looking positive around everybody and making sure he just keeps doing everything right and it's all going to work out for that guy."

Last week after a loss to Kentucky Dan Mullen was seen smiling on his way to shake hands with Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops and the reaction from the fan base was to be expected. Then, in his post game press conference when Mullen was asked if he thought he was out coached he rattled off a bunch of stats where Florida had been better than Kentucky, none of which mattered because Florida had lost the game.

This week Mullen was a firecracker on the sideline. He yelled at his quarterbacks, his defensive coordinator, his senior defensive linemen, and uttered just four words to answer two questions at halftime.

"I probably used some more words in the locker room," Mullen said.

Whatever got into Mullen today was a nice change. He looked like the coach who challenged a reporter to a thumb wrestling match in 2018. He looked and sounded like a head football coach desperate to win games again.