Florida's running back rotation criticized against Georgia

Dameon Pierce cut right, shrugged off a hapless tackler and dragged defenders into Georgia territory on his first carry of the game.

In all, Pierce finished with three carries of over ten yards, averaging nearly eight yards a carry and serving as a rare bright spot for an impotent Gators offense.

But by the end of the third quarter, when the Gators were several miracles away from a close ball game, Pierce had just four carries.

“We rolled guys through different things that are happening,” Mullen said when asked about Pierce’s workload. “Obviously there’s different scenarios throughout the game. I thought he ran the ball pretty hard today.”

Florida’s acclaimed rushing attack, which ranked first in the nation at one stage, has fallen off in recent weeks. The Gators strung their two worst rushing performances together against LSU (138 yards) and Georgia (161 yards), averaging around four yards per carry in each of those contests.

Quarterback Anthony Richardson received a lion’s share of the carries Saturday afternoon, proving to be inefficient on the ground and through the air. The freshman gunslinger racked up just 25 yards on the ground despite taking 12 carries. Florida’s second and third backfield options, Malik Davis and Nay’Quan Wright, struggled to make an impact in the running game as well, averaging around three yards per carry on six and seven rushes, respectively.

Meanwhile, Dameon Pierce has been Florida’s most efficient running back in five games this season, and the senior has averaged 7.2 yards per attempt from scrimmage this season, two more than the next closest running back on the roster. Still, Pierce ranks third on the team in carries with 55, 35 fewer than Emory Jones, four fewer than Malik Davis and just five more than third-option running back Nay’Quan Wright.

Mullen attributed Pierce’s lighter workload — the Maryland native received just nine carries from the start of the LSU game to the start of the fourth quarter against Georgia — on injury concerns that have forced Florida into a two-back system.

Because there’s some injuries we played two-tailback sets.” Mullen said. “We had to play multiple backs in the game, which kind of changed some things up because of some of the injuries. I thought he ran the ball hard.”

In speaking to the media after the game, Pierce didn’t seem aggrieved by his lack of carries, believing that the key to revitalizing Florida’s rushing attack lies in cutting down on costly mental mistakes and asserting his senior presence as a moral leader in the backfield and the locker room.

“We shoot ourselves in the foot, and we beat ourselves sometimes. People inside know that, but people on the outside looking in, they can say whatever. At the end of the day it comes down to better execution on our end and just getting that run game going.”

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