If you are a fan of Florida or Miami, you are still probably trying to wrap your head around how the Gators walked away with a 24-20 victory over the in-state rival Hurricanes on Saturday.
The Florida defense left their mark on what could be labeled as one of the most bizarre wins in program history.
“I must say, honestly, it felt my life clock was going probably at about a thousand times faster, right? I mean, every second was probably like a thousand minutes or days. I don’t know. The last five minutes of the game I think I aged like ten years,” expressed Gators head coach Dan Mullen after the victory.
Miami redshirt freshman quarterback Jarren Williams showed flashes early by driving his team down the field on the first possession and throwing the ball to the flats quickly before the Gators defense was able to reach the Canes signal caller.
The Gators defense eventually settled in and followed their game plan of neutralizing the inexperience of Miami’s offensive live with excessive pressure from the UF's front seven.
Certain individuals helped the Gators defense come up with 10 sacks on the night, becoming the first SEC team to accrue as many since 2008. As a unit, however, the Gators had issues tackling and bringing down Miami defenders all night long.
Gators linebacker Ventrell Miller was explosive most of the game, blitzing his way through the A-Gap of Miami’s offensive line and racking up six solo tackles, adding two sacks to the stat sheet.
Defensive lineman Jonathan Greenard and Jabari Zuniga applied pressure on Miami’s inexperienced offensive tackles, giving the tandem six tackles and a sack and a half each and helped cause more than a handful of false start calls for the Canes.
The Gators secondary covered Jeff Thomas and the Miami receivers well for most of the night, but that was slightly overshadowed by the sloppiness of pass interference calls committed by cornerback Marco Wilson and safety Trey Dean on the last drive of the game.
Greenard says that the aggressive Gators defense had the same goal in mind against Miami.
“I think we had one or two games in Louisville one time where we did that before, but, I mean, just the intensity of how we did it here, you know, we just kept going at it relentlessly,” explained Greenard. “I've never been a part of something like that, you know. But, you know, I've always been around guys who love the game of football and want to make plays. This defense, we all had that same goal in our mind, to make sacks and make big plays in the game when we need them. And we did that, so that's just a reward. Comes from hard work.
“Oh, yeah, from the jump. I mean, especially the whole line, you see they have false starts. They were all antsy, just worried about our get offs and getting them to the quarterback. But, you know, at the end of the day, we're going to stay humble. We're going to keep working. We understand that there's going to be better competition in the future. We're just going to be all right after that. We're going to keep working to get to where we want to get in the future.”
As a unit, the Gators defense held Miami to just 308 total yards and 2-for-13 on third downs, allowing Williams to complete 19-for-30 passing for 214 yards and a touchdown. On the ground, the Gators front seven was leaky in some areas, allowing Miami running back DeeJay Dallas to break free out of the wildcat formation for multiple explosive plays.
It’s still early in the season and it’s obvious the Gators aren’t in mid-season form, but Mullen is pleased with how his team responded during the Week 0 win over the Canes.
“There’s a lot we can learn from that game and a lot we can get cleaned up defensively,” said Mullen. “We can get that coached. We can be better coaches and we can get them coached better, get the players to play better. It’s hard to coach that effort, that strain, and that desire to find a way to win. That’s hard to coach and they showed they had that tonight.”
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