The Gators suffered an extremely disappointing 20-13 loss to Kentucky tonight. There are a number of things you can point to that went wrong on both sides of the ball throughout the game.
Gators Territory breaks down what those things were that led to the Wildcats finally getting their first win against Florida in Lexington since 1986.
Florida lost the battle in the Trenches
The Gators got dominated in the trenches on both sides of the ball throughout the entire game. A team that all year has won that battle looked completely outmatched tonight. Kentucky was able to run the ball almost at will and lean on the Florida defensive line from start to finish.
And on the opposite side of the ball, the Kentucky defensive line lived in Florida’s backfield. One player in particular who had a huge game for the Wildcats was Josh Paschal. He racked up seven total tackles, including two and a half for loss, and was an absolute terror to the Gators' offensive line.
Penalties, penalties, and more penalties
The Gators had their most penalized performance since 2019 with 15 penalties for 115 yards in a loud and rowdy environment at Kroger Field. Eight of which were false starts due to the deafening crowd noise provided by the fans in attendance.
Drive after drive, Florida shot themselves in the foot with a plethora of self-inflicted penalties. It got to the point where Emory Jones was visibly frustrated late in the fourth quarter after a couple false starts in a row. It is difficult enough to win games on the road in the SEC, but even harder when you hurt yourself like the Gators did tonight.
The defense struggled to tackle again
An issue for the Florida defense all year reared its ugly head again tonight, tackling. Kentucky’s skill players were continually able to gain extra yardage due to bad angles taken by defenders or attempted arm tackles and inability to wrap up.
On Wan’Dale Robinson’s 41-yard touchdown catch and run, he was able to make several defenders miss and run through a couple arm tackles, as was Chris Rodriguez on many occasions throughout the night.
Too conservative on offense
The Gators' game plan all year has been very conservative, but that has been masked by their ability to run the ball at will against all of their opponents. But when that wasn’t the case tonight, they didn’t make any adjustments.
Kentucky was able to stack the box and take away Florida’s strength, almost daring Dan Mullen and the Gators to push the ball downfield and they never did. Emory needs to be able to take deep shots down the field to soften up the box for the run game.
Whether that is on Jones himself or Dan Mullen’s play calling, I don’t know, but the game plan tonight was much too conservative, and the Gators paid for it.
