For the first time in more than a decade, the Florida Gators are having to chase Tennessee in the Southeastern Conference’s Eastern Division landscape.
How serious the Gators are as contenders is now being questioned.
One week after their second-half implosion inside Neyland Stadium, in which a 21-3 halftime lead over Tennessee gave way to a 38-28 loss, the Gators traveled to Nashville last Saturday and pulled out a lethargic 13-6 win over Vanderbilt. Florida managed a season-low 236 yards of total offense against the Commodores, who entered the game allowing an average of 450.5 yards per game.
“It’s good to be done with the state of Tennessee,” second-year Gators coach Jim McElwain said Monday in his weekly news conference. “We had some guys who looked like they were playing with undue pressure for some reason. We’ve got to make sure that we’re playing loose.”
Florida has scored 20 points in the last six quarters, evoking memories of last year’s midseason collapse that occurred shortly after the suspension of quarterback Will Grier for taking a banned substance. Treon Harris replaced Grier and played admirably in a 35-28 loss at LSU, but the Gators were hideous offensively in November wins over Vanderbilt (9-7) and Florida Atlantic (20-14 in overtime) and closed a 10-4 season with lopsided losses to Florida State (27-2), Alabama (29-15) in the SEC title game and Michigan (41-7) in the Citrus Bowl.
McElwain promised a much better offense in his second go-around in Gainesville, but is the collapse actually happening earlier this year?
“I’m not disappointed, because I think we’ve done some good things,” McElwain said, “but I keep going back to consistency and a sense of urgency. Sometimes guys put undue pressures on themselves, and I think part of those pressures come externally, which is noise.
“These are 18- to 22-year-old guys, and sometimes they start to let that affect their joy and energy, and they ball up a little bit. I’m seeing that. Our effort is 100 percent better, but consistency in performance is nowhere close to where it needs to be.”
Florida’s 4-1 record and No. 18 ranking entering this week’s home game against LSU is mostly due to its defense, which leads the league in fewest yards (230.4) and fewest points (11.6) allowed per game. Playing UMass and North Texas within the first three games helped the Gators build impressive defensive numbers, and the offense tallied 471 yards against North Texas and had 564 in the second game against Kentucky, which was a 45-7 rout.
The Gators rushed for 244 yards against the Wildcats and 255 against the Mean Green, but they’ve averaged 101.7 in their three other games.
“We’ve got all the talent in the world in our offensive room,” graduate transfer quarterback Austin Appleby said Monday in a news conference. “We’ve just got to make it simple, do what we do, bring the energy and play to our standard. We will flash the ability to be prolific and unstoppable, which we’re capable of.”
Said junior receiver Brandon Powell: “Everybody is trying to do too much, and we don’t have to do too much. In our second game against Kentucky, everybody just did their jobs, and everything fell into place. That’s what we’ve got to get back to.”
The Gators may face LSU without its leading rusher, junior star Leonard Fournette, but Florida has health issues of its own. Left tackle David Sharpe is questionable with a shoulder injury, so the Gators may have to move sophomore left guard Martez Ivey out to tackle.
Caleb Brantley and Bryan Cox will not be at 100 percent on the defensive front, and the fact Luke Del Rio is practicing this week does not guarantee that he will bump Appleby back to the second team. McElwain said a decision on Del Rio will be made later in the week.
LSU has won five of the last six meetings with Florida, including the past three, and the Tigers of interim coach Ed Orgeron are coming off a 48-7 blasting of Missouri.
“We all know what kind of players they have, and they’ll come in here with a juiced-up attitude,” McElwain said. “They are built to road-grade you, and we’ve been road-graded these last couple of weeks.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.