Maybe Florida’s 38-14 victory over Tennessee on Saturday night was more lopsided than you expected it to be. Maybe not. When the wise guys in Las Vegas make the spread 19 points, you could say it was slightly disappointing.
Then again, the Gators’ final touchdown came inside the last two minutes, and the Volunteers had a couple of tosses into the end zone in the dying seconds to negate that score.
Point is, to watch Tennessee in the Swamp for so much of Saturday night was to imagine that this so-called rebuilding job may take a whole lot less time than originally predicted for first-year coach Josh Heupel.
And it wasn’t just because throughout the opening half, the Florida crowd in full throat, the Vols twice scored on big pass plays, which has long been Heupel’s calling card.
That was certainly encouraging, especially given all the big pass plays that Heupel has called to perfection, only to see his quarterbacks routinely overthrow wide-open wideouts.