The No. 24 Florida Gators’ clash with the No. 23 Tennessee Volunteers Saturday was full of insane moments, and it ended in the most ridiculous fashion imaginable.
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Here is the play from CBS Sports.
“What they’ve gone through; and this is about them”, McElwain said. This is about them. “Look at these fans; it’s a pretty cool deal”. Tyrie Cleveland led all receivers with 93 yards on five catches including the final play.
And, yes, I know coaches called a pass play to Kelly that nearly assuredly would have been a score if quarterback Quinten Dormady had thrown a better pass. But Davis lost the ball out of the back of the end zone as he crossed the goal line, and the touchdown was turned into a touchback upon review.
“Sometimes things like that are really special”, Florida coach Jim McElwain said after his team’s victory. Following that TD, Tennessee responded with two plays that covered 75 yards – the last of which was a 28-yard touchdown pass from Quenten Dormady to tight end Ethan Wolf.
Here are the biggest takeaways from the Gators’ thrilling first win of the season. “Piss on that”, he wrote, referring to a Tennessee fan who shared a pathetic video of himself urinating on the Tim Tebow statue outside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Grier seemed to be that player, but his one-year suspension for a positive test in an NCAA-administered drug screen and subsequent transfer left Florida scrambling again.
“We’ve just got to stay as deep as the deepest (receiver)”, Vols coach Butch Jones said. “What happened, happened. I don’t want to believe it happened, but it did”. “It’s a fun group to be around”. No. 4 USC (2-0) and Texas (1-1) matched up late as well. Franks having his pass deflected and intercepted with 3:57 left on the clock, setting up Tennessee’s game-tying field goal. In the end, MI piloted a fraught-filled flight to gut out a 29-13 triumph.
But the last 8:36, starting with Kelly’s 34-yard TD run, was like a Wild West shootout, with UF’s tiring defense starting to miss tackles.
After watching Florida’s offense sputter all afternoon, there surely were arm-chair quarterbacks everywhere thinking the Gators (1-1, 1-0 Southeastern Conference) should take a knee and head to overtime. No. 16 Virginia Tech (3-0) scored 57 unanswered points in a 64-17 beatdown of East Carolina (0-3). Whoever takes the snaps under center could use more help from the running game, which gained only 11 yards on 27 carries in the opening loss.
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No. 1 Alabama 41, Colorado State 23 • Jalen Hurts passed for 248 yards and two long TDs, and ran for 103 yards, to lead the Crimson Tide to victory at home.
