The Florida Gators suffered a huge blow during last night’s game against North Texas.
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Next week, the Gators’ schedule gets serious as they face a resurgent Tennessee Volunteers in Knoxville.
“Luke is getting his leg looked at right now”, he said.
“All our guys have good arms”, Florida coach Jim McElwain said. Somebody else will play. “I’d feel pretty good about the field position you’re going to get”. We had another couple of explosive (plays) today, I thought Josh Hammond showed up a little today. “It should be a lot of fun”.
If he is, it would narrowly avert the likely world-ending possibility of two Purdue transfers – Florida backup Austin Appleby, likely the Gators’ starter in Del Rio’s absence, and Danny Etling, who has usurped Brandon Harris as LSU’s No. 1 signal-caller – starting in an SEC game in The Swamp. With the game not in doubt, a defender was actually kind of blocked into Del Rio on the play, but McElwain’s emotions got the better of him. “We’ll do what we do. we’ll get someone ready and move forward”.
Florida, which entered the day with the No. 2 total defense in the nation, held North Texas to only 53 yards of total offense in an easy 32-0 victory.
“I’ve got their back”, McElwain said.
“I obviously took that low hit on Luke terrible personal and I told him after the ball game that I am sure his guy was just scrambling trying to make a play and you know what I really care about these players”, McElwain said. “You know what, I really care about these players”.
“When you see something like that”.
Prior to leaving the game on Saturday night, the sophomore quarterback had his worst game of the season, going 14-for-25 for 186 yards with one interception.
Florida pushed the ball to the UNT 5-yard line, where the Gators faced a fourth-and-2 situation. The previous mark was 59 yards allowed against Western Carolina in 2006. The Gators wound up 6/13 and were 3/9 at one point in the game, including three early drives that came inside the North Texas 10 yard line only to result in, respectively, a field goal and two turnovers on downs. Clearly upset with the hit, McElwain screamed at the North Texas sideline and had to be restrained.
“What I saw was a bunch of guys that did a really good job of film study”, McElwain said of the defense. Their guy was probably just trying to make a play.
There has been no official word from UF on Del Rio’s status for Saturday’s game at Tennessee, but The Sun confirmed Sunday that Del Rio has a sprained MCL in his left knee and will be out for the next few weeks. “We’ve got a job to do”. He walked on with the Alabama Crimson Tide (which doesn’t seem like an expeditious way to acquire playing time), before transferring out to Oregon State where he backed up Los Angeles Rams quarterback Sean Mannion. Del Rio’s status is unknown. “We tried to make plays”.
“We took it down by down, play by play”, UNT safety Kishawn McClain said. He’s bigger than Del Rio at 6 feet 4 and 240 pounds and is a bit faster.
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Appleby said he’s ready to take over if that’s what it comes down to. I don’t think you ever want to be someone’s caddie.
