The adventures of Florida’s special teams continued against Vanderbilt.
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The Gators have a plan in place if the two are not available Saturday.
“Treon has got a great understanding of where guys are going to be, ” Florida coach Jim McElwain said.
The sideline activity prior to the game-winner implied the first-year coach was ambiguous, at best. Andy Hutchins is the Managing Editor of Alligator Army, SB Nation’s Florida Gators site. Would Will Grier or Treon Harris be the starting quarterback?
Andy Hutchins: Like a negative two?
Josh Grady and his Florida teammates have considerably different memories of Vanderbilt’s last trip to the Swamp.
Heading into the Vanderbilt game, Austin Hardin had missed four consecutive field goals.
But, hey, Vandy’s shot is better than Georgia’s.
This is a bad spot for Vanderbilt. There’s a span on “worried”, though. Maybe Grady feels comfortable bringing it up because this is the reason he came to Florida – to have a chance to win a championship, an opportunity he said he felt he would not get at Vanderbilt. But there are other fans closer to my more optimistic view, which is that Harris is pretty clearly a significantly lesser quarterback in a few ways (accuracy, speed of decision-making) than Grier was, but is also good enough at other things (running, ability to extend plays, an uncanny knack for throwing deep balls on the run) to make up for a few of those deficiencies. Florida entered the game with only six turnovers all season, but it lost three fumbles and tossed an interception against the Commodores.
This game proved Florida still has a lot to work on, but that’s a lot easier to stomach when it’s accompanied by an SEC East crown.
On the season, the Vanderbilt Commodores average 204.3 yards in passing and 156.1 yards in rushing.
The fifth-year graduate student, a Tampa native, transferred to Florida for his final season of eligibility and has served as a veteran presence on Jim McElwain’s first Florida team. How has Florida been so successful in a run-heavy SEC despite carrying a relatively average running attack? Florida finished with 93 rushing yards in the first half, but things turned dramatically in the second.
This game is going to be hard to watch because they’re likely won’t be much offense produced by either team.
Florida has clinched the SEC East. But if Harris can’t find a higher gear than he showed Saturday, both the season finale vs. Florida State and the SEC title game shape up as awfully tough rows to hoe.
Hardin’s heroics prevented another homecoming calamity before an announced crowd of 90,061 for the No. 10 Gators, who lost to Vanderbilt in 2013 and Missouri in 2014 by a combined score of 73-30. It was Hardin’s first made field goal since September 12. He’s got a knack for turning busted plays into big gains. And knowing the formula isn’t all that helpful when you don’t have the materials list for the experiment.
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Florida has performed very, very well, and Vandy’s QBs should be very, very anxious. McElwain added he’s eager to see how the crop of freshmen offensive lineman play. “I don’t ever look at them really as negatives”. Cunningham leads SEC linebackers with 10.5 tackles-for-loss and three forced fumbles.
