Meanwhile, quarterback Luke Del Rio (sprained MCL) is “still hurt”, per McElwain.
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Luke Del Rio with team, will travel to Tennessee: Del Rio attended practice this week and was involved in the game plan.
Florida: Plays the Volunteers (3-0) for the 27th consecutive year. “That’s what I want, for our guys to let loose and enjoy the environment, the atmosphere because I’ve been at places where you had to make the rivalry up”.
Del Rio is a redshirt sophomore who began his career as a walk-on at Alabama, transferred to Oregon State and then to Florida following a coaching change. “It lets us know that we have him and he has us and we will always have his back”.
“We’ve got Austin, and we’ll get both Feleipe [Franks] and [Kyle] Trask ready to go”, McElwain said.
Appleby said he wasn’t aware of the fact Florida backup quarterbacks have a recent history of performing well against the Vols.
He has a reputation for having a stronger arm than Del Rio, but isn’t as accurate. We’ll see how that thing goes. After LDR took a borderline shot low in the second half, Austin Appleby came in relief to close out the shutout and he showed some inconsistency with a conversion on third and medium as well as deep incompletions in obvious passing downs that stalled a possession in the fourth quarter.
McElwain says “he’s got to be running 100 per cent for us to put him out there”.
Appleby said he’s ready to take over the offense.
But what also made his decision easier was that he’s been a Gators fan since before transferring. “I mean we’re going to run the ball, we’re going to set up the play-action pass and get the ball to our guys on the outside”. “He kind of ran around out there a little bit”. Some questioned Tabor’s timing, saying he was merely trying to make up for the fight.
“You know what, we’ll play action and throw it deep”, he said. “You want the ball in your hands”. Like in the game against Kentucky, penalties were likely Florida’s biggest shortcoming in a blowout win. “And that really is what you expect from that position, and the guys around him, the team, they know he’s there”.
The victor of the game gets a head start in what looks to be a wide-open SEC East. Georgia needed a fourth-down touchdown with less than two minutes left to beat Missouri in Week 3 and Tennessee is dealing with injuries to key players too.
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As of yet it is uncertain how bad the injury truly is, enough so that Del Rio hasn’t been officially ruled out for the coming game against Tennessee.
