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Pat Dooley of The Tailgate (weekdays 4-6 p.m. with Jeff Cardozo) brings his legendary grading of the Gators to WRUF.com. This week, Florida vs. LSU on Senior Night.
OFFENSE C-
Even with the Gators putting up impressive number, the early turnovers by Kyle Trask allowed LSU to stay in the game. There were also major issues in the red zone. The first drive of the game set up the rest of the night when Florida drove right down the field and got stuffed on the 1-yard line. The Gators finished with 609 yards of offense and still lost.
Trask wasn’t as sharp as usual and the pick-six was a huge reason why the Gators lost. This wasn’t on the defense only. The offensive mistakes were difficult to overcome.
“This game tonight was on the offense,” Dan Mullen said.
DEFENSE D
It’s not like the Gators gave up tons of yardage and they were this close to having the stop that could have been the difference in the game because Marco Wilson throws the shoe of the LSU tight end. The defense was put into bad positions, but this defense still has amazing coverage busts and missed tackles.
LSU converted 8-of-18 third downs with a freshman quarterback making his first start. That’s bad. As a result, LSU ran 86 plays.
SPECIAL TEAMS C-
Jacob Finn had a wonderful night punting the ball, but Evan McPherson’s missed 51-yarder was the difference in the game. Give LSU the edge for special teams with a 57-yard field goal winning the game. “We lost the special teams part of the game,” Dan Mullen said.
COACHING D
Mullen got a little too cute in the red zone where he is usually very innovative. Do we even have to discuss how much Gator fans are eager to get a new defensive coordinator?
This certainly was not the best game this staff has had. But the defense has been an inconsistent mess.
There was also this – that Florida eventually was going to struggle to win a game because it almost has to be razor-sharp on offense with a shaky defense. The offense was not.
For some reason, LSU has owned Florida the last decade winning 7 of 10. But this was an opponent that came into the game with three wins.
OVERALL F
If this team didn’t come out ready to play, that’s on the coaches but it’s also on the players. Florida can still win the SEC Championship, …. Yeah, like that’s going to happen. It’s just a shame that these seniors had to go out with a loss at home, but it was a senior’s bad decision that led to the game-winner. In a strange season, it was a strange night with fog taking over in the fourth quarter. No excuses, but let’s face it – this team wasn’t going to win the national title. It was nice to be able to dream about it for awhile
