- Oct 5, 2017
- 2,315
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On Saturday the Gators beat Vandy 38-14 in a game that wasn't always pretty and was very close to being tied 14-14 before the Gators final drive of the half. Slev said on X to blame him for turning the game on right before Vandy hit the big throw and then he turned it off and we got the goalline stand. With that said, the Gators cost me a point in pick' em (not that I'm good against the spread anyways) by covering. I thought they'd win, but like Doering, I thought that 18.5 spread was too high. Granted, had I known that Vandy team was missing as many defenders they were (still can't find a full report, but re-watch had announcers not shut up about it) and they'd lose more, I might've believed it. I wasn't sure which Vandy QB we'd get either, but I don't think that made too much of a difference.
Another solid statistical outing from Mertz with 30/36, 254 yards and 3 TD's and no INT's. Of the 35 passes charted by Pro Football Focus, (I decided not to chart on my re-watch, my bad) 30 of the 35 were less than 9 yards and 17 were behind the LOS. Still we had some great catch and runs including Boardingham having what looks to be a breakout game with 99 yards, 7 receptions and 2 TD's. Johnson had his best FBS game in a long time and Webb getting 70 yards on 4 carries shows he's capable of handling some of the load if Etienne is out for an extended time. Overall, outside of a few drives in the first half the offense did what it needed to do. I didn't hate the trick play that lead to the turnover because at least we tried something. If the ball was thrown better it's a big play. No regrets.
On defense, Vandy, with their back up QB threw for about 276, which is about their average for the season. It is worth noting about half of their passing yards came on two big plays. One was a deep ball where their true freshman receiver beat our true freshman DB, which is what it is. The other should've had a facemask call. I'm not sure why Marshall didn't run full speed after the catch, nor do I think he might've caught the receiver who had a number of steps on him after the catch, but I know its been hotly debated and I'm not interested in that debate. Overall, defense did well and allowed only 3.4 ypc. They came up with a timely fumble recovery after what would've been a 4th down conversion. Great job forcing that fumble by true freshman TJ Searcy. And great job by Kimber to make sure to get on it as it was a close call and it's better to recover a close ball than to assume a runner is down. Had it been called the runner down, it would've been upheld. Hopefully, like I said in the preview, this game brought back some of the confidence for this defense they might've lost at Kentucky
Special teams didn't have any great tragedies, but wasn't great. I saw a fair catch inside the 10, not sure why you do that. At lest nothing I can think of that were unbelievable errors that cost us badly this week.
Overall, this was Vandy and how we should beat Vandy. I was happy with that and happy with a win. What I'm not going to do, and I've seen some dance on the periphery of, is pretend like this means any problems have been solved. We saw that this offense can sometimes work against an overmatched team missing several defenders. We saw a defense give up 275 yards passing (with the caveats above) to a 2nd string Vandy QB. We saw us basically shut down a running game. There is a lot to be happy about a win on homecoming. There is also recognition that there's not much to learn from this game unless it went badly.
Next week, the real test begins in Columbia with the Gamecocks coming off of a bye. Another road test for Nape and crew in I'd say a top half of the SEC atmosphere against a 2-3 team that has 3 away from home losses against top 20 teams. That is not exactly a 2-3 that doesn't give me some pause. We will take more of that later. For now, enjoy a homecoming win and getting revenge on Vandy (boy is that phrase crappy).
Go Gators!
Another solid statistical outing from Mertz with 30/36, 254 yards and 3 TD's and no INT's. Of the 35 passes charted by Pro Football Focus, (I decided not to chart on my re-watch, my bad) 30 of the 35 were less than 9 yards and 17 were behind the LOS. Still we had some great catch and runs including Boardingham having what looks to be a breakout game with 99 yards, 7 receptions and 2 TD's. Johnson had his best FBS game in a long time and Webb getting 70 yards on 4 carries shows he's capable of handling some of the load if Etienne is out for an extended time. Overall, outside of a few drives in the first half the offense did what it needed to do. I didn't hate the trick play that lead to the turnover because at least we tried something. If the ball was thrown better it's a big play. No regrets.
On defense, Vandy, with their back up QB threw for about 276, which is about their average for the season. It is worth noting about half of their passing yards came on two big plays. One was a deep ball where their true freshman receiver beat our true freshman DB, which is what it is. The other should've had a facemask call. I'm not sure why Marshall didn't run full speed after the catch, nor do I think he might've caught the receiver who had a number of steps on him after the catch, but I know its been hotly debated and I'm not interested in that debate. Overall, defense did well and allowed only 3.4 ypc. They came up with a timely fumble recovery after what would've been a 4th down conversion. Great job forcing that fumble by true freshman TJ Searcy. And great job by Kimber to make sure to get on it as it was a close call and it's better to recover a close ball than to assume a runner is down. Had it been called the runner down, it would've been upheld. Hopefully, like I said in the preview, this game brought back some of the confidence for this defense they might've lost at Kentucky
Special teams didn't have any great tragedies, but wasn't great. I saw a fair catch inside the 10, not sure why you do that. At lest nothing I can think of that were unbelievable errors that cost us badly this week.
Overall, this was Vandy and how we should beat Vandy. I was happy with that and happy with a win. What I'm not going to do, and I've seen some dance on the periphery of, is pretend like this means any problems have been solved. We saw that this offense can sometimes work against an overmatched team missing several defenders. We saw a defense give up 275 yards passing (with the caveats above) to a 2nd string Vandy QB. We saw us basically shut down a running game. There is a lot to be happy about a win on homecoming. There is also recognition that there's not much to learn from this game unless it went badly.
Next week, the real test begins in Columbia with the Gamecocks coming off of a bye. Another road test for Nape and crew in I'd say a top half of the SEC atmosphere against a 2-3 team that has 3 away from home losses against top 20 teams. That is not exactly a 2-3 that doesn't give me some pause. We will take more of that later. For now, enjoy a homecoming win and getting revenge on Vandy (boy is that phrase crappy).
Go Gators!
