10 Games of Christmas: Ranking UF’s 2019 Wins, Starting With No. 10

The Gators were 1-0 already.

Feleipe Franks was still healthy. It was the first home night game of the season.

The product on the field was honestly kind of “meh.” But we got to hear “Won’t Back Down,” and turn our phone flashlights on, so it evens out.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m talking about Florida’s 45-0 blowout over UT Martin. Nobody knew it at the time, but it was the last time Florida fans would watch Franks play in the Swamp. His fateful leg injury against Kentucky occurred the next week in Lexington.

And it was a rather impressive outing.

Albeit against the Skyhawks, Franks completed 92.6 percent of his passes on his way to 270 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.

Running back Malik Davis scored his only touchdown of the season in that game in the second half. Among others that don’t find the end zone often were wide receivers Jacob Copeland and Tyrie Cleveland.

It was the first game that eventual-starting quarterback Kyle Trask played in in 2019. It is crazy to look back now and think of a game where Trask didn’t play in the most meaningful offensive snaps of the game, but in the nail-biter against Miami to open the season he was still the backup.

And this was the first game that we also started to truly realize how much this Florida team was going to struggle to run the football. Lamical Perine only had 51 rushing yards and to move the ball at all early the Gators had to consistently put the ball in the air.

And if you are struggling to run it against UT Martin, imagine going against Auburn? Georgia? LSU?

That was the conversation back then among Gator fans. The pessimistic fans said that the lack of running game would cause UF to regress from its fantastic 2018 run that finished with a Peach Bowl birth and victory.

But defensively, everyone was optimistic. Outside of a Jabari Zuniga injury that was concerning, the defense looked incredible. That would be the first of three shutouts in the Swamp throughout the course of the season. With that game, the Towson game and then Vanderbilt, Todd Grantham’s gang boasted a résumé in 2019 where only three opponents even scored points in the Swamp.

Obviously there’s only so much to discuss in a cupcake like the UT Martin game was. This is why it comes in ranked as the No. 10 win out of the 10 wins all season.

Obviously, every win is a good win and a 45-0 score line is nothing to scoff at, even if it is UT Martin. But let’s be real, this series was not created to discuss the UT Martin.

But isn’t that what Christmas is about?

We build suspense through the entire season to the actual day of Christmas, and that’s exactly what I’m doing here.

UT-Martin is like Christmas music. It gets you in the spirit of the season (in this case, football season). It’s one of the first things you do to kick everything off. And it makes you feel good, both Christmas tunes and beating up on cupcakes.