The Good, the Bad and the Ugly from the Florida Gators Concerning Loss to LSU
The Florida Gators' 45-35 loss to LSU became the program’s fourth straight defeat at the hands of their cross-divisional foe.
The loss came at a price for Florida heading into their bye week as it presented some significant signs for worry moving forward with this team. With a lot to take away from the contest, All Gators jumps into the good, the bad and the ugly to recap Florida’s rough third loss of the season.
The Good: Offensive explosiveness
Before we jump into where Florida went wrong — well, at least two areas of the many — we start by praising the story arc of the offense in 2022.
Starting off the year in an impactful way against Utah, showcasing a multi-dimensional attack aided by the brilliance of quarterback Anthony Richardson, Florida showed the capabilities of excellence when performing at the highest level.
Then, the offense began to undergo the growing pains many expected heading into the year. Since then, Florida’s seemingly worked through the kinks, but the offense is still sporadic at points.
The ups and downs continue to be worked through, but the unit’s explosiveness is a drastic step toward reaching its full potential. The trend started against Tennessee and has carried on since that week four matchup against the likes of Eastern Washington and now LSU — with Missouri being another lull in the process.
The development has produced the type of explosiveness that expectations suggested for a Richardson-led offense.
Still relying on a productive rushing game to set up the pass, Florida began to play more freely with Richardson growing more comfortable under center. Willing to take shots down the field at a higher clip than in the past — largely due to the signal caller's heightened sense of when to let the ball fly and when to tuck and run to avoid a turnover — the offense is always in a position to put points on the board.
Wide receiver Justin Shorter continues to reap the rewards of Florida’s propensity to take early deep shots through the air.
Against Eastern Washington, that shot came on play one. When LSU came to town, it was on play two, when Richardson found Shorter 51 yards downfield less than a minute into the game to take a 7-0 lead.
Even in a loss, the explosiveness shouldn’t be ignored.
Oddly enough, in the era of high-powered passing attacks leading the way, the passing game is only a complement to the explosiveness of the rushing game. That’s led by a two-headed monster of Montrell Johnson and Trevor Etienne.
While the game against LSU wasn’t indicative of their overall success this season, the Boot Boys still forced the Tigers to respect their rushing abilities throughout the contest. A large reason for that came due to their over seven yards per rush attempt combined heading into the contest this season.
Johnson led the Gators' backs in touches and yards, finishing with two touchdowns and a long run of 39 yards in his outing. Richardson added some magic on his feet as only he can with an 81-yard scamper to rejuvenate a depleted squad down 14 points early in the second half.
With UF operating in a dynamic way despite a relatively conservative scheme head coach and defensive coordinator Billy Napier is known to employ, the signs for the future of the offense are bright in Gainesville.
More bumps in the road will come, but so will the home run hitters.
The Bad: Halftime management
Tied at 14-14, the Florida Gators recovered a muffed punt by LSU return man Jack Bech to set up a score to take retake the lead early in the second quarter.
Trading blows with the Tigers, the big momentum shift from what seemed to be a three-and-out turning into points saw Florida with an opportunity to take control of the game.
Instead, following the score with 8:13 remaining, Florida failed to capitalize and allowed LSU to score 14 unanswered points in the first half. The second touchdown came with 2:44 remaining in the half, giving Florida one last chance to head into the locker room tied.
In what should have been an all-out attempt to score points at the end of the half, knowing LSU would receive to begin the final 30 minutes of play having yet to be stopped from reaching pay dirt on the day, Florida let the clock bleed in a two-minute drill scenario.
Playing with little sign of urgency — although the play selection on that drive included five passes and zero rushes — Florida turned 2:24 into five plays and took two of its three timeouts into halftime.
The poorly executed clock management culminated in a last-second Hail Mary attempt as time expired that failed to amount to much as Richardson faced early pressure.
Napier’s evident lack of trust in his defense led to this decision to run the clock down instead of calling a timeout. LSU's offensive success against his defensive unit was supremely efficient at that time and continued to be throughout the second half.
That reasoning may be justified given the defense’s performance on Saturday, which we will talk about in the third and final point.
However, it also makes sense to give yourself an opportunity to cut the lead knowing the contest was trending toward a shootout. Florida didn’t think so, and that came back to haunt the Gators in the end.
In the end, the scared money Napier played with didn’t make any money.
The Ugly: Florida’s defense is regressing
At this point, Florida’s defense is a liability — and it’s getting progressively worse.
Early in the season, the Florida Gators' defense showed the promise of being a mildly changed unit that could be serviceable for the aforementioned explosive offense once that side of the ball found its wings.
Despite still showing signs of concern, Florida seemed to mask the struggles defending to begin the year at a level that gave them a chance.
Utah provided some significant bright spots as a pass defense, although they got gashed on the ground. Kentucky will go down as arguably their best defensive performance of the year. USF was a struggle against the run. Tennessee — America’s most high-powered offense — had their way through the air and on the ground. Eastern Washington made it difficult for the Gators to get off the field in the early going. Missouri’s offensive performance was masked by the two Jaydon Hill interceptions — but still showed Florida can’t get off the field on third down.
Finally, LSU was a microcosm of the unit’s ineffectiveness, with all the bad things mentioned above mixed into a single contest.
The bright spots are gone. Florida is regressing.
The Tigers' 528 total yards came in whichever aspect of the game they wanted, with the Gators struggling to stop the multi-faceted rushing attack led by quarterback Jayden Daniels and having no answer for the LSU wideouts — albeit tainted.
To make matter worse, converting on 8-of-12 third downs and 2-of-2 fourth downs, LSU’s offense thrashed Florida at an unprecedented level on Saturday. No matter the big plays the Gators made in an attempt to get Daniels and Co. off the field on early downs, it rarely happened.
All Gators comprehensively detailed the evident lapses in Florida’s third-down defense — which ranks dead last in the nation — on Monday, the most glaring of issues in the unit as a whole.
As a result, the voiced animosity surrounding coaches on that side of the ball from parts of the fanbase isn’t misguided. It’s okay to be skeptical — although the widespread conclusion to fire defensive coordinator Patrick Toney with just a seven-game resume is rash and unwarranted.
Nothing in Gainesville was said to be an overnight fix and this season — in which Napier tried his best to set low expectations — is proving it may be even worse than previously thought.
That’s evident on the defensive side of the ball at this juncture.
Stay tuned to All Gators for continuous coverage of Florida Gators football, basketball and recruiting. Follow along on social media at @AllGatorsOnFN on Twitter and All Gators on FanNation-Sports Illustrated on Facebook.
Get your Gators football, basketball and other sporting events tickets from SI Tickets here.
