Wow, did Florida's football team really win a road shootout? | Whitley
Billy Napier had a Sir Edmund Hillary Moment last week, comparing the football rebuild at Florida to climbing a mountain.
Like Hillary on his assault of Mt. Everest, he’s sure the Gators are progressing. But there’s a long way to go.
“I think there are some clouds,” Napier said, “and I can’t see the top of the mountain yet.”
After Saturday’s excursion, the view is clearer. Go ahead and shout it from the highest hill, Florida fans.
The Gators won a road game! The Gators won a road game!
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And they did it in confidence-building fashion, rallying from a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter to beat the Gamecocks 41-39.
And no, that is not a misprint.
Florida indeed scored 41 points, powered by Graham Mertz’s bravura performance. There were more deep throws, dazzling catches and offensive highlights in one afternoon than the Gators have had all season.
That bodes well for the second half of the season. As for the defense, someone call the nearest Sherpa outpost and get it to send a few guides. The defense slid a ways down the mountain, though nobody was in a mood to moan amid the post-game joy.
“They played together and they never gave up,” Napier told ESPN. “Can you believe we get paid to do this?”
Speaking of pay, the win should quiet all the talk about Napier’s contract buyout. Not that he was really in danger of getting fired, but plenty of fans have been wondering if the climb was getting anywhere.
The emotional pendulum has now swung the other way. Good thing, since there is plenty of rough terrain ahead.
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It starts with Georgia in two weeks. Throw in LSU and FSU, and the Gators have the toughest remaining schedule in the country, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index.
The only game they’ll probably be favored in is Arkansas. That made South Carolina quasi-paramount if UF is going to avoid a third straight losing season. Nobody’s seen that around Gainesville since 1949-51.
Of course, few fans have seen the kind of road futility the program’s been serving up. The Gators had lost 15 of their past 17 games away from The Swamp heading into Saturday, so the problems predated Napier.
After going 1-7 on the road, he hoped a couple of minor adjustments would help, like players getting more sleep on Wednesday night and arriving at the stadium earlier.
The biggest tweak was the opponent. With all due respect to Shane Beamer’s rebuilding job, if the Gators couldn’t win Saturday, you had to wonder if they’d ever win another road game.
Of 14 SEC teams, the Gamecocks came in ranked 13th in total offense, 14th in rushing offense, 14th in scoring and they were No. 118 out of 130 FBS teams in total defense.
The main thing South Carolina had going for it was Spencer Rattler, though he’d spent much of the first six games running for his life. The Gamecocks totally reshuffled their offensive line in the bye week heading into the game.
That helped, but it shouldn’t have helped as much as it apparently did. South Carolina more than doubled its usual rushing output, which made it easier for Rattler to do his thing.
He peppered the Gators with 313 yards passing and four touchdowns, but Mertz countered with
a career-best 423 yards and three TDs. The biggest was the 21-yarder to Ricky Pearsall with 47 seconds left that gave UF the win.
“I can’t tell you how proud I am of Graham Mertz,” Napier said. “Man, what a competitor.”
A few minutes prior, ESPN’s announcers said something nobody thought would come out of a sane person’s mouth. It concerned the SEC Championship Game.
“Florida has a path to Atlanta,” Taylor Zarzour said. “If they win this one and knock off the ‘Dogs in two weeks.”
You still need counseling if you believe the Gators will beat top-ranked Georgia and storm through to an SEC title game without another loss.
That would truly be scaling a mountain. But the way Florida won Saturday, you can see the program really might be getting somewhere.
David Whitley is The Gainesville Sun's sports columnist. Contact him at dwhitley@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidEWhitley
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Florida football wins unlikely road shootout at South Carolina
