Florida beats Tennessee on Hail Mary, 26-20: 3 takeaways
By John Buhler
The No. 24 Florida Gators defeated the No. 23 Tennessee Volunteers, 26-20. Here are the three biggest takeaways from this SEC East rivalry game on Saturday.
On the last play of the game, Florida Gators redshirt freshman quarterback Feleipe Franks heaves an unbelievable 63-yard, game-winning Hail Mary to wide receiver Tyrie Cleveland to beat the Tennessee Volunteers, 26-20 in Gainesville.
This SEC rivalry series continues to amaze. It almost always comes down to the last play of the game when Butch Jones and Jim McElwain are going at it. What a finish to an otherwise sloppy game in The Swamp.
Here are the biggest takeaways from the Gators’ thrilling first win of the season.
Takeaways
Tennessee lacks focus offensively. We kind of knew that this was going to be a rebuilding year for the Volunteers. They lost three key pieces on their team from a year ago in quarterback Joshua Dobbs, defensive end Derek Barnett and cornerback Cameron Sutton. However, there is no reason Tennessee should have looked this perplexed offensively on Saturday.
The only guy that seemed to play well was running back John Kelly, who had 16 carries for 124 yards and an impressive touchdown. Quarterback Quinten Dormady threw three interceptions against a good Florida defense. However, one could argue that his receivers let him down on all three of those picks. One ran a wrong route in the red zone and another let it slip through his hands for a pick-six.
The offensive interior was largely awful for Tennessee. Florida got to dictate terms at the line of scrimmage, pushing the Volunteers guards aside whenever they felt like it. Jarrett Guarantano is not going to save this Tennessee offense from itself. To look this unfocused during a rivalry game of this magnitude was pretty embarrassing.
Looks like Florida is going to win with defense again. New year, same Florida team. The Gators may not be atrociously horrendous at quarterback this year, but Franks isn’t going to take them to Atlanta on his own. That pass was unreal though, so props to him. That being said, this is a defense-first football team once again in Gainesville.
Florida was able to win the game largely because it could generate constant pressure on a bewildered Volunteers offensive line. Timely plays by the back-seven allowed Florida to win a low-scoring defensive game in The Swamp.
Maybe the Gators will be able to figure it out on offense with Franks going forward? If Florida doesn’t get better in the passing game, that falls on McElwain. Isn’t he supposed to be a quarterback whisperer or something? Maybe Franks ends up being his guy? Well, at least his defensive line is good.
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This game was a bad look for the SEC East overall. Don’t let anybody try to tell you that the SEC is the best Power 5 conference in 2017. The Alabama Crimson Tide are fantastic. There might be a few teams that will end up being good like the Georgia Bulldogs or the LSU Tigers, but this game didn’t do much for the middle of the SEC.
Florida and Tennessee are two of the conference’s six blue-blood programs along with Alabama, Georgia, LSU and the Auburn Tigers. Both Florida and Tennessee continue to recruit at a high level, but scoring touchdowns shouldn’t be quantum physics difficult for these programs in the first three quarters. At least the fourth quarter was great television.
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Like clockwork, this rivalry game went from all sorts of dumb in the first three quarters into something very exciting in the final frame. When Florida and Tennessee meet, this is what we should come to expect.