Dan Mullen gets first signature win at Florida as Gators hand LSU their first loss
Florida picked up their biggest win of the year with a 27-19 win over previously undefeated LSU as Dan Mullen picks up a big statement win.
One of Dan Mullen’s first statement wins while he was at Mississippi State came in Death Valley when he and Dak Prescott left LSU with a program-altering win. Now, in his first season as the head coach at Florida, Mullen’s got himself his first statement as the Gators’ coach after handing LSU their first loss of the season.
The 27-19 win over the No. 5 Tigers was another classic battle between these two rivals, but in the end, it was able to find a way to win games with a little bit of trickeration and two clutch interceptions to seal the deal for this rapidly improving team.
Florida snapped their three-game SEC home losing streak and The Swamp has come back to life and the atmosphere the fans created shows how excited they are to be winning, and winning against SEC heavyweights like they’re used to.
The Gators trailed 19-14 six minutes into the final quarter before Mullen dialed up a trick play that saw tight end Lucas Krull complete a 15-yard pass to quarterback Feleipe Franks on a drive that culminated in Lamical Perine scoring the go-ahead touchdown to take a one-point lead.
There was plenty of time for LSU and quarterback Joe Burrow to mount a comeback, but that was quickly dashed when Brad Stewart picked him off and raced to the end zone for the pick-six. Florida added another clutch interception on the ensuing possession with LSU facing a desperate fourth down but Donovan Stiner went up and came down with the pick to give Florida the win.
Mullen will stop you if you try to say he’s got a rebuilding job on his hands back in Gainesville and he’ll say he’s building, which is true. This isn’t a bad team he inherited, it was bad because of former coach Jim McElwain who had no clue what he was doing.
Thankfully, for the Gators, they have a coach they can trust not to embarrass the program, but most importantly, they have a coach that can close the gap between them and Georgia. As many times as coaches and players will tell you they take things one game at a time, you know Florida has the rivalry game with Georgia circled on their calendar and can’t wait to show them what they have on Oct. 27.
Mullen already has his first statement win back in Gainesville, but he’s already looking forward to that second statement win. Florida isn’t where they need to be to compete for the SEC Championship on an annual basis as they expect, but today’s win over LSU was a significant step toward getting there. There were a ton of recruits who watched that game and saw how well Florida played on both sides of the ball and how The Swamp was an electric atmosphere.
The Gators are going to be so good in the near future and when they get there, they will look back to this win over LSU as the game that was the turning point.