BATON ROUGE, La. – After the Gators got punched in the mouth, they shot themselves in the foot.
LSU opened the game Saturday with a 46-yard touchdown on its second play from scrimmage. Florida responded with eight penalties for 61 yards in the first half. In all, the Gators racked up 12 flags for 90 yards in the 41-11 loss.
“The penalties killed us in the game,” UF coach Will Muschamp said.
In the first quarter, running back Chris Rainey’s 25-yard run deep into LSU territory was called back to the UF 40 after a personal foul call on tight end A.C. Leonard. Well behind the play near the line of scrimmage, Leonard leveled an LSU defender from the blindside.
“There’s aggressive penalties, and there’s penalties that shouldn’t happen,” Muschamp said. “We’ve got a 30-yard run in the first quarter and we’re blocking behind the ball, 20 yards behind the ball. That’s not very smart. It’s something that’s been talked about 100 times. It needs to be talked about 200. So we’re going to talk about 200 times this week.”
After an LSU field goal made the score 17-0, Florida was again penalized for a block in the back and holding on consecutive plays. Under pressure on first-and-22, Brissett threw an ill-advised pass deep that was intercepted by LSU safety Brandon Taylor.
The flags helped stall multiple drives for the Gators’ offense and also extend drives for the Tigers.
“[Penalties] killed us, man, they killed us,” said sophomore Trey Burton, who played both running back and quarterback. “They gave them good field position all the time and kept us from good field position. It’s something we’ve got to work on and get fixed — real soon.”
Instead of correcting the mistakes at halftime, Florida’s penalty woes continued in the second half.
Left guard Dan Wenger was called for a false start on the first offensive play of the third quarter for Florida, helping create yet another three-and-out. On the Tigers’ next drive, cornerback Jaylen Watkins was flagged for a personal foul for a facemask, which helped LSU escape bad field position and start a scoring drive.
Later in the series, with LSU inside the UF red zone, defensive tackles Jaye Howard and Dominique Easley jumped offside on back-to-back plays.
Howard said the team doesn’t suffer from a lack of discipline, attributing the penalties to youth and inexperience.
“We’re going through some growing pains right now,” he said.
The 12 penalties wasn’t even the highest number this season, as Florida committed 16 against Tennessee on Sept. 17.
Flags have been a concern since the opener, when the team had nine against FAU and then nine again the next week against UAB. On the year, UF has 55 for 425 yards.
In games against Kentucky and Alabama, it appeared the flags were a thing of the past as Florida accumulated just nine in the two games, including just four against Alabama. Still, the Gators entered the game worst in the Southeastern Conference in number of penalties and trailing only Ole Miss for the most penalty yards.
They were 117th in the nation in number of penalties, trailing only Lousiana-Lafayette (44), Western Michigan (45) and Colorado (48).
“All I seen out there was penalties,” Rainey said.
Linebacker Lerentee McCray said they were “a big factor” in the loss. “It’s a part of football. Every single play it could be critical,” he said. “Everything is critical in the football game.”
Contact Matt Watts at mwatts@alligator.org
