BATON ROUGE, La. — The Gators’ defense only saw 14 passes Saturday afternoon. That was still more than it could handle.
While LSU dominated with its methodical running attack, the Tigers were able to break Saturday’s 41-11 win open with deep passes and other explosive plays. On six of LSU’s seven scoring drives, Florida gave up a play of 20 yards or longer.
LSU opened the scoring on its second play from scrimmage. After faking a handoff, quarterback Jarrett Lee connected with Rueben Randle for a 46-yard touchdown; sophomore cornerback Cody Riggs was beat on the play.
Lee and fellow Tigers quarterback Jordan Jefferson combined to go 10 of 14 for 215 yards, the second-most passing yards allowed by the Gators this season. Tennessee quarterback Tyler Bray gained 288 yards against Florida on Sept. 17, but he did so with 48 attempts — about nine less yards per pass play than LSU gained.
“We tried to load up the box in the run game, and we gave up some big plays,” coach Will Muschamp said.
After giving up touchdowns on its first two series, the Florida defense appeared to force a three-and-out. But on fourth-and-15, punter Brad Wing ran unscathed down the left sideline for a 44-yard gain, setting LSU up at UF’s 23 yard line after an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty nullified the would-be touchdown.
Two members of Florida’s punt-return unit were supposed to be watching Wing, but they ran back to set up a wall too soon, Muschamp said.
“We had two guys assigned to do their job; they didn’t do it,” he said. “They did what they wanted to do, and those guys aren’t going to play in our program anymore.”
The Gators appeared to gain some momentum at the end of the third, when quarterback Jacoby Brissett hooked up with Andre Debose for a 65-yard touchdown to cut the Tigers’ lead to 27-11. But, on the ensuing drive, Jefferson hit Randle on a fly route for a 57-yard gain to take the ball down to the UF 3-yard line.
Freshman cornerback Marcus Roberson was covering Randle on the play. No Florida defensive backs were made available to the media after the game.
“Everyone just has to just do their own job and not worry about trying to be a hero,” defensive tackle Jaye Howard said. “We just have to do our own job and things like that won’t happen.”
Linebacker Lerentee McCray said the defense simply missed assignments, giving LSU easy, back-breaking plays.
Asked if, in the sixth game of the season, he was shocked Florida was still having such defensive breakdowns, McCray said, “I’m not really surprised.”
Contact Tyler Jett at tjett@alligator.org
