The Gators committed just three penalties Saturday; they also won a football game for the first time in more than a month.
That’s not a coincidence.
Florida entered the game as the most penalized team in the nation with 75 total flags for an average of 70.9 yards per game. Players said the number of mistakes and penalties the team had accrued during the four-game losing streak was a heavy emphasis in practice.
“Coach (Will) Muschamp, and all the coaches actually, were very keen on (not) making mistakes and dumb penalties,” defensive end Earl Okine said. “We worked on that an extreme amount of time during the week.”
In their cleanest game of the season, the Gators took advantage of the opposition’s mistakes. Vanderbilt racked up 12 flags for 106 yards, including a pivotal offsides call on fourth-and-1 at the Florida 15 as the Gators attempted to go for the first down.
The mistake extended the drive, which ended with a 52-yard touchdown run from Jeff Demps to put Florida up 26-14 with just more than two minutes left in the game.
It was the kind of mistake the Gators made while losing four straight games in October.
“In order for you to learn, you have to go through it, so we did all that,” defensive tackle Dominique Easley said.
During the week leading up to the game, Muschamp said it was tough to discipline players for mistakes in practice because of a lack of depth. But Okine credited Muschamp’s approach in practice this week as a catalyst for the improvement.
“Coach made an emphasis on keeping positive and staying together,” he said. “He wanted to make sure nobody was having feelings like the season is over, and nobody feels that way on the team now.”
The Gators’ first two scoring drives were penalty-free, a welcome change from the flag-ridden games of the losing streak. Florida had 14 flags in last week’s loss to Georgia and 22 combined in the three losses prior, including 12 for 90 yards against LSU.
“We’re just more concentrated,” Okine said. “Our team is just tired of losing, so we’re just willing to do whatever it takes. We were back behind the wall, and there’s only one thing you can do, which is fight back.”
The three penalties Saturday against Vanderbilt was the team’s best showing this season.
But, after the game, Muschamp was not ready to declare the problem solved.
“This is one game. I’m not ready in one game to be able to wave the flag (and say) that we’re disciplined now,” he said. “We need to continue to work on it day in and day out because we haven’t been consistently (disciplined) all year.”
Contact Matt Watts at mwatts@alligator.org.
