At this rate, Mike Gillislee will eclipse 2,000 yards and surpass his touchdown prediction. After saying he’d reach 1,500 yards and 24 touchdowns at Southeastern Conference Media Days in July, the senior running back made an early push to the seemingly unreachable goals.
His career high 148 yards, 24 carries and two scores carried an otherwise flat Florida offense to a 24-14 victory against Bowling Green Saturday.
“I thought he played very well,” Gators coach Will Muschamp said. “He got the ball north and south, and made some really nice runs. Made some big runs for us, ran through some tackles, broke tackles, which was refreshing to see."
For Gillislee, the playing time was a long time coming. His previous high for carries was 11. Muschamp said he hopes his senior rusher can stay healthy enough for the double-digit workload. Gillislee didn’t have any ill effects from the career day.
“Yeah I still was thinking in my head, ‘I just got to believe it when I see it, and I carried the ball 24 times today and my body still feels the same,” he said.
Gillislee gave the Gators the between the tackles runner they lacked in 2011. When quarterback John Brantley injured his leg against Alabama, Florida couldn’t execute running plays up the middle. Instead, the Gators mainly went with a pistol formation with the running back coming from a shotgun formation. Gillislee gave the Gators options Saturday.
“He’s got multiple directions to take the ball as opposed to coming from a gun set,” Muschamp said. “That hurt us as you all watched us last year when Johnny got hurt, because he couldn’t come up from under center. So we lost a little bit of that that we’re able to do, which was very little last year.”
The physical running was a welcomed change for sophomore quarterback Jeff Driskel. In his most football action since stepping foot on campus, Driskel didn’t have much to worry about.
“It was easy for me because all I had to do was turn around and give it to Gillislee,” Driskel said. “The offensive line was creating holes and he was hitting them.”
His one-cut running sparked touchdown runs of 15 and 38 yards.
While Gillislee had four attempts go more than 10 yards, the Gators finished 1 of 8 in short yardage situations.
Despite the troubles, there wasn’t any doubt what Florida would do when the opportunity presented itself.
"I was very stubborn in those situations,” Muschamp said. “I told Brent (Pease) in the headset, we're going to run the ball.”
After a season in which Muschamp called his team soft, the Gators and Gillislee moved closer towards becoming the physical team he coveted when he took over in Gainesville.
“You can preach a certain sermon over and over, but until you're willing to go do it out in front of Gator nation and the fans, it's not what you're actually about,” Muschamp said. “We're going to be a physical organization. We've got to do it. We can't talk about it."
Contact Adam Pincus at apincus@alligator.org.
Mike Gillislee runs in a touchdown Saturday against Bowling Green University at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
