JACKSONVILLE — As Florida sat in the locker room on Saturday following its first loss of the season, no one pointed the finger.
Instead of moping after Saturday’s 17-9 loss to Georgia, UF’s leaders stepped up to address the team. Jeff Driskel, Xavier Nixon, Jon Halapio, Mike Gillislee, Lerentee McCray, Sharrif Floyd, Jelani Jenkins, Jon Bostic and others spoke after the game.
“The biggest difference between this year’s team and last year’s team: We’re actually pulling together during this adversity,” Halapio said. “We’re not pointing fingers at each other. We’re not blaming this person for losing the game or this person. … That’s the big difference I see from a maturity standpoint of this team this year versus last year.”
Coach Will Muschamp also addressed his players.
“You’ve won well together,” Muschamp said. “Now we’re going to find out how we handle adversity.”
With four games left to play, the one-loss Gators still have a chance to contend for a BCS bowl.
One slip-up by Georgia puts UF back in the SEC championship game.
“There’s a lot of football to play,” Muschamp said. “We’ve got to move forward.”
Said Halapio: “It’s just a team mentality that we’ve got to pull together. We can’t let anymore opportunity slip.”
Florida’s defense did its part on Saturday, forcing three turnovers while holding Georgia to 273 yards of total offense.
Even as UF’s offense turned the ball over six times and consistently set Georgia up with extra possessions in prime field position, the defense yielded only 17 points.
“The defense did a great job of giving us opportunities,” Driskel said. “When you have a defense like we do, you can’t turn the ball over. They’re going to make stops. You can’t force things. You’ve just got to take points, and there were a couple of times there where we took points off the board and put our defense in tough spots.”
Said cornerback Jaylen Watkins: “We look at it as a challenge for the defense. For us, it’s fun. It’s obviously not fun turning the ball over, but we get excited because that’s one of the challenges we like to face, just getting our offense back the ball. We did it a few times, but sometimes we didn’t hold up.”
A large chunk of Georgia’s damage was due to one mistake: Loucheiz Purifoy’s missed tackle after Malcolm Mitchell secured a catch on a curl route that led to a 45-yard touchdown midway through the fourth quarter.
“We were in position,” Muschamp said. “We were in position to make it, and they made the play and we didn’t. Frustrating, but at the end of the day you’ve got to make those plays.”
Although Georgia running back Todd Gurley amassed 118 yards and gashed the Gators in spurts, Florida forced quarterback Aaron Murray to tie a career high with three interceptions.
Still, Florida wound up on the losing end. To Watkins, the loss is a sign the defense didn’t play well enough.
“We lost, so I don’t think it was (good enough),” Watkins said. “The object is to keep them at zero points, and we didn’t do that.”
That sense of accountability wasn’t a staple of Florida’s 2011 team.
It’s a major reason why the Gators aren’t pointing fingers in the locker room, and why they’re ready to regroup.
“We have good leadership on our football team and we’ll be fine in the long run,” Muschamp said.
“We just need to push through this.”
Contact Greg Luca at gluca@alligator.org.
Linebacker Neiron Ball (11) returns an interception thrown by Georgia’s Aaron Murray during the first quarter of UF’s 17-9 loss on Saturday at EverBank Field.
