The Gators were a couple of late drives away from being handed their worst regular season loss in more than 30 years, their worst home loss in more than 40 years and their first shutout in 328 games.
Still, by the end of the 3 hour and 15 minute beat down, it wasn’t anything close to pretty for Will Muschamp and company.
Missouri defeated Florida 42-13, handing the Gators their second straight loss and third in the Southeastern Conference.
The snowball effect began early at the expense of Florida (3-3, 2-3 SEC) when Missouri’s Marcus Murphy returned the game’s opening kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown. It was the first time a Gators’ return coverage team allowed a kickoff score since Ohio State’s Ted Ginn, Jr. ran one back in the 2007 BCS National Championship.
“Our kickoff coverage has been outstanding all season,” Muschamp said. “We never had any issues, we felt good going into the game. Murphy is a good player but we felt like we could’ve covered better. When you don’t kick the ball or squeeze the field in the right place, it creates issues. And Austin kicked the ball right down the middle. That’s always an issue. And they brought the return back to the field and they did a nice job of executing and we didn’t.”
Florida won the coin toss before the game but elected to receive the ball at the start of the second half rather than the start of the first, a decision that immediately backfired for Muschamp.
When Jeff Driskel and the rest of UF’s offense took the field already down 7-0, it took just six plays for them to turn the ball right over to Missouri (5-2, 2-1 SEC). Driskel and running back Matt Jones fumbled an exchange that led to the Tigers taking over before the Gators managed to build any momentum.
Although Missouri did not capitalize on that turnover, the Tigers had plenty more opportunities throughout the night. The Gators turned the ball over a season-high six times on Saturday night.
“Well, you don’t give yourself a chance to win when you turn the ball over six times,” Muschamp said. “Six turnovers. That’s hard to overcome … You turn it over six times you’re not going to win. It wasn’t from a lack of effort. It wasn’t from a lack of trying. It was from a lack of ball security, protection at times. Those are things you got to clean up.”
Missouri scored 24 of its 42 points off turnovers by Florida.
The Gators failed to produce much of anything on offense, racking up just 283 yards of total offense on 79 plays — or in other words, 3.6 yards per play.
But as dysfunctional as Kurt Roper’s offense was, the defense held its own. Florida surrendered just 119 yards of total offense to Missouri, including just 20 passing yards.
The Tigers averaged just 2.4 yards per play and their offense only accounted for 13 of the team’s 42 points. Murphy had a five-yard rush for a score and kicker Andrew Baggett added two field goals.
However, Muschamp said more could have been done on the defensive side of the ball to help alleviate the pain the offense was suffering.
“(The Tigers) get to a point with the score they don’t have to stretch themselves very much with what they’re trying to do offensively,” Muschamp said. “That’s two fold. But again, it’s a team game. We could have created some turnovers on defense, we had some opportunities.”
The two-quarterback system didn’t produce much success from either Jeff Driskel or Treon Harris. Combined, the duo recorded 148 yards of passing and three interceptions.
Harris did record the Gators’ only two scores, lobbing up a ball to Tevin Westbrook to break the shutout and running one in with less than 30 seconds on the clock.
“I thought (Harris) did some nice things,” Muschamp said. “We’re a little limited in the throwing game as far as changing protections -- typical freshman quarterback things. They show an over look and you’d like to change the protection to the other side, there’s some things that he hasn’t been exposed to as much as far as the drop back passing game.”
Florida has a bye week before heading to Jacksonville to face off against Georgia on Nov. 1.
Follow Jonathan Czupryn on Twitter @jczupryn
Florida head coach Will Muschamp walks down the sideline during Florida's 42-13 loss to Missouri on Saturday at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
