Late in Florida’s 30-27 loss to LSU Saturday night, a silence enveloped the more than 88,000 fans in attendance.
Receiver Latroy Pittman lay motionless on the turf, being tended to by trainers. Much of the LSU team took to a knee, some could be seen praying, but most of Florida’s team seemed to be huddling, talking through what they were about to do on the next series.
Muschamp said Pittman was going to be all right after the game, and Sunday morning UF released a statement that Pittman was released from the hospital Saturday night.
But Florida fan Kyle Morgan took to Facebook in a rant about the sequence of events and it was picked up by the New Orleans Times-Picayune among his ravings included:
"Fire Will Muschamp, Jeremy Foley. If not for being a bad head coach who can’t win enough games, then do it for the better reason. Fire him for failing to be a leader of men. Fire him because he lacks the respect for an injured player that over 80,000 other people possessed in that stadium."
Monday, Muschamp fired back at allegations that he was callous in the wake of what seemed like a serious injury at the time.
"Well, the information is relayed to me immediately that he had movement," Muschamp said.
"We took that time, and we’ve not instructed our players to take a knee in those situations, any time someone gets hurt, we don’t always know the severity of the injury or the situation. That’s not something that we’ve done, or anywhere that I’ve ever been that we’ve ever done."
Muschamp said they had plays to go over for the next series including a potential field goal block situation.
Muschamp did end up going over to where Pittman was laying near the middle of the field, and said the receiver told him while still on the ground that he was fine. Pittman is officially day-to-day.
Injuries: Defensive lineman Leon Orr is questionable for the Missouri game with a knee injury.
Matt Jones’ ankle forced him to sit the entire second half, but the plan is to have him back Wednesday.
Offensive lineman D.J. Humphries is expected back Wednesday after a knee injury and cornerback Vernon Hargreaves is expected back today after a head injury suffered in the LSU game.
Wide receivers: With a quarterback position in turmoil, Florida needs all the help it can get in the passing game, but it isn’t getting it from wide receivers that continue to drop passes.
"Nobody can catch it for them," Muschamp said. "They’ve got to catch the ball. We work on JUGS (machines), we work on any hand-eye, lot of that. (Wide receivers coach Chris Leak) can’t catch it for them."
Muschamp explained that offensive coordinator Kurt Roper holds complete control over the passing game at Florida, something he insisted on in the interview process and something consistent with most college football programs.
"You drop passes, that’s normal," safety Keanu Neal said. "You’re not going to catch every pass that comes to you. So yeah they drop passes in practices. Yeah, they’ve missed a few in the game, but they’ll get it fixed."
Follow Richard Johnson on Twitter @RagjUF
Latroy Pittman is carted off the field following an injury during the fourth quarter of Florida's 30-27 loss to LSU on Saturday at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
