MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- I asked UF running back Lamical Perine if this Florida squad was a playoff team at media day in July. His response?
“For sure.”
Of course, losses to LSU and Georgia derailed that dream, but the Gators, with an 11-2 season, capped off by Perine rushing for 138 yards in a 36-28 Orange Bowl win over Virginia, showed that his prophecy wasn’t far off. In 2019, UF took another crucial step forward as a program.
Coach Dan Mullen talked all offseason about how it’s harder to go from 10 wins to 11 than it is to go from four to 10, as his team had done in 2018. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, a statement Mullen used to motivate his players. It’s clear, though, that his players bought in.
Florida has clear momentum going into the 2020 season.
2019 was an improvement over 2018 on almost all fronts. The Gators, who maintained an offense that scored over 30 points per game despite a devastating season-ending injury to starting quarterback Feleipe Franks in the season’s third game, gave up just 15.5 points per game this year after giving up an average of 20 last year. Crucially, UF avoided being upset like it was last year against Kentucky and Missouri. It put itself in a position to earn its first top-5 ranking in the final AP Poll since the Tim Tebow era in 2009.
Most importantly, the Gators got that 11th win and another New Year’s Six Bowl win. Mullen is the first coach in history to win a BCS/NY6 bowl in his first two seasons at a new school, according to ESPN.
It was a great way to close out a decade that has seen more lows than highs for the program. Florida, one of the most dominating teams in college football in the 1990s and 2000s, will earn just its third top-10 finish of the decade this year.
Mullen loves to talk about the “Gator Standard,” a level of excellence seen in those previous decades. Two years into his tenure, it looks like that standard has been restored.
Next year, Mullen will have to get over the Georgia hump and make it to Atlanta for the SEC Championship. He knows that. A win against the Bulldogs, combined with another season like this one through the rest of the regular season, will give Florida a chance to take the next step, perhaps one more difficult than the jump from four to 10 wins or 10 to 11: to the SEC Championship Game and beyond.
“Next year I don’t expect anything less than a national championship,” freshman defensive back Kaiir Elam said. “I feel like we just need to keep improving, don’t take any steps back, and we’ll be there.”
Maybe Perine’s prediction was just a year early.
Follow Sam Campisano @scampisano.
