Florida earned its 4th win of the season in The Swamp Saturday afternoon, downing an overmatched Vanderbilt squad 38-14.

Florida’s offense was way too much for the Commodores’ struggling defense to handle. Graham Mertz had a solid day through the air while a host of Gators led the way on the ground. Florida is now 4-2 on the season heading into a brutal back half of their schedule.

Here are 3 takeaways from the Gators’ win over the Commodores:

No Etienne? No problem

Florida did not put star RB Trevor Etienne to the field Saturday against the Commodores after being listed as questionable this past week with a lower body injury.

As if that slowed Florida’s rushing game at all Saturday against the Commodores. The Gators, led by Montrell Johnson Jr, rushed for 135 yards and 1 touchdown, leading the way for a Florida squad that finished with 215 total rushing yards with 2 rushing touchdowns.

The Gators implemented a few different ways to get the ball in the end zone, too. 2 separate Gators scored touchdowns on the ground: Johnson and Ricky Pearsall.

Eugene Wilson, a freshman with the Gators, scored his first touchdown of the season late in the 3rd quarter on a motion push pass to effectively put Vanderbilt away for good. It goes down as a passing touchdown for Mertz technically, but Wilson did all the work here:

Trouble stopping explosive plays

Florida’s defense played a strong game Saturday against the Commodores, don’t get that part twisted.

A Vanderbilt squad which looked competent last week against Mizzou couldn’t move the ball past a few instances Saturday against the Gators. Especially against the Gators run defense, which held the Commodores to just 58 yards on the evening.

However, Florida’s secondary left plenty to be desired Saturday against a backup quarterback in Ken Seals. Vanderbilt’s limited success Saturday came from the air and Florida had some tough times stopping explosive plays.

For what it’s worth, the Gators did a good job at adjusting to this. Most of these instances came in the first half. Here’s a few examples:

Seals finished with 289 passing yards and a pair of touchdowns.

Another efficient, yet conservative outing from Graham Mertz

Graham Mertz suffered a bit of an injury scare Saturday. He had to enter the injury tent briefly as the Gators staff looked at his left knee.

The Wisconsin transfer emerged and made his way back out to the game to finish a good performance.

Florida’s signal caller is not asked to do much, but he’s doing very well with what he’s told to do. It’s why he’s one of the most efficient quarterbacks in the country; Mertz finished 30-36 with 254 yards and 3 touchdowns but completed just 1 pass over 20 yards all evening.

Now, that’s not a dig at Mertz; certainly not with that stat line and result. That’s not the point here. However, this is a trend that has developed with Mertz and a style teams with strong rush defenses can exploit. Mertz himself even said in the postgame interview he has to push the ball downfield more.

It’s also concerning when the explosive plays are there and not taken advantage of. There were a couple instances where Mertz shied away from a deep ball and played it safe instead.

Against Vanderbilt that’s fine, but with the back half of Florida’s schedule as dangerous as it is, the Gators are going to need to adapt sooner rather than later.