It wasn’t pretty at times but Florida dominated the second half against South Carolina to put away the Gamecocks 38-27 Saturday in Columbia.

The Gators got the win thanks to a 21-point fourth quarter that sealed South Carolina’s fate as the weather conditions turned ugly in Columbia with rain pouring down at times in the second half.

A late touchdown by South Carolina made this contest look a bit closer but Florida downed the Gamecocks midway through the fourth quarter, which is all the more impressive considering the game was tied at 10 at halftime.

Following the conclusion of the game, Dan Mullen was asked about the adjustments he made at halftime that led to Florida’s big second half. It was no surprise to see the coach deflect the praise for his team’s strong second-half showing.

“Our guys adjusted to it,” Mullen said. “I went in (at halftime) and said, ‘Hey, there’s no issues.’ Defensively, I thought we played a great first half, the guy makes a beautiful one-handed catch, we had a few offside penalties, miss a gap to give up a run but overall we play great defense. We just weren’t executing (on offense).

“We came out in the third quarter and continued a little bit more of the same then we started to settle in. Defense made some plays, they did a great job of flipping field position, keeping us in deep (field) all day long. Second half, we were able to flip the field position and get in the plus side and finish it off and score touchdowns at the end.”

The Gators are now 7-1 and have two weeks to prepare for the annual showdown against Georgia in Jacksonville. Mullen offered up these comments when asked about the upcoming bye week for his team.

“For us, it’s great. We are right where we want to be coming into this season, we control our own destiny,” Mullen continued. “Coming into a bye week and we are going to have three games in November — conference games in November — that will determine who goes to the SEC Championship and that’s all you want to do is be in that position in November.”

Finally, on the performance of his quarterback, Kyle Trask, Florida’s coach offered up this thought.

“I thought he threw pretty well. He tried to a little too much at times, with the reads, but he threw it and we caught it well all day long,” Mullen said. “Started slow but really came on as the game went on.”