Florida was whipped 33-14 at Kentucky on Saturday, the Gators’ 3rd consecutive defeat in the series and 4th in 6 years.

Florida fans were rightly furious with the Gators’ lifeless performance in Lexington. The loss was Florida’s 4th consecutive road defeat under Billy Napier, a run that started with the program laying an egg last November at Vanderbilt. With the exception of a spirited defeat at Florida State last season, Florida has looked worse and worse in each of those road defeats, outcoached and outplayed.

Florida has had a nightmarish run on the road since the 2019 season, Dan Mullen’s finest year when the Gators won 11 games and an Orange Bowl and came within a few bizarre Todd Grantham 3rd-down decisions against Georgia from being a College Football Playoff team. Since 2020, Florida is 5-10 on the road, the worst 3-year road game stretch for the Gators since the 1980s.

With a young team that features a freshman or sophomore at 21 of the 24 positions on the 2-deep roster, road struggles are somewhat predictable. Growing pains or no, road blowouts, where the team looks disengaged and defeated by the end of the first quarter, are deeply concerning.

Let’s take stock of the Gators after Week 5.

Player of the Week: Graham Mertz, QB

Mertz completed 25-of-30 passes for 244 yards and 2 touchdowns in the loss, despite constantly being under duress from a fierce Kentucky pass rush. Mertz’s interception came on a NFL thread-the-needle strike to Arlis Boardingham, who bobbled the ball and tipped it directly to Kentucky’s Gator killer, Trevin Wallace.

Mertz graded out with a 92.5 PFF grade, tops among SEC quarterbacks, and made this spectacular heads up play under pressure to extend a Florida touchdown drive in the 3rd quarter.

Mertz is who he is, a game manager who isn’t going to beat you by himself. That’s not his fault, of course. This Florida team needs a game-changer at quarterback, not a manager. But it’s foolish to write off what Mertz has done — play good football for 5 weeks. On a team with an erratic offensive line that has surrendered 12 sacks and 42 pressures, Mertz has thrown only 2 interceptions (both tipped balls that should have been caught) and leads the SEC in completion percentage. On a day with few positives for the Gators, Mertz was the biggest bright spot.

Freshman of the Week: Andy Jean, WR

Jean caught 4 passes on 5 targets for 33 yards. A true freshman from Miami, this was Jean’s second consecutive game with a reception and saw the speedy young receiver play his season-high in snaps (30). Tre Wilson should eventually return from the collarbone injury that has sidelined him since early in the Tennessee game, but for now, watching Jean in space is exciting for Gators fans, who despite their frustration, are getting glimpses into this offense’s long-term future thanks to a plethora of underclassman playmakers.

Biggest surprise: Run defense collapse

Florida entered Saturday’s game with the SEC’s top-ranked defense in total defense and success rate. They left Lexington battered and bruised, manhandled up front by a Kentucky offensive line that entered the game with a host of questions.

Florida hit the portal aggressively to shore up their issues on the interior a season ago. While Gervon Dexter was tremendous, the Gators lacked depth and run-stoppers at defensive tackle. Those problems appeared to be solved with the early season play of Cam Jackson (Memphis) and Caleb Banks (Louisville). Instead, the Gators were gashed to the tune of 329 yards rushing by Kentucky, with Jackson and Banks missing 3 tackles in the effort.

The problems weren’t all on the line. Florida missed 19 tackles collectively, with the young linebackers, so good in the first 4 weeks, failing to fit gaps and bring Ray Davis (280 yards) to the ground throughout the game.

“We just weren’t close to gap sound,” sophomore linebacker Shemar James said after the game. “People, guys jumped out of their gaps, not tackling very well. A back like (Davis), you miss a tackle, it’s 10 more yards, 15 more yards, 20 more yards, so it just came down to our execution. We’re just shooting ourselves in the foot, not wrapping up, not tackling, getting him to the ground.”

Florida’s run game fiasco dropped the run defense from the top 25 nationally to 60th in just 1 week.

With games against powerful run games like Georgia, LSU, and Missouri lurking, the Gators better get that issue fixed.

Biggest concern: Lack of physicality up front

This problem isn’t new.

 

None of Florida’s past 3 coaching staffs have produced teams more physical than Kentucky. In 6 of Florida’s past 7 games with Kentucky, the Wildcats have been a far more physical program. The issue has just never been as pronounced as it was Saturday.

Florida was whipped on both sides of the line of scrimmage, undermining Napier’s promise to make Florida one of the nation’s most physical programs when he took over nearly 2 years ago.

A season ago, Napier’s decision to bring O’Cyrus Torrence with him from Louisiana helped the Gators play physical football on the offensive line, even if Patrick Toney’s defense never answered that bell. But it is time to question the departure of blue-chip tackle Michael Tarquin this offseason, as well as 2 other linemen who could have offered experience and depth. Florida’s 2023 line lacks high-end talent with experience (outside of tackle Austin Barber) and its best linemen, All-SEC center Kingsley Eguakun, is battling a high ankle injury.

While high 4-star Knijeah Harris was a huge get from a recruiting standpoint, the Gators’ biggest area of recruiting weakness in the Napier era has been landing elite offensive linemen. That has to change, and in the meantime, the Gators must be more aggressive in the transfer portal to fix the problem.

It’s great to have 2 running backs as talented as Montrell Johnson and Trevor Etienne, but if you can’t consistently block for them, you are playing with one arm tied behind your back.

Developing trend: Keep playing your kids!!

Florida is the youngest team in the SEC, per participation rate, and their freshmen and sophomores played more snaps than any game this season against Kentucky. Whether it was Andy Jean’s career-high 30 snaps, TJ Searcy and Kelby Collins playing 17 apiece in the second half, when Florida was markedly better against the run, or redshirt sophomore Scooby Williams, true sophomore Shemar James, and true freshman Jordan Castell leading the Gators in defensive snaps against Kentucky, youth continues to be served in Gainesville.

The Gators are going to make youthful mistakes, but Florida’s staff is building a foundation for the future by continuing to play their kids, no matter the stage or atmosphere. Or results. If you want a solitary bird’s eye bright spot from Saturday, that’s probably the one.

Up next: Vanderbilt (4 pm, SEC Network)

The Gators host Vanderbilt for homecoming in The Swamp. Napier has lost twice in Gainesville in his 2 seasons at the helm. Both losses came to ranked foes, with a defeat to No. 20 Kentucky and a heartbreaker to No. 25 LSU last autumn. His other defeats have all come on the road or against ranked opponents on neutral fields.

The worst loss of Napier’s 9 defeats? Last year’s faceplant at Vanderbilt, where (who else?) Ray Davis (yes, him) torched the Gators for 131 yards rushing and receiving, and the Florida run game was stuffed by Vanderbilt’s front (2.1 yards per attempt).

Anthony Richardson threw for 400 yards in the 31-24 Commodores win, but he also threw a devastating interception deep in his own territory in the 3rd quarter that allowed Vanderbilt to build a 16-point lead and hang on to win late. The win ended UF’s 8-game winning streak over Vanderbilt and gave the Commodores their first win over Florida in Nashville since the Reagan administration. After winning 33 homecoming games in a row from 1980-2013, Florida has lost 3 homecoming games in the past 10 seasons, and the Gators need to tackle and block better to avoid a 4th such embarrassing defeat on Saturday.