GAINESVILLE — Florida began a three-game home stand Saturday in The Swamp in a familiar spot: trendy media upset pick, minimal national respect, plenty of questions around the coaching staff locally.

They ended Saturday in a familiar spot: another close football game, another victory, first place in the SEC East and above all, another week where the team got better.

Florida defeated Vanderbilt 38-24 Saturday in front of 85,000 at a steamy and gloomy Swamp, and in the process, a long-maligned offense turned the corner. Against a stout Derek Mason coached Commodore defense that entered the game ranked 17th nationally in defensive efficiency, the Gators piled up 467 yards of offense and a season-high 38 points in pulling away for the victory in the second half.

Florida did so despite injuries to starting quarterback Luke Del Rio and star wide receiver Tyrie Cleveland, and despite conservative play-calling that often left Florida behind the chains after first down.

Averaging a 2nd-and-8 isn’t probably how the Florida coaches drew things up, but the Gators were 7-for-16 on third down and 3-for-3 on fourth downs, doing a tremendous job of extending drives and blocking in short-yardage situations. Florida’s offensive yards per play average of 6.06 was easily its  best of the year, as was the team’s 9.6 yards per completion rate.

Playmakers continue to blossom offensively as well.

Freshman Malik Davis, who runs even more like Ralph Webb than you’d imagined once you saw the two on the same football field, tallied 124 yards on 17 carries, punctuating another strong performance with a game-sealing 39-yard gallop on a 4th-and-1 in the fourth quarter. Lamical Perine, an All-SEC caliber freshman a year ago, added three touchdowns and 59 hard-fought yards.

The passing game showed something as well.

On a day when Florida lost Del Rio for the year and was forced to play two quarterbacks, 10 Gators caught a pass, including four tight end receptions, a position of emphasis during the week. Even better? On a day where Vanderbilt limited freshman playmaker Kadarius Toney to 27 yards on four touches, the Gators found complementary talent to offset that loss, a solution lacking on previous Jim McElwain teams and a sign of a talented offense.

Whatever Florida’s record, it was certainly understandable to buy into the narrative that the Gators weren’t a very good football team three weeks into the 2017 season.

Barring a coverage bust  by Tennessee and some curious defensive from Kentucky, the Gators might have entered Saturday’s game in an entirely different spot. Florida was 2-1, to be sure, but they were a play or three away from being 0-3. There was a chance things would go sideways for McElwain’s club quick, and national analysts were quick to jump on that narrative, picking Vanderbilt to win in Gainesville consistently during the week.

As has been the case often this season, the experts were wrong again.

The Gators controlled the contest from the opening kick, and even when they fell behind briefly late in the second quarter, they were able to respond with a big pass from Franks to Cleveland and a field goal to tie the game at the half.

For the first time in several seasons, when the Gators needed a big play from their offense, they got one.

Florida’s young defense also improved Saturday.

They had looked vulnerable in the opening three games, conceding big chunk plays to Michigan, Tennessee and Kentucky and struggling to tackle. Despite entering the game ranked 10th nationally in defensive efficiency, they ranked last in the SEC in tackling percentage, missing 27.2 percent of tackles coming into the game, a product of bad angles, gap control issues, lack of depth at linebacker and the irreplaceable summer loss of safety Marcell Harris.

But they showed progress Saturday. Kylan Johnson returned and provided stability at linebacker. The defensive line held gaps better and generated a tremendous push throughout the football game. And most critically, the Gators missed their fewest number of tackles on the season, helping limit Vanderbilt to 310 yards and 5.1 yards per-play, both season lows for Randy Shannon’s young defense.

For a team that has LSU’s powerful running game and Texas A&M’s explosive offense around the corner, it was an enormous confidence boost.

There are still challenges ahead.

Florida will need to be more productive on first down to help keep its young quarterback as many low-stress situations as possible.

These Gators won’t be elite on the back end, which is a drastic change after the Vernon Hargreaves, Marcus Maye, Keanu Neal, Marcell Harris years. They still need to tackle better and if the safeties can’t help cover shallow crossing routes, Kevin Sumlin and company will run them out of the park. Limiting penalties would also help, especially silly, drive-extending ones like Jabari Zuniga has had for two consecutive weeks.

But Florida is 3-1 and leads the SEC East.

And this Saturday in the Swamp, there was no fourth-quarter comeback, no last-minute miracle, no “Florida was a play away from 0-4.”

There was just a young football team getting older and better.