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With full focus on the present and an eye toward the future, head coach Dan Mullen’s first season at Florida is heading toward a successful finish.
After a 63-10 win against overmatched Idaho on Saturday at The Swamp, the Gators are 8-3 heading into their annual matchup against a Florida State. The Seminoles headed into Saturday’s game against Boston College fighting to have a shot at bowl eligibility.
The Gators’ bowl eligibility is not in question. Though they are behind Alabama, Georgia and LSU among New Year’s 6 bowl candidates, if Florida does not go to one of those major bowls then it will likely enjoy ringing in 2019 somewhere in the Sunshine State, be it Jacksonville, Orlando or Tampa.
And for a program that went from championship-level elite to multiple four-win seasons in a decade, Mullen’s debut season in orange and blue doesn’t just provide hope for the future but an anticipated stability that Florida Gator fans can hope will last.
The game on Saturday went as expected. The Gators jumped to a 28-0 lead in the first quarter and never looked back. Quarterback Feleipe Franks remains a project, but he’s a project with renewed confidence after he led an improbable comeback last week against South Carolina and following it with arguably the best performance of his career (19-of-27, 274 yards, three touchdowns, one rushing touchdown) against the Vandals.
Franks then handed the baton to Emory Jones, who showed some of the playmaking skills that Gator fans hope will push Franks in the spring and give Florida the quarterback depth it has not had in years.
The Gators focused on the pass, throwing for more than 400 yards Saturday. Lamical Perine (six carries, 34 yards) was basically given the week off after his punishing, rewarding performance against the Gamecocks a week before. Thirteen different Gators caught passes and seven offensive players found the end zone, plus two defensive players (Chauncey Gardner-Johnson and Ventrell Miller) on interception returns.
Florida was ranked 13th going into Saturday and could move into the top 10 by Tuesday, an amazing turnaround for a program that looked far from contending after a loss to Kentucky in the second week of the season. Things still aren’t perfect in Gainesville — not after three double-digit losses including two at home. Florida still isn’t as close to competing with Georgia for the SEC East title as fans want. But a victory next week against the Seminoles will make this a November to remember and season to build on for the future.
Corey Long is a freelance writer for SaturdayDownSouth.com. Follow Corey on Twitter @CoreyLong.
