Football remains unbeaten with 44-15 win at LSU

Saturday, October 6

Baton Rouge, LA

2:30 PM

Florida Gators

LSU

Football remains unbeaten with 44-15 win at LSU

Saturday, October 6, 2001 | Football

The second ranked Florida Gators continued their mastery of LSU. Rex Grossman threw five touchdown passes for the second straight game and set a school record with 464 yards passing as the Gators beat the Tigers 44-15 in Baton Rouge. Grossman threw for over 300 yards for a school-record fifth straight game.

The Gators have now beaten LSU 13 times in the last 14 years. They've also won six of their last seven games at Tiger Stadium.

Grossman completed 22 of 32 passes for 464 yards and five touchdowns. He threw first quarter touchdown strikes of 13 yards to Taylor Jacobs, 34 yards to Reche Caldwell and 63 yards to Jabar Gaffney. Grossman broke the school single game passing record set by Danny Wuerffel, who passed for 462 yards against Arkansas in 1996. His five touchdown passes tied a career-high, established last week against Mississippi State.

Grossman's second touchdown pass of the game to Gaffney late in the second quarter gave the Gators a 27-9 halftime lead. In the second half, Jeff Chandler booted a 41-yard field goal, Grossman connected with tight end Aaron Walker on a seven-yard touchdown pass and Brock Berlin threw eight yards to Kelvin Kight for another TD to complete the Gator scoring.

"If Rex can throw the ball around like this, it's going to be difficult for the other teams to stop us, unless they can stay on the field alot," said Gator coach Steve Spurrier in his postgame remarks. "We have a chance to have a big year. We've improved a lot since the first couple of games."

Grossman said the Gator offense took advantage of LSU's soft zone defense. "We got to them early and connected and sort of got everyone going," said Grossman. "The line blocked great. I still have clean pants on."

LSU quarterback Rohan Davey suffered a sprained knee in the second quarter and never returned to the game. He finished with 7-of-17 for 154 yards and an interception. The Gators sacked Davey and his backup, Matt Mauck, five times. Alex Brown had two of those sacks, giving him 28 for his career. He broke Alonzo Johnson's school record of 27 sacks in a season.

The Gators are now 5-0 overall and 3-0 in the SEC. Next up for Flordia is the Auburn Tigers. Next Saturday's game at Auburn will kickoff at 7:45 p.m. eastern time on ESPN.