Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Raise your hand, given the events of the previous two weeks, if an emotional rally and the possibility of a signature victory was on your radar Saturday when South Carolina surged to a 17-point lead late in the third quarter in front of an antsy, anxious and disapproving Spurrier/Florida Field crowd. 

Go ahead, get 'em up. 

As it turned out, the seeds for No. 15 Florida's stirring 35-31 comeback win were sewn earlier in the week by Coach Dan Mullen, who pushed all the right buttons and pulled all the right levers preparing his players to escape a two-game losing streak beneath the clouds of external negativity pointed directly at his quarterback. 

"I told our guys not to take the field unless they expected to win the game," Mullen said.

Quarterback Feleipe Franks, amid the distractions and detractors, took Mullen's message to heart. No, he didn't shred the Gamecocks through the air, but the second of his two rushing touchdowns came on a quarterback sneak from a yard out — on fourth-and-goal, no less — and provided the decisive points in UF's biggest second-half home comeback win in 32 years. 

When the final box score was complete, the Gators (7-3, 5-3), in locking up third place in the Southeastern Conference Eastern Division, got a little bit of everything from all phases, with the UF rushing attack — led by Jordan Scarlett's career-high 159 yards, plus 107 more and two touchdowns by Lamical Perine — being the key offensive component. Florida, with 21 unanswered points over the final 16 minutes, totaled 528 yards of total offense against South Carolina (5-4, 4-4), with a season-high 367 on the ground. Franks passed for 161 yards and a score without turning the ball over. The UF defense, positively shredded through the better part of three quarters, stifled the Gamecocks on their final three possessions, including an interception of Jake Bentley by cornerback CJ Henderson that served as the game-sealer. 
 
"We were going to fight until the last quarter, until the game ended," said Henderson, part of a defense that held the Gamecocks to 14 yards and without a first down on their final three series to make the rally possible. "We just don't go out there and [say], 'Good luck.' We play to the last whistle." 

After winning six of the first seven games, then being eliminated from the SEC race by Georgia and humiliated last week at home for homecoming by a Missouri team that was winless in four league games, there were a lot of questions about the direction of the team's season and whether Franks was on the verge of losing his job to backup Kyle Trask. The latter conversation ended when Trask broke his foot at practice Wednesday, leaving Franks with the job for the balance of the year, partly by default.

"The decision got made for us," Mullen said. 

Franks, with the help of his teammates, made the most of it, and, more impressively, did so under extremely adverse conditions. If anything, he took the ire of Gator Nation a little personally and let everyone know it. 

"I'm an emotional guy, so I'll apologize for that," Franks said when asked about a certain gesture made to the fans — not once, but twice — during high-point moments for his team. "I'm just glad we got the W." 

More on that later. 

South Carolina took the opening possession and made a statement, going 83 yards in 13 plays to take a 7-0 lead not six minutes in. Along the way, Bentley had a 25-yard cross-field completion to Bryan Edwards, plus a trio of third-down conversions. The last came on third-and-goal from the 2, when Bentley play-faked, rolled right and had his choice of two open receivers in the end zone. He chose the most open one, tight end Jacob August, for an easy touchdown. 

Florida's first possession? Six plays, four yards (including a sack/fumble by Franks, followed by a rain of boos) and a punt. 

The Gamecocks outdid their first drive with their second. It only took six plays to go 84 yards, with chunks of 15, 30 , 22 and 19 yards, the last a Bentley pass to tight end Kyle Markway, who ran totally uncovered down the middle of the UF secondary for a 14-0 lead less than 10 minutes in. At that point, USC had 167 yards of total offense, while UF was barely out of the red.

"We were just messing up on defense," nickel back Chauncey Gardner-Johnson said. "We had to buckle down and get after it."
 
So did the UF offense, which it did. The Gators got off the snide the second time they had the ball. A 14-yard run by Kadarius Toney and 17-yard completion from Franks to Josh Hammond were the key plays that got UF inside the USC 10. Just as big was a defensive pass interference against the Gamecocks on a third-and-goal incompletion from the 7. On the first reprieve snap, Perine knifed his way across the goal line for a 2-yard touchdown run, cutting the deficit to 14-7 early in the second quarter. 

The Florida defense, after getting gashed the first two drives, forced a punt and the offense capitalized. Though a Franks fumble got the Gators off schedule, Toney got them back on when, on second-and-15, he caught screen pass in the left flat, reversed field, evaded tacklers and juked for a 15-yard gain and first down. Back-to-back runs of 16 and 21 yards by Scarlett, both times running through multiple defenders, fired up the offense and crowd, while moving the Gators deep into USC territory. Franks' 10-yard touchdown run on third-and-4, plus Evan McPherson's point-after, tied the game at 14-all with 8:58 to go int he first half. 

As Franks punched into the end zone to thunderous cheers, he put his finger to his face mask, as if quieting the home crowd. 

"I'm going to play my heart out every play, whether people like me or don't like me," Franks said.

The Gamecocks got their lead back on a 1-yard quarterback sneak by Bentley with 4:21 to go before intermission. Along the way, Mon Denson had runs of eight and nine yards, plus UF was flagged for a pass interference in the end zone. A 6-yard run on third-and-6 from the SC 7 came one snap before Bentley's sneak and 21-14 advantage. 

When the two teams went to the locker room, South Carolina had 241 yards of offense and converted six of seven third downs. 

Mullen's message: "Don't get caught up in the score. Get caught up in how hard you have to go on the next play."

That mindset would be tested further in the third period. The second half had two early instances of promise for the Gators, both of which were frittered away, practically right away. UF took the first drive of the third period and, with the help of a 25-run by Scarlett, had a first down at the USC 20. Things stalled there and McPherson compounded things with just his second missed field goal of the season, a 41-yarder that was wide right. 

The Florida defense, though, picked up the offense with a three-and-out, including a pair of negative-yardage plays, to force a punt. Toney, back as return man with Freddie Swain out with an ankle injury, muffed the catch and the Gamecocks recovered at the UF 31. The defense stood up again, but Parker's White's 43-yard field gave South Carolina a two-possession lead at 24-14 at 9:19 of the third. 

When a couple penalties on the offensive line had the Gators in a fourth-and-21, a great punt from Tommy Townsend pinned the Gamecocks at their 4-yard line ... but not for long. Bentley hit Deebo Samuel on a quick-hitting crossing route. Samuel hit the seem, broke two tackles and went 89 yards to the Florida 4, the seventh-longest pass playing South Carolina football history. Running back Rico Dowdle's 4-yard scoring run pushed the Gamecocks in front 31-14 with 4:41 left in the third quarter.

"At that point, you feel like nothing is going right," Perine said. "But we kept our composure and kept fighting."

If the Gators were going to come back, they needed plays on offense and stops on defense. 

The lead shrank back to 10, at 31-21, when Toney turned one of UF's many screen passes into an 18-yard touchdown, making USC defenders look really bad on the way. After the defense forced a punt, a 21-yard run by Scarlett put in motion what became an 89-yard drive of just eight plays, with Perine finishing it with a 23-yard run that drew the score to 31-28 with just over 11 minutes to play.

"Guys kept battling," Mullen said. 

And again, the UF defense forced a punt, with Franks and friends starting at their 34. A five-yard run by Franks on third-and-3 was huge, but not as big as the back-to-back blasts of nine and seven from Scarlett, followed by Toney's dash of 33 yards to the USC 5. An illegal substitution call against the defense before the next snap put the Gators on 2. 

The next three plays: A loss of one by Franks, Perine for two yards, then Franks for no gain, setting up a fourth-and-goal at the 1 with just over four minutes left and down by a field goal.

"Easy decision," Mullen said. 

Florida kept its offense on the field, and Franks pile-drove into the end zone — and again put finger to face mask for the fans. 

"This is his team," Gardner-Johnson said of his quarterback. "At the end of the day, he came out and competed." 
 

Feleipe Franks tells the crowd to shush again in his touchdown celebration. pic.twitter.com/o9ivlwyfVL

— Megan Plain (@MeganPlain) November 10, 2018

The defense, though, had to finish the job for a third straight series. On third-and-10, Bentley was under pressure when he tried to force a ball up the right sideline that Henderson picked off with 3:21 seconds to go. South Carolina took a couple timeouts hoping for another possession, but a 28-yard run by Scarlett to the USC 5 allowed the Gators to run out the clock. 

"It's a hard, tough loss," said Gamecocks coach Will Muschamp, the former UF coach who fell to 0-2 in return games to Gainesville. "We had our opportunities. Give Florida credit. They made plays they had to at the end. ... When you go on the road in our league and have the opportunities in front of us, to lose the game, it's gut-wrenching."

When the final seconds ticked away, Florida had the largest second-half home comeback since Kerwin Bell, his team down 17-0 in the fourth quarter, dashed to a two-point conversion with 36 seconds left to beat Auburn 18-17 on Nov. 1, 1986. It  was the largest home comeback of any kind since rallying from 18 down in the first quarter to defeat South Carolina 41-21 on Nov. 11, 2001, and just four weeks since falling back by 18 on the road at Vanderbilt and storming to a 37-27 win.

Quite a gut-check performance, given where this team appeared to be only 24 hours earlier. Not that perception truly represents reality.

"Everything is not as bad or as good as it seems," Mullen said. "Our mentality was bad [vs. Mizzou] last week, and I think the win [Saturday] helps us. Are all of our problems fixed? No, but we get to fix them this week with a smile on our face."