There wasn’t much to talk about in the first half of this game. It was hard to tell if we had two excellent defensive football teams or if we were seeing two really bad offenses going against each other.
In the second half, LSU lost two of their starting linebackers and that’s when the Florida offense finally found a rhythm. LSU LB Kevin Minter would re-enter the game late in the third but he didn’t have quite the impact as he had before he left as Florida had started to have success running the football.
The big momentum play came in the middle of the third as Zach Mettenberger found Odell Beckham Jr on a pass downfield but Beckham was stripped by Matt Elam during the tackle. It was a huge play because LSU was en route to answer Florida’s go-ahead score and instead Florida got the ball and drove the length of the field for their second straight TD drive and took a 14-6 lead.
Florida scored on their second and third drives of the second half after having a long drive of just 46 yards in the first half (their second longest drive was 26 yards). The first drive went 3:44 on eight plays and the second drive lasted 5:55 on eleven plays. On those two drives, 17 of those 19 plays were runs. On the second TD drive, every single play Florida ran was a run. Mike Gillislee finished off both drives with TD runs. Late in the fourth, the Gators continued to have success and made another critical play when Jeff Driskel ran a bootleg on third and three and was able to pick up the first down running the clock inside of two minutes.
Ultimately, this game came down to Florida finding a way to run the football with Mike Gillislee and LSU’s inability to get anything going on offense. After Florida had just sixteen running yards in the first half, you can’t overlook the half time adjustments made by the Gators coaching staff as they’ve been having success in the second half all season long. Florida found a way to run the ball behind their OL and they kept the LSU offense in a funk all day long. This victory will mark Will Muschamp’s first signature win at Florida. It will be very interesting to see how Florida does in the two game stretch they have coming up against South Carolina and Georgia.
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