BATON ROUGE,
La. - The Gators' defense only saw 14 passes Saturday afternoon.
That was still more than it could handle.
While LSU
dominated with its methodical running attack, the Tigers were able
to break Saturday's 41-11 win open with deep passes and other
explosive plays. On six of LSU's seven scoring drives, Florida gave
up a play of 20 yards or longer.
LSU opened
the scoring on its second play from scrimmage. After faking a
handoff, quarterback Jarrett Lee connected with Rueben Randle for a
46-yard touchdown; sophomore cornerback Cody Riggs was beat on the
play.
Lee and
fellow Tigers quarterback Jordan Jefferson combined to go 10-of-14
for 215 yards, the second most passing yards allowed by the Gators
this season. Tennessee quarterback Tyler Bray gained 288 yards
against Florida on Sept. 17, but he did so with 48 attempts - about
nine less yards per pass play than LSU gained.
"We tried to
load up the box in the run game, and we gave up some big plays,"
coach Will Muschamp said.
After giving
up touchdowns on its first two series, the Florida defense appeared
to force a three-and-out. But on fourth-and-15, punter Brad Wing
ran unscathed down the left sideline for a 44-yard gain.
Two members
of Florida's punt-return unit were supposed to be watching Wing,
but they ran back to set up a wall too soon, Muschamp said.
"We had two
guys assigned to do their job; they didn't do it," he said. "They
did what they wanted to do, and those guys aren't going to play in
our program anymore."
The Gators
appeared to gain some momentum at the end of the third, when
quarterback Jacoby Brissett hooked up with Andre Debose for a
65-yard touchdown to cut the Tigers' lead to 27-11. But, on the
ensuing drive, Jefferson hit Randle on a fly route for a 57-yard
gain to take the ball down to the Florida 3-yard line.
Freshman
cornerback Marcus Roberson was covering Randle on the play. No
Gators defensive back was made available to the media after the
game.
"Everyone
just has to do just do their own job and not worry about trying to
be a hero," defensive tackle Jaye Howard said. "We just have to do
our own job and things like that won't happen."
Linebacker
Lerentee McCray said the defense simply missed assignments, giving
LSU easy, back-breaking plays.
Asked if, in
the sixth game of the season, he was shocked Florida was still
having such defensive breakdowns, McCray said, "I'm not really
surprised."
Contact
Tyler Jett at tjett@alligator.org
