After Florida forced four fumbles and recovered three of them in its 44-11 win against South Carolina on Oct. 20, cornerback Loucheiz Purifoy explained the concept of “violators.”
Defensive coordinator Dan Quinn coined the term to describe opposing players who don’t protect the ball, and Florida had a process for identifying them.
Georgia had the better results on Saturday.
The Bulldogs forced four fumbles and six turnovers in their 17-9 win against the Gators.
“The turnovers were the killer in the game,” UF coach Will Muschamp said. “When you turn the ball over six times, you’re going to have a hard time beating anyone.”
Protecting the ball won’t be any easier when Florida faces Missouri on Saturday.
Despite not earning its first Southeastern Conference win until last weekend against Kentucky, Missouri leads the country with 17 forced fumbles — five more than any other team in the conference.
“They’re going to be aware of it,” offensive coordinator Brent Pease said of the Gators’ approach to the Tigers’ ability to force fumbles. “They’re going to know because you look at a few plays on film, I mean (Sheldon) Richardson, he strips one, picks it up and runs it back against Kentucky all the way to the 20-yard line.”
Richardson, a junior defensive lineman, leads Missouri with 57 tackles and four sacks. He ranks third on the team with two forced fumbles.
Linebacker Andrew Wilson leads the unit with four forced fumbles, and fellow linebacker Donovan Bonner is second with three.
Prior to Saturday’s loss, the Gators had fumbled only three times in 2012, and Driskel had accounted for just one of them.
His two fumbles against the Bulldogs came on a botched zone-read and a pass play during which he held on to the ball too long. Since the loss, Driskel has emphasized the importance of taking care of the ball.
“Obviously turning the ball over’s not going to give you more confidence,” Driskel said. “Hopefully I got it out of my system. Like I said earlier, you’ve got to learn from mistakes. (I) got the mistakes out of the way. (I will) learn from them and try not to make the same mistakes again.”
Driskel has been criticized for taking sacks, but Pease said he would rather the quarterback hold on to the ball than try to force a play. Pease added that ball security would be a focal point in practice this week.
“If you don’t put that in the back of your mind and understand you’ve got to get better from it and tighten it down in practice, the same thing can happen,” Pease said.
“We’ll go back and recreate drills that we’ve got to put some emphasis in that this week.”
Center Jonotthan Harrison said the offense won’t let Missouri’s ball-hawking tendencies affect its preparation.
“We’re going to go in there with the attitude that as long as we know all of our assignments are understood, and as long as we focus on ball security throughout this week, that we’ll go in there and we’ll be a successful team,” Harrison said. “We won’t hype it up to be something and psych ourselves out. You know, play the game before we even get to the game on Saturday.”
Contact Josh Jurnovoy at jjurnovoy@alligator.org.
Sophomore quarterback Jeff Driskel (6) loses possession of the ball while being sacked by Georgia linebacker Jarvis Jones (29) during Florida’s 17-9 loss on Saturday at EverBank Field in Jacksonville.
