Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Del Rio rides rally to QB job
Florida junior Luke Del Rio, who opened the season as the third-team quarterback behind redshirt freshman Feleipe Franks and graduate transfer Malik Zaire, will start against Vanderbilt on Saturday.
It will be Del Rio’s first start since last season at Arkansas, when he suffered a shoulder injury in the Razorbacks’ 31-10 victory over the Gators. That was Florida’s only loss in Del Rio’s six games as a starter.
Del Rio won back his starting job by rallying the Gators to a 28-27 victory last week at Kentucky. He came off the bench with the Wildcats leading 27-14 and led two touchdown drives in the final 11 minutes. He completed 9 of 14 passes for 74 yards, including a 5-yard touchdown pass to Freddie Swain with 43 seconds left.
“He’s a vet. He’s been here,” Gators senior wide receiver Brandon Powell told the Gainesville Sun.
“He knows the offense. He knows where to go with the ball. It showed. He won us the game.”
Florida Coach Jim McElwain said he never considered Del Rio a thirdstringer, even though he didn’t play in the opener against Michigan, as Franks and Zaire did.
“He’s a guy that obviously had some injuries, had his shoulders worked on, had the knee,” McElwain said. “He’s consistently worked to get himself back.”
McElwain said Franks “didn’t do anything horrible” when he decided to replace him with Del Rio at Kentucky.
“We just felt like we needed a little bit of a kickstart at that juncture of the game, and Luke gave us that,” McElwain said. “I think it’s a testament to his work to prepare himself to continue to be the starter.
“Luke looks at it like, ‘My time will come, I’d better be prepared.’ In this case, he did a really good job of that.”
Starting fast
Alabama has outscored its opponents 55-3 in the first quarter this season.
Congratulations to Fresno State for getting a first-quarter field goal in the No. 1 Crimson Tide’s 41-10 victory over the Bulldogs.
“We want to dominate the game,” Alabama linebacker Anfernee Jennings told AL.com. “We don’t just want to win.
“We want to make them say, ‘I quit.’ We want to really dominate you.”
‘We will win’
Missouri Coach Barry Odom talked for more than three minutes in his opening comments after Auburn beat the Tigers 51-14 on Saturday.
Odom — 5-11 as Missouri’s coach, including 1-3 this season while losing to South Carolina, Purdue and Auburn by a combined 117-30 score — called it a state of the program address.
“I want to get one thing real straight. I’m going to win here,” Odom said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “That’s going to happen. We will win.
“This is a turnaround. Any way you slice it or dice it or want to look at it, this is a turnaround process. … I’m built for this because I’ve been in a whole heck of a lot of them my entire life.”
Odom referenced his time as a Missouri player under Larry Smith and as an assistant under Gary Pinkel when those coaches were under pressure before turning around the program. He also was Memphis’ defensive coordinator and helped coach Justin Fuente turn around those Tigers.
“I want to win right now. But that’s not the hand I’m given,” Odom said. “We are doing a lot of really good things in this program. Our kids are working extremely hard.
“We are not winning games yet. But we will. I’m the man to go get it done with this staff, with this team, with this program.”
Pettway back
Auburn hopes to have its running back tandem of Kamryn Pettway and Kerryon Johnson in the same game for the first time this season when the No. 13 Tigers play No. 24 Mississippi State on Saturday night.
Pettway has missed games against Georgia Southern (suspension) and Missouri (foot). Johnson missed the Clemson and Mercer games because of a hamstring injury.
Auburn Coach Gus Malzahn said Wednesday that Pettway has practiced this week and is expected to play against Mississippi State.
“It’s going to be a little bit weird again for both of us to be out there at the same time,” Johnson told reporters this week. “But we’re both definitely excited to have each other.
“Like we’ve always said, it’s a lot easier when you have two. So if that happens this game, that’s going to be great. If it doesn’t, we’ve got to keep pushing either way.”
Malzahn said it will be a welcome boost for the offense if Pettway and Johnson both play.
“We haven’t been able yet to have our two main running backs play together yet,” he said. “If we can get that rolling, that’ll be a big shot in the arm for our running game.”
Close calls
Jim McElwain is 9-1 in games decided by one possession as Florida’s coach, including 2-0 this season.
“As a coach, what you hope is that in your preparation and all the different scenarios you put your guys through — during spring practice, during fall camp — that they’re able to harken back and say, ‘You know, we’ve done this. We’re prepared for this,’ ” McElwain said. “We try to stay at a pretty even emotional level from the standpoint of, ‘Just go win this play. Don’t worry about anything else.’
“But 9-1, wow. Let’s just keep it at one.”
The Gators’ two victories this season came on a lastplay touchdown pass to beat Tennessee 26-20 and a touchdown pass with 43 seconds left to beat Kentucky 28-27.
Oh, and Kentucky placekicker Austin MacGinnis had a 57-yard field goal on the game’s final play fall just short of the crossbar.
“There wasn’t any panic at any point,” McElwain said of the Gators trailing Kentucky 27-14 in the fourth quarter. “That’s what I like about these guys.”
LSU, Chavis settle
John Chavis will go against LSU as Texas A&M’s defensive coordinator when the Aggies play the Tigers on Nov. 25, but he’s no longer in a court battle with his former employer.
Chavis and LSU have settled their lawsuit after a 30-month fight,
The Baton Rouge Advocate reported this week. The two parties filed a joint motion to dismiss the lawsuit last week, The Advocate reported, and the agreement was signed by a judge.
Settlement details weren’t announced.
The lawsuit resulted from a disagreement over a $400,000 buyout that LSU claimed Chavis — the Tigers’ defensive coordinator for six seasons from 2009-2014 — owed it for leaving to take the same position at Texas A&M before his contract ended.
Chavis claimed LSU owed him more than $200,000 in unpaid vacation wages and academic performance bonuses, and another $445,000 in penalty wages.
Two-minute drill
■ Texas A&M freshman Kellen Mond was robbed of a school rushing record by a quarterback when he was mistakenly called out of bounds on what officially was a 79-yard run against the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. If the call hadn’t been missed, Mond would have had an 89-yard touchdown run and broken the Aggies’ record for longest run by a quarterback, which remains 82 yards by Bucky Richardson against Southern Mississippi in 1987.
LSU senior safety Ed Paris will miss the rest of the season because of a knee injury, Tigers Coach Ed Orgeron said this week. Paris played in only three games this season, so he will qualify for a medical redshirt.
Georgia quarterback Jacob Eason, who has missed the past three games while recovering from a sprained left knee, continues to progress in practice, Bulldogs Coach Kirby Smart. But true freshman Jake Fromm is expected to start against Mississippi State.
Alabama’s 599-yard advantage in total offense against Vanderbilt was the most ever for the Crimson Tide, surpassing a 544-yard difference in a 77-6 victory over Virginia Tech in 1973.
South Carolina placekicker Parker White was 0 of 4 on field goal attempts this season before hitting a 31-yarder with four seconds left to lift the Gamecocks to a 17-16 victory over Louisiana Tech.