South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Trask master
UF QB sets records in rout of Ole Miss
The Florida Gators appear to have a championship quarterback in Kyle Trask.
A championship defense? Not so much.
Tr as k’ s career-high six touchdown passes carried UF to a 51-35 season-opening road win over Ole Miss and helped his team overcome a shaky defensive performance that allowed the Rebels to keep things interesting on a chilly, drizzly day at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
The game drew a socially distanced announced crowd of 13,926.
Despite his team’s uneven performance, UF coach Dan
Mullen was ecstatic to be back playing SEC football after the coronavirus pandemic shut down sports and eventually delayed the season.
“It was so good to be back playing, right?” Mullen said. “It felt like a great day of football for us.
“[It] kind of felt normal for the first time in a long time to be out there on the football field playing SEC football.”
Trask and the Gators offense picked up where they left off during their Orange Bowl win over Virginia nearly nine months ago.
The Gators redshirt senior signal-caller was on the mark from the start as Mullen’s fifth-ranked squad never trailed Ole Miss, led by first-year coach and offensive whiz Lane Kiffin.
“We wanted to start fast and I think we started pretty fast,” Mullen said.
Trask looked to his most reliable targets on his first two touchdown throws, hooking up with All-SEC tight end Kyle Pitts and senior wide receiver Trevon Grimes during two of UF’s first three drives.
Trask ended the day 30-of-42 passing for a career-high 416 yards and the most touchdown passes by a UF quarterback since Chris Leak in 2004 against South Carolina.
“I feel better in just having that whole year experience,” Trask said. “And I just felt more comfortable, just having that extra practice and that extra experience under my belt.”
It also helps for Trask to have Pitts back to serve as his quarterback’s security blanket.
Pitts finished with a career-high four touchdown catches — one shy of his 2019 total — and a personalbest 170 receiving yards as the Gators racked up 642 total yards, their most ever in an SEC game by a program that has produced record-setting offenses.
“I would expect, when I get home, my neighbor Coach [Steve] Spurrier right around the corner right there, I should have a really nice bottle of wine sitting on my desk if I broke one of his records offensively,” Mullen joked. “That’s at least deserving of a nice bottle of wine.”
The sure -handed 6-foot-6, 240-pound Pitts earned heaping praise from his quarterback.
“He’s a matchup nightmare for defenses,” Trask said. “He’s too big for corners and too fast for linebackers, so he gives defenses a lot of trouble.”
Pitts gave kudos to his quarterback and credit to the bond the two of them have continued to build.
“Me and Kyle, it’s just, it’s like a jell,” Pitts said. “We just work a lot together, and I feel like it shows.”
The arrival of Kiffin, one of the game’s best play callers, and the holes in the Gators defense also were hard to miss on opening day.
The Ole Miss attack and quarterback Matt Corral, a former UF recruit, answered the Gators’ first two scores to knot the game at 14-14.
Corral connected with Dontario Drummond on a 46-yard touchdown following a breakdown on the back end of the Gators’ defense — a recurring theme.
The ejection of Gators senior safety Shawn Davis for targeting early in the game, along with the absence of senior defensive back Brad Stewart for undisclosed reasons, did not help matters.
The absence of senior starting defensive tackle Kyree Campbell and senior linebacker Jeremiah Moon, a key reserve, also undercut the effort of coordinator Todd Grantham’s defense.
Corral was 20-of-27 passing for 354 yards and three touchdowns, along with a fourth-quarter interception. Ole Miss gained 613 yards.
“We’ve got to get a lot better at, to be honest with you,” Mullen said. “But we’ve tackled twice since the Orange Bowl.
“We were down some guys defensively today; hopefully we get some guys back for next week. You add all that together, just haven’t played a lot of football and you saw today.
“Lane does a really good job offensively of creating matchups out there on the field, so you give them credit for that as well. We’ve just got to get cleaner and better for next week.”
Trask’s performance was hard to nitpick.
Trask added a pair of touchdown passes — to senior Kadarius Toney and Pitts — and ended the first half 5-of-5 passing on third down and the Gators leading 28-14. Florida took control of the game with a 71-yard touchdown pass from Trask to Pitts on the second play of the second half.
Ole Miss, a 12-point underdog, never got closer than 14 points.
“There’s a lot to being a veteran quarterback, and especially in this situation,” said Mullen, noting the Ole Miss first-year staff.
“He did a good job of managing the whole offense and managing the game, getting us into the right plays, all the adjustments we made on the sideline, finding the mismatches all over the field.
“I think we did a really good job of that all day.”
Email Edgar Thompson at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com.