It’s time to turn the page
Task is clear: Gators must prevent LSU loss from defining season
BATON ROUGE, La. — Kyle Trask had just accomplished things no UF quarterback had in some time, but losing to LSU was all that mattered to him late Saturday night at Tiger Stadium.
Trask and the Gators now have the page quickly.
Plenty of big games and goals remain for a team coming off its first loss in 11 games and nearly 12 months. UF could choose either to brood about the loss or to build on the positives.
Trask was confident his teammates would embrace the right approach after giving the Tigers all they could handle. The 42-28 loss featured four ties and a brief second-half lead for the Gators against the nation’s top-scoring offense in front of a hostile announced crowd of 102,321.
“It was tough,” Trask said. “I think there’s two ways you can go: You can either lose and start pointing fingers or you can lose and come together. I think we have a great group of guys and at the end of the day it’s just going to make this team better.”
The No. 9 Gators (6-1, 3-1 SEC) will find out this weekend whether their quarterback’s instincts were right.
The SEC East Division title and a trip to the Dec. 7 conference-title game remain well in play entering Saturday’s visit to resurgent South Carolina (3-3, 2-2 SEC).
“We completely control our own destiny,” UF coach Dan Mullen said. “So we got to get ready for South Carolina. Get ready to find a way to get a win.”
The Gators are 6.5-point favorites, but they will face a confident Gamecocks squad. Former UF coach Will Muschamp’s team is fresh off an upset win at two-time defending SEC East winner Georgia a week after South Carolina snapped a fivegame skid to Kentucky. to turn
The Gators also will have to exorcise memories of last November when a fourth-quarter gut-punch by Georgia carried over into a no-show a week later against Missouri.
Following the LSU loss, UF players vowed not to let one loss turned into two this time.
“There’s no telling about how a loss bleeds into another one,” redshirt senior center Nick Buchanan said. “We look at the mistakes that we made last year with two losses in a row and we’re going to fix those mistakes so they don’t happen again.”
Despite scoring three points after halftime and ending the game with a thirdstring quarterback, South Carolina is riding an emotional high after snapping an 11-game losing streak to ranked teams under Muschamp.
The health of freshman quarterback Ryan Hilinski could be key. He left the Georgia game during the third quarter with a knee sprain, but Muschamp said Sunday evening he expects Hilinski to play against UF. In Athens, the Gamecocks turned to freshman Dakereon Joyner, who entered the season as the third-string quarterback, and gained only 108 yards on 35 plays the rest of the way.
Instead, Muschamp’s defense carried the day. South Carolina registered three sacks against a Georgia team that had allowed one all season and flustered star quarterback Jake Fromm into three interceptions — all by sophomore cornerback Israel Mukuamu.
The defensive-minded Muschamp matching wits with Mullen could be mustsee TV for a game scheduled to kick off at noon and air on ESPN.
Mullen’s diverse mix of play calls and timely quarterback switches between Trask and Emory Jones had LSU’s defense guessing much of the night. In the end, though, the Gators came up empty during fourth-quarter trips inside the red zone.
“Both those guys. I don’t have a whole lot to complain with their performances tonight,” Mullen said. “Everyone was worried: Was the environment going to get to our young offensive line and get to our quarterbacks without much experience? It didn’t. They handled it in every situation.
“But we didn’t do the things we needed to do at the end to win.”
Until an interception midway through the fourth quarter effectively put an end to a track meet at Tiger Stadium, Trask played as well as anyone could have expected during his first start away from the Swamp.
Trask, with 310 passing yards, became the first UF quarterback in more than three years to hit the 300-yard milestone and the first since Tim Tebow in 2007 to throw three touchdown passes in a road game against at top-10 opponent.
Meanwhile, Jones’ dual-threat abilities kept the Tigers off balance, akin to Tebow as a freshman during the Gators’ 2006 win against LSU. Jones picked up some key first downs with his legs and threw a touchdown to tailback Lamical Perine, who made a juggling catch in the corner of the end zone.
The Gators’ 457 yards were their most against an Football Bowl Subdivision foe this season and helped offset an off night by a defense considered among the nation’s best. UF entered the game leading the nation in interceptions and the SEC in sacks but allowed a season-worst 511 yards without coming up with a single sack or turnover while top pass rushers Jon Greenard and Jabari Zuniga nursed ankle injuries much of the night.
“This is unacceptable for Marco Wilson.
It also is just one loss. The focus is not to let it become more.
“This was kind of like a freebie,” Buchanan said. “When you lose one game, everything is still in front of you. You lose two games and then you start having questions about where you want to be at the end of the year.
“We’ve got to know that there’s a sense of urgency to make sure we get everything right from here on out.” us,” UF cornerback