Payback is on top of minds

Gators out to end inexplicable 2-game slide vs. Missouri

GAINESVILLE — Missouri has been an SEC outlier since joining the league in 2012.

Being from outside the South has not kept the Tigers from competing with the league’s old guard.

No program knows this better than the Florida Gators, losers of four of their past six meetings with Mizzou including backto-back thrashings by a combined score of 83-33. While timing and circumstance played key roles in those defeats, the Gators did not put up much of a fight, either.

UF senior linebacker David Reese said those days are over heading into Saturday’s visit to Columbia’s Memorial Stadium to face the Tigers. Kickoff is at noon and the game will air on CBS.

“It’s insane to do the same thing repetitively,” Reese said. “We’re excited for the game and we’re pumped up.”

Reese hopes his final SEC road game as a Gator is yet another step in the program’s growth under coach Dan Mullen, who has positioned No. 11 Florida (8-2, 5-2 SEC) for another 10-win season and New Year’s Six bowl bid.

“I feel like that’s the standard now,” Reese

said. “We don’t expect anything less.”

During the Gators’ last trip to Missouri — a 45-16 loss in 2017 — Reese had no idea what lay ahead for himself and his teammates.

That no-show in the Show-Me State left a once-proud program in shambles on the heels of coach Jim McElwain’s ouster. Some UF players were left in tears while Reese was seeing red, calling the performance “unacceptable” following the game.

“That was a turning point into this new chapter,” Reese says now.

The storybook turnaround under Mullen — whose 18-5 mark at UF is better than any coach hired after the 2017 season — took a detour last season against Missouri. A dispiriting 36-17 loss to Georgia dashed the Gators’ SEC East title hopes, leading to another epic struggle against the Tigers.

Last season’s 38-17 loss to Missouri on UF’s homecoming is still hard to explain. Behind recordsetting quarterback Drew Locke, the Tigers pounced on the Gators and soon led 21-3.

“I don’t really know what happened last year,”said redshirt sophomore cornerback Marco Wilson, who sat out with a season-ending knee injury. “We just didn’t focus in on that.”

During UF’s last visit to Mizzou, Wilson was just a first-year freshman starter still finding his way in the SEC. But seeing his team fall behind 28-3 and then collapse, Wilson had enough experience to know when a team had quit.

“I’d say we just started giving up, which is not the right thing to do,” he said.

Fueled by these recent disappointments, the Gators seek a rare fast start away from the Swamp.

During five games away from its home field, UF trailed during the fourth quarter and scored on an opening drive just once, the Aug. 24 season-opening win in Orlando over Miami.

“It’s gonna be important,” Reese said. “But we’re a motivated team and we’re looking to finish our season strong and just keep winning and see what happens — ‘cause we’re still up for anything.”

The Gators have not given up hope of sneaking into the SEC title game.

No. 4 Georgia (8-1, 5-1) would have to lose twice, beginning Saturday at No. 12 Auburn followed by a loss a week later at home to Texas A&M.

First, though, UF must beat Missouri. Losers of three straight games, the Tigers (5-5, 2-3) are 5-0 at home, where they average 40.5 points.

“They get home; something clicks with them,” Wilson said.

Health has been one of the main factors. uarterback Kelly Bryant injured his hamstring during an Oct. 26 loss at Kentucky and sat out last week’s 27-0 loss at Georgia, where Missouri gained just 113 yards. Expected to start against the Gators, the high-profile transfer from Clemson has thrown 10 of his 14 touchdowns at home and has just three interceptions.

“We watched him in big games, all through his career at Clemson,” Reese said. “He’s an athletic quarterback and a veteran guy that probably doesn’t make too make too many mistakes with the ball.”

The Tigers also had star linebacker Cale Garrett in the lineup during four of their home wins. Before his season ended when he tore a pectoral muscle, Garrett had 39 tackles and three interceptions, returning two of them for touchdowns.

Unlike Missouri’s offense without Bryant, the Tigers’ defense has done a nice job weathering the loss of its leader. Mizzou leads the SEC in pass defense, allowing an average of just 147.7 yards and a completion percentage of 48.8.

Veteran cornerbacks DeMarkus Acy and Christian Holmes, starters in 2018, and safeties Tyree Gillespie and Joshua Bledsoe — who have a combined 76 tackles and 12 pass breakups — will look to match up with one of the SEC’s top passing games.

Coming off a career-high 363 passing yards during the Gators’ win against Vanderbilt, Kyle Trask leads an attack with five 300-yard passing games in a season for the first time at UF since 2002. Tight end Kyle Pitts has five 60-yard games. For the first time since 1992, the Gators have eight different receivers with at least 150 receiving yards.

“He’s slinging that thing,” center Nick Buchanan said of Trask.