The season is a wreck, and Florida coach Will Muschamp might start feeling heat from the frustration swirling around his program.
The Gators have lost three straight and are walking a fine line of bowl eligibility. The latest letdown was a 23-20 loss to archrival Georgia at EverBank Field in front of 84,693. The Bulldogs dominated both sides of the ball as they knocked Florida out of contention in the SEC Eastern Division.
Despite rallying from 20 points down, the Gators (4-4, 3-3 SEC) are in danger of one of their worst records in the past three decades. The fact that Muschamp is now 0-3 against Georgia, which had not beaten UF three straight times since the late 1980s, will inflame an already aggravated fan base.
The tension mounted to the point that as Muschamp was exiting the field, he shouted back at a fan who was harassing him. The man used an obscene gesture, and Muschamp responded by pointing and yelling at him before his state trooper escort steered him into the locker room.
“I don’t spend two seconds thinking about that,” he said of general hostility from the crowd. “We just move on. We’ve gotta coach our football team. Control the things you can control. That’s what we’re gonna do. And we’re gonna be fine, I can assure you that.”
At the moment, this team is far from fine.
The memory of last year’s Sugar Bowl appearance and 11-2 record is fading. This loss sunk Muschamp’s overall record to 22-12, and the last Gators coach to start that poorly was Ron Zook. He was 20-13 when UF fired him in 2004.
Instead of vying for another BCS bowl, the Gators — smacked by costly injuries and plagued by inconsistency — are playing for pride.
“It stinks,” quarterback Tyler Murphy said. “Definitely we didn’t expect to be 4-4, but sometimes that’s just the way things go. There’s no other team I’d rather be a part of than this 4-4 team. We’ll keep fighting and keep going.”
Muschamp issued a similar message and believes his players won’t quit.
“You rally around the fact that you play at the University of Florida,” he said. “We’ve got a close locker room. Guys play for each other. They’re frustrated and they’re down and they’re hurt, but the guys got a lot of pride and they’re gonna compete.”
They fought back against Georgia (5-3, 4-2), but it was too late. The Bulldogs punched Florida with four straight scoring drives to open the game and took a 20-0 lead early in the second quarter.
The Gators’ defense, thoroughly embarrassed in a 36-17 loss at Missouri two weeks earlier, gave up 335 yards in the first half and 414 total.
The offense had mishaps of its own. Murphy hit Quinton Dunbar for an 83-yard pass on UF’s second snap of the game to reach Georgia’s 10-yard line, but Florida worked backward from there and kicker Francisco Velez missed a 40-yard field-goal try.
Down 23-3 in the third quarter, UF got two game-changing defensive plays. Georgia tight end Arthur Lynch dropped a lateral pass but assumed it was an incomplete forward pass and left the ball lying on the ground. UF’s Leon Orr scooped it up and ran to the Bulldogs’ 14. Running back Mack Brown scored on a 5-yard run to trim Georgia’s lead to 13.
Late in the third quarter, with the Bulldogs backed up to their end zone, UF cornerback Loucheiz Purifoy blitzed into the backfield to take down quarterback Aaron Murray for a safety.
Murphy followed with a 14-yard TD run and a two-point conversion strike to Clay Burton to pull within 23-20, but that was the end of the comeback. Florida stumbled on its final possession and was forced to watch Georgia run out the clock.
“You couldn’t tell me we weren’t gonna win,” Murphy said. “There was no doubt at halftime. Guys fought, but we fell a little short.”
Now the Gators will worry about becoming bowl eligible. That goal appears to hinge on next weekend’s game against Vanderbilt. UF needs two more wins, and its ensuing three games are at No. 14 South Carolina, then at home against Georgia Southern and No. 3 Florida State.
And the Gators might begin worrying about their coach.
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