Carter's Corner: Gators lost to Vols and themselves

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Florida lost to Tennessee on Saturday night in one of the Southeastern Conference's fiercest rivalries. That's always a tough cookie for Gators faithful to swallow the next morning.

But what was happening here in the sold-out Neyland Stadium seemed even worse. The scoreboard – home score 23, away score 17 (overtime) – gave away the final score but didn't tell nearly the whole story.

What wasn't mentioned was that the Gators beat themselves.

Billy Napier addressed the big L in the room as he opened his postgame press conference in a small room next to Florida's dim locker room.

“I think we played extremely hard and with passion in all three parts of our team,” Napier said. “It’s certainly the missed opportunities in the first half on offense. We had a lot of opportunities to score points and left a lot of points on the table.”

That's what they're preaching from Pahokee to Panama City on Sunday.

The Gators limped off the field at the end of the first half, dazed by recent events and the accumulation of what if Moments that haunted them in the first 30 minutes. Still, they led the 8th-ranked Vols 3-0 at halftime in a game in which few gave them a chance. Tennessee opened as a 16.5-point favorite, the largest margin in favor of the Vols in the last 50 years.

The final play of the half was a slap in the face for the Gators. After the quarterback Graham Mertz was sacked on third-and-14 from Tennessee's 15, the Gators had to force the field goal unit onto the field in the final seconds after using their final timeout of the half two plays earlier. Trey Smacks The 43-yard attempt was good as the Gators snapped the ball just before time expired. However, in the chaos there were also penalty flags on the field.

The final verdict: a 12-man-on-field penalty and a 10-second runoff, officially ending the first half.

“It was relative to an injury, just to stay dry,” Napier said. “It was a substitution error based on an injured player staying on the field. That's exactly what it was.”

Instead of a six-point lead, Florida clung to its slim lead and the memory of many missed opportunities in the first half, save for Smack's field goal with three minutes and 15 seconds left in the first quarter.

UF lost points in the second quarter.

First, Napier elected to score 4th-and-1 from Tennessee's 18 on the Gators' first drive of the period. The Gators ran a jet sweep from the shotgun and receiver Eugene Wilson III was dropped for no gain, wiping out Florida's 11-play, 72-yard drive that took more than six minutes to play. On the Gators' next possession, the Gators drove 79 yards to Tennessee's 1. But on first-and-goal, Mertz fumbled and Vols defender James Pearce Jr. recovered.

The Gators weren't done digging their own grave, this time they regained the ball at defensive back Sharif Denson picked Nico Iamaleava for his first career interception. Denson's 20-yard return and a personal foul penalty against the Vols gave the Gators the ball at Tennessee's 11 with 1:11 left before halftime.

The drive went nowhere and ended in a head-scratching sequence, and Smack's field goal was negated by the costly penalty.

“You can’t cry over spilled milk,” recipient Chimere Dikea bright spot for the Gators on Saturday, said afterward. “We have a really good team in the locker room. We just know we have to get things together.”

Dike contributed on Saturday, catching four passes for a team-high 76 yards and a touchdown. Dike returned two punts for 57 yards, giving the Gators excellent field position twice in the fourth quarter. His biggest play was a 27-yard touchdown catch by the freshman quarterback DJ Lagway With 29 seconds left, Tennessee's lead narrowed to 17-16.

Lagway took over for the injured Mertz late in the third quarter when he backtracked on a 13-yard touchdown pass Arlis Boardingham After taking a 10-0 lead, Florida had to abandon the game due to a non-contact violation. He returned to the sideline in the fourth quarter on crutches and with a brace on his left knee.

After Lagway's score against Dike, Florida initially prepared for a two-point conversion, but after the Vols moved into an unbalanced formation that caused confusion for Tennessee, they called a timeout. Napier then opted to send the team onto the field with the extra points, and Smack's PAT forced overtime in the series for the first time since 1998.

“We had a play that we felt good about and then obviously they burned their timeout,” Napier said. “At that point we were playing pretty well on both sides of our team. We thought, 'Let's go to overtime. Let's give our boys a chance to play a few more games.' We held our own defensively.”

The Gators turned in a standout defensive performance for the second straight game, limiting Tennessee's high-powered offense to 312 total yards. But after Smack missed a 47-yard field goal on the first drive of overtime, the Vols took the lead and gained 25 yards in five plays for just their third win over the Gators in the last 20 meetings. Tailback Dylan Sampson scored on a 1-yard run to send the sellout crowd home happy.

Meanwhile, the Gators suffered another road loss, going 11-3 in away games at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium under Napier. They returned to campus in the early hours of Sunday morning tired, sleepy and in need of rest.

They worked overtime on Saturday evening. They lost to Tennessee – and they beat themselves.