As the LSU fans attempted to white out the Gators, Florida attempted to wipe out the Tigers’ hopes of a national title and succeeded with a 19-7 upset win in Tiger Stadium on Saturday.
The sixth-ranked Tigers were plagued with 99 yards on 13 crucial penalties in front of 92,077 fans, many of whom donned a white shirt, and were not able to capitalize on defense after putting Florida in numerous third-and-long situations.
“We are obviously very disappointed in the way we played in the game,” said LSU coach Nick Saban. “We stopped ourselves on numerous times in the game with penalties and mental errors. Obviously, I’m responsible for that. We didn’t have the type of intensity that we needed, didn’t have the sense of urgency about what we were doing.”
Entering the fourth quarter the LSU offense was able to muster only 140 yards of total offense, 103 passing and 37 rushing. The Tigers passed for 128 yards in the fourth quarter while attempting to mount a comeback but were unsuccessful.
“Since [the Arizona game], we’ve been a little sporadic on how we play offense,” Saban said. “We score a lot of points, but we don’t do it with consistent drives.”
The Tigers finished the game with 287 yards of offense while the Gators finished with 310.
The Tigers’ lone score was an 80-yard punt return by Skyler Green after Florida’s first offensive drive, and the Tigers were not able to cross the Florida 40-yard line again until late in the fourth quarter.
Saban said the Tigers made mistakes on offense, forcing the Tigers to throw the ball in first-, second- and third-and-long situations. He said they had chances but made some bad decisions and were never able to make that big play.
“[Quarterback] Matt [Mauck has] been doing pretty well,” Saban said. “Today it just looked like he missed a couple that maybe he should have had. He’s not always going to be perfect.”
Mauck finished the game 19-of-33 for 231 yards, two interceptions and no touchdowns.
“We put ourselves behind the eight ball every time,”Mauck said. “And it’s hard to convert first-and-20, second-and-30 and things like that. For some reason, we just could not execute at all and it’s really disappointing.”
On a critical first-and-20 from their own 30-yard-line, Mauck connected with Michael Clayton for a 40-yard pass, but it was called back because of a holding penalty.
“For the most part, everybody makes mistakes every other play,” Clayton said. “Stuff happens, and now it’s all about overcoming adversity.”
LSU attempted to confuse Florida’s freshman quarterback Chris Leak with numerous looks on defense and a lot of pressure.
But although Leak was sacked six times and hit many more, he continued to stay in the pocket and finished the game 18-of-30 for 229 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.
“He is a good quarterback,” said LSU defensive end Marcus Spears. “I said that before he came in and I say it now. In this league you grow up real fast.”
LSU’s defense was able to get pressure on Leak. Chad Lavalais led the Tigers assault with two sacks, and Kyle Williams, Marcus Spears, LaRon Landry and Travis Daniels each added another.
Florida converted eight third downs on the day. For five of those, the Gators needed at least eight yards, and for three of those, they needed more than 15.
“Defensively, we gave up some big plays,” Saban said. “But for the most part we didn’t play that bad. They know we like to pressure on third down, and they would fire the running back out of the backfield.”
That same play scored two touchdowns for the Gators. The Tigers brought the blitz and the Gators would slip the back into the middle of the field.
On the first score. Ran Carthon was wide open for the 22-yard score. On the second, Leak hit Ciatric Fason out of the backfield for a 37-yard score. He was not wide open, but he beat Travis Daniels.
“We basically deserved everything that we got,” Saban said. “It’s too bad that you have to have a catastrophe to happen before people start to listen.”