After everything that had happened in the 2010 season, the Florida Gators still had a chance to reach the SEC Title Game, all they had to do was beat the South Carolina Gamecocks, led by former Florida head coach Steve Spurrier, at home and as 6.5 point favorites. Marcus Lattimore had other ideas.
Florida couldn't have asked for a better start to the game. Andrew Dubose took the opening kickoff 99 yards for a TD. After that, there wasn't much to be excited about if you were a Gator fan.
South Carolina scored 29 unanswered points, led by true freshman running back Marcus Lattimore's career high 212 yards rushing. Lattimore also scored 3 TDs. By the end of the game, there was no doubt who the better team was.
Offensively, Florida couldn't get anything going. "Threebow" the nickname for John Brantley, Trey Burton, and Jordan Reed, because it takes all three of them to do what Tim Tebow did on his own, were wildly ineffective. Brantley finished 16-31 for a 130 yards and 1 INT. Reed threw a TD late, but the game was over at that point.
It was surprising that Meyer didn't tailor the offense to Brantley's strengths. All season long they tried to force him to fit into Tebow's Spread-Option offense, something Brantley wasn't able to do. Despite all of his physical tools, Brantley is not a Spread-Option QB (just like Ryan Mallet realized he wasn't before he transferred from Michigan). Urban Meyer had every opportunity to bring the offense back to the Chris Leak days, when Leak was the pocket passing national champion and Tebow was his jump passing side-show. I guess Urban had some other "things" on his mind.
Imagine where Florida would have been if Cam Newton didn't purchase a stolen laptop.
Quotes From The Game
"Disappointing." They outplayed us. They out-schemed us. It's just disappointing. We wanted that win bad. Can't look back now."
- Florida Center Mike Pouncey
"We just didn't execute. "We're just not very good."
- Florida Head Coach Urban Meyer
"Sometimes the Gamecocks get out alive."
- South Carolina Head Coach Steve Spurrier jabbing away at The Swamp's motto "Where only Gators get out alive."
But, if John Brantley was more accurate and performed better under pressure, he would have locked up the quarterback position. But, if the offensive line blocked better and Mike Pouncey was a better center, that would have helped too. It also has not helped Florida to have Andre Debose, Jeff Demps, Mike Gillislee and Chris Rainey all miss time.
- SBNation Blog Alligator Nation