GAINESVILLE, Fla. – They had a chance to do it at Auburn and didn’t. They had a chance against Georgia and ran into a brick wall at the end. A week ago at South Carolina a win was within their grasp in the fourth quarter. The Gators shoved it away.
As their season turned into 5-5, they talked a lot about needing to learn how to finish. Finish a play. Finish a drive. Finish a block. Finish a tackle.
Most importantly, finish a game.
Finishing strong has turned into a rallying cry of late for the Gators and in Saturday’s 54-32 win over Furman they closed like a Mariano Rivera fastball. The path they took to get there wasn’t the one they envisioned, but in the end, no one was complaining.
“As ugly as the victory may be for us, in my opinion, the most pleasing part of the win was the fact nobody panicked on the sideline,” Gators coach Will Muschamp said. “We just kept playing, kept hanging in there, made adjustments defensively, kept playing on offense, did a nice job on special teams.
“Nothing is easy. We certainly don’t make it that way.”
The Gators fell behind 15-0 and trailed 22-7 at the end of the first quarter. The Swamp was as quiet as a Turlington Hall classroom. An 80-yard pass from John Brantley to Andre Debose in the second quarter seemed to wake up the place.
By halftime the Gators led 27-22 when Brantley connected with Quinton Dunbar for a 29-yard touchdown pass. Still, the Paladins trailed only 37-32 after Jerodis Williams outran everyone on the way to a 77-yard touchdown at the end of the third quarter.
The stage was set either for a nightmare finish or the kind of finish the Gators have talked about.
Florida chose the latter, first thanks to the right leg of Caleb Sturgis’ 55-yard field goal that made it an eight-point game.
Then the Gators showed how to finish off an opponent that had clearly overstayed its visit. A pair of interception returns for touchdowns – the first by safety Pop Saunders and then one by linebacker Jelani Jenkins – clinched the victory and restored normalcy to The Swamp.
In a span of a few minutes a tense situation gave way to the Gators singing on the field and talking about becoming bowl eligible for the 21st consecutive season.
“We didn’t panic,’’ linebacker Jon Bostic said. “We knew basically if we wanted to win this game we had to stick together.’’
The glue that kept the Gators together on Saturday was quarterback John Brantley and the defensive adjustments the Gators made. Brantley did his part by throwing for a career-high four touchdowns and 329 yards.
He remained a calm presence in the huddle when the scoreboard had fans in a tizzy.
“We had to keep each one level,’’ Brantley said. “We just stuck together and kept fighting. This team has grown up a lot through these ups and downs.’’
This season has been one of ups and downs and the Gators avoided what would have been the biggest downer of all by storming back to beat the FCS division Paladins.
In doing so, the Gators can now prepare for next week’s annual grudge match against rival Florida State knowing that a bowl game is in their future regardless of the outcome.
The “finish strong” mantra will continue to carry weight for the Gators.
A victory over the Seminoles would be a nice cherry on top of a not-so-sweet regular season. It would also perhaps improve Florida’s bowl scenario.
The Gators appear headed to Jacksonville to play in the Gator Bowl if the season ended today. A Gator Bowl official told the Sporting News on Saturday that a Florida-Ohio State matchup could be on the horizon.
That would certainly be an interesting end to Muschamp’s first season, especially if the latest round of rumors regarding the man he replaced – Urban Meyer – taking over Ohio State next season turn out to be true.
Muschamp said Saturday he would be surprised if Meyer took the job. Still, talk about ample storylines. For now, that’s wishful thinking or meaningless chatter depending on your point of view.
What the Gators are focused on is FSU and trying to finish the season with back-to-back wins, something they haven’t done since September.
They finished strong Saturday despite bad thoughts popping into their heads early. Debose had the best game of his career by catching three passes for 151 yards, adding a 64-yard touchdown reception late in the third quarter to go with the 80-yarder.
What was he thinking when the Gators trailed 22-7?
“What was going through my mind was, ‘We can’t get embarrassed. This is not the way that we wanted to put off the seniors,’ ” Debose said. “We went into this week and this game trying to play for those seniors.”
The Gators left The Swamp late Saturday afternoon with a little extra bounce in their step. Bostic decided to take the stairs through the stands. He was met by a man and young boy at the top.
The boy held out a game program that Bostic signed.
“Good game,’’ the man said.
“A win is always good,’’ Bostic replied.
It was the sixth of Muschamp’s young career as a head coach. It was one that, like his first season, featured more ups and downs than a Busch Gardens roller coaster.
But instead of panicking when they fell behind and Ben Hill Griffin Stadium fell quiet, the Gators grew up some. They hung tough and when they finally got a chance, they finished the job.
That win alone meant nearly as much as the one on the scoreboard.
“That is the mentality that you’re trying to create,’’ Muschamp said. “You can’t get too far up or too far down.’’
