Sometimes you need a shot in the arm, and that's what Mike Pouncey did Saturday. Pouncey was able to take out blockers and every time he either pushed into the backfield or forced a play into Brandon Spikes' arms, the defense got excited. Again, there were no sacks yesterday, and if Lawrence Marsh and Carlos Dunlap want to play too, they have to hit the quarterback. But, they played well at the line. If anything, the line needs to do a better job of engaging the offensive tackles to set up Derrick Harvey or Cunningham on the edge. If they only plan on rushing four, design the rush to get a DE in the backfield and forget about the other three getting to the QB. As for the run, we're back where we started this season with the Gators' clogging the middle and backers coming up to make plays.
The game ended up being Percy Harvin's masterpiece with a record breaking day against the SEC's third best scoring and total defense. During the game, my brother was concerned that Harvin could die during the game. Why? On the drive that made it 35-7, Harvin touched the ball on each of the first seven plays. After the seventh play, a four yard slant to Percy, UF called a time out with 1:25 and pulled Harvin. Of the next six plays, one was intended for Harvin (an incomplete) and four were to Bubba Caldwell, including three catches and a TD. There are two things to take away from that drive; Tebow did not force any balls and this is exactly how a UF drive should work. Like a great pitcher, UF has different looks and pitches. The problem is that Mullen sometimes doesn't understand how to use that.
This game could have been worse (UF had two turnovers and two bad snaps), but we had the far superior skill to win. So now we're back to South Carolina being a lose-able game preceding FAU and then a now frisky Florida State. You could make the case we still haven't seen this team put together a complete game, and that needs to happen next week. (Granted, UF didn't do that last year until they destroyed Ohio State.) All this game tells us is that this was one game. As fans of this team, we can't get too high over it, and the players can't assume their problems are fixed.
