But the next week against a much less intimidating South Carolina team, defensive issues reared their head again. This time, the Gators only gave up 329 yards of offense, but they still made quarterback Collin Hill and running back Kevin Harris look like world-beaters.
In hindsight, it shouldn’t be surprising what happened in College Station the next weekend. But at the time, it felt like Florida’s offense was unstoppable. Against Texas A&M, Trask was sharp again, throwing for 312 yards and four touchdowns. But Aggies quarterback Kellen Mond was better, and paired with running back Isaiah Spiller, the TAMU offense once again put up 600 yards on Florida. But this time, that was too much to handle.
Texas A&M handed the Gators their first loss of the year on a last-second field goal, and a Florida season that began with promise looked like it may be over before it even had a chance to get going.
After the trip to Texas, the program had a COVID-19 breakout that caused the team to be out of action for three weeks. When it returned (albeit shorthanded) for a Halloween matchup with Missouri, it looked much improved.
Florida beat the Tigers 41-17 in arguably its best defensive performance of the season, despite missing multiple starters. But perhaps its best overall performance was yet to come.
The Gators entered this year’s matchup with Georgia as the favorite, but the Bulldogs had history on their side, as Mullen hadn’t yet beaten them. In what was perhaps the best game of Mullen’s tenure so far, Florida absolutely dominated Georgia. After scoring two quick touchdowns, UGA couldn’t do anything else until garbage time, as UF rolled to a 44-28 victory.
With an SEC East title all but locked up, the Gators started sleepwalking a little bit. It had another poor defensive game against Arkansas the following week despite winning 63-35, and in the next three games against Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Tennessee, Florida earned chalky but uninspiring wins.
NEXT: Stumbling across the finish line