Florida football went on the road to Lexington to face the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday and came away with a punch-in-the-face loss. The 33-14 loss against a fellow SEC East program gave the Gator Nation — as well as the sports media as a whole — far more questions than answers coming into a pivotal division matchup.
Following the Week 5 action, USA TODAY Sports’ Paul Myerberg offered his winners and losers from the weekend, which predictably included Florida among the latter category. What he had to offer was a rather scathing critique of the loss.
“Children in Gainesville were born, went to school, graduated, got a job, met someone, had children and bought a home without seeing No. 23 Florida lose to Kentucky,” Myerberg began. “That was then, from 1987-2017; this is now, with the Wildcats pulling off a third win in a row in the series and doing it in style, with a 33-14 rollover that saw running back Ray Davis go for 280 yards and three scores on 10.8 yards per carry.
“Let’s make sure this sinks in: Kentucky threw for 69 yards on 3.5 yards per attempt and still bulldozed the Gators into absolute submission with a one-dimensional offense,” he continued. “The Wildcats are not only the better team at this moment but also the better program, and that’s obvious.”
As Pat Dooley said in his Sunday Hash breakdown, “It seems like every time we are quoting a negative stat it begins with, “This is the first time since Florida went 0-10-1 in 1979 that…”
That is getting old very quickly for Gators fans.
Next up for the Orange and Blue are the Vanderbilt Commodores, who come to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 7, for the school’s homecoming game. Kickoff is slated for 4 p.m. EDT and the game can be watched on the SEC Network.
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