Halftime Takeaways: Florida leading Vanderbilt despite ‘awful’ defense

Being up 21-0 usually feels better at halftime, but Dan Mullen said his defense has been awful against Vanderbilt.

Florida is up 21-0 on Vanderbilt at halftime, but it hasn’t been the dominant showing Florida needed so far. The defense allowed Vandy to run 50 plays in the half and gain 200 total yards.

The running game has adjusted fine without Malik Davis this week, but the defense is still missing its injured stars. To make things worse, a targeting penalty took another player away from the Gators. Because of those losses, Vanderbilt nearly matched Florida in total yards for the half.

Anthony Richardson got to lead two drives for Florida, but neither went particularly well. Dan Mullen summed things up in a brief halftime interview. He said the quarterbacks needed to play better and that the defense played “awful.”

Mullen has had more success with his team in the second half this year, so hopefully he can express his frustrations with them sufficiently over the halftime break.