By TULLY
CORCORAN
FOXSportsSouthwest.com
COLLEGE
STATION, Texas – It is not that Will Muschamp did not
appreciate all of the hype, the emotion, the external factors or even
the complexity of football itself.
He did.
He even said something about ruining the happy narrative of Texas
A&M winning its first SEC
game.
It's just that Muschamp did not see
No. 24 Florida's 20-17 win over Texas A&M Saturday at Kyle Field
as a feet of engineering or even one of athleticism.
He saw it as a mythbusting expedition.
"You can have an illusion these guys are a
passing football team," Muschamp said of the Aggies and quarterback
Johnny Manziel. "Really they're not right now with
Johnny."
And there it was. That was the
game. Once you figured that out, you had the Aggies licked. Texas
A&M (0-1, 0-1 SEC) gained 220 yards on its first three
possessions, and at halftime led Florida (2-0, 1-0) in first downs
(18-9), yards (269-101), offensive snaps 46-26) and points (17-10).
It was not until halftime Muschamp
successfully convinced his defensive linemen they didn't need to worry
about their pass rush.
"We have a very
aggressive front and (the Aggies) had a good plan coming in with a
quarterback that has legs," Muschamp said. "They were going to invite us
to run up the field and they were going to hit run creases. Finally at
halftime I told them I'm firing you if you run upfield again. Sit on the
line of scrimmage, squeeze blocks inside and quit running up the field.
That's what they want you to do."
Guess
what.
Texas A&M punted on all six
second-half possessions, Florida quarterback Jeff Driskel hit one big
pass play, a 39-yard sideline pattern to Omarius Hines that set up a
go-ahead touchdown run by Mike Gillislee early in the fourth quarter,
and that was that.
"We didn't have any run
lanes in the second half," Muschamp
said.
Of course, Florida still needed to
score, and that looked like it was going to be a problem too. Driskell
absorbed eight sacks, a few of them the result of an outright refusal to
hurl the ball in a forward motion. Florida finished with just 165
passing yards (and 307 total), and Muschamp took the opportunity after
the game to rather passionately hammer home the idea that this is not
your older brother's Florida offense, and isn't going to
be.
"We ran the ball well, we stayed
balanced in the game and we moved the football," Muschamp said. "We're
gonna have a lot of games like this. It's just who we are."
The whole thing had an air of
confrontation to it, although Muschamp did not mention any specific
combatant.
"Sometimes you have to put your
realistic glasses on," he said.
And yet
there came that moment when Florida had to do what Texas A&M
either could not do, or did not dare try with a freshman quarterback.
The Gators called a long-developing pass play designed to push the ball
downfield.
It was quite a proposition,
given the way the game had gone, what with Texas A&M in
Florida's backfield all day and Driskel reluctant to let it fly. It was
second-and-5 from the Florida 43 when UF called a play that would send
Hines deep and wide. Texas A&M still had a 17-13
lead.
"This is a deeper route," Driskel
told his linemen in the huddle. "We need firm
protection."
He got
it.
"He was one-on-one and I saw a guy
running with his back to me," Driskel said. "I just laid it out there
for him."
It was the game's defining play
and a big moment for Driskel, a sophomore who has his share of doubters.
He did not dazzle anyone with his stat line – 13-for-16 for 162 yards –
but he did not turn over the ball, and when it came time to make a
play, he made one.
So Florida left a big
orange and blue stain on the carpet at Texas A&M's SEC welcome
party, and Florida did not
apologize.
"Everybody wanted a glory story
with A&M," Muschamp said, "and they didn't get
it."
