Steve Spurrier outlines key turning point in Florida Gators’ loss to Georgia

The Florida Gators dropped to 3-5 on the season following a loss to conference rival Georgia this past weekend in Jacksonville. The Bulldogs have now won the last five against the Gators, with the latest victory coming in the form of a 24-20 outcome this past weekend. It was a tightly contested game, which saw these two teams tied at halftime. However, Georgia pulled away with just under 5 minutes left in the contest, and Florida couldn’t change that outcome.

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Steve Spurrier discusses Florida’s latest loss

Former Florida Gators head coach Steve Spurrier made his weekly appearance on ‘Another Dooley Noted Podcast‘ on Monday. He had several takeaways from the game, but one of those was how he noticed that the talent gap between these two teams isn’t as wide as it once was.

“I really, like everybody said, our talent is just as good, maybe even better than Georgia,” Steve Spurrier said. “We got ball players all over the place, but we’re sort of missing something. Expecting to win, whereas Georgia they expect to win, even though they’re behind a little bit in the 4th quarter.”

The talking point among the Florida Gators fanbase following the loss was the controversial catch made by UF receiver J.Michael Sturdivant, which was later ruled an incompletion. That call could have impacted the outcome of the game, but Steve Spurrier felt the true turning point of the game came earlier.

“The fourth and one play was, obviously, the turning point in the whole game,” Steve Spurrier said. “In my opinion. But we had second and one, and then we had third and one, and then fourth and a half yard. Even the last call, they got everybody up front. We ran a play just straight up the middle. Man, I was hoping one of those downs, some kind of special play where you sprint out, hand it to the back to the right. He pitches to the wide receiver. Remember [Chris] Doering throwing that? Terry Dean and all those guys. It worked every time we called it because we only called it once or twice a year. That play almost always works because he hadn’t thrown it all year. Just some special. Do something special. A touchdown there would’ve put us up 10 with about six minutes or so. Might’ve made a difference. Who knows? But they controlled the fourth quarter as it turned out, and we got beat again.”

Steve Spurrier also felt that the playcalling could have been a bit more aggressive by the staff.

“I wish we had tried more scoring plays,” he said. “I read something one time, and it’s so true in life. What we achieve in life is directly proportional to what we attempt. I always said, if we attempt about 7 or 8 touchdown passes, we’re going to hit 3 or 4. I don’t know that we threw the ball and caught it on about 2 or 3, and scored that first touchdown. Then we got down, hit a pass, and got down to the 10-yard line again. I’m up there saying, ‘Man, throw it in the endzone.’ We’d run a couple, throw a sideways pass. We never throw it past the goal line. We get the ball the other times, and we had the two deep passes. [DJ] Lagway overthrew one and underthrew the other one. We didn’t capitalize on the big play possibility.”

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Spurrier is hopeful that the team can end on a high note

At 3-5 on the season, Florida has future games left against Kentucky, Ole Miss, Tennessee, and Florida State. To achieve bowl game eligibility, the Gators would need to win three out of those five to obtain 6 wins. It won’t be easy, but Steve Spurrier is keeping an optimistic outlook and said that the journey for bowl eligibility starts this weekend in Lexington.

“I hope we still got time to turn it around for Billy Gonzales and this team,” Spurrier said. “If we win, what, the next four, we’re bowl eligible. Gotta win. Gotta be 6-6, and what are we, 3-5 right now? So, we can have a halfway successful season if they start winning. We got Kentucky, who can play defense, not much offense, but they play defense. So it’ll be a good test up there.”