2011 Florida Football Postgame Notes Florida 39, UAB 0 September 10, 2011
Team Notes Florida’s win Saturday allowed the Gators to improve to 94-4 against unranked opponents in The Swamp since 1990 The last time Florida gave up three or fewer total points over the first two games of a season was 1933 With UF’s shutout Saturday, UF head coach Will Muschamp became the quickest Gator coach to record a shutout in his first season at the helm of the UF program since Galen Hall in 1984 (also second game of season) UF has out-scored its first two opponents 80-3 UF’s last shut out was Nov. 18, 2006, against Western Carolina (62-0) Florida’s 39-0 victory over UAB Saturday marked the Gators’ 24th straight home non-conference victory dating back to 2003 versus FSU Senior kicker Caleb Sturgis scored a career-high13 points for the Gators against UAB (3 FG, 4 XP) – previous career high was 11, six times Senior quarterback John Brantley went 12-for-19 with 195 yards through the air, the sixth-best output of his career Rainey rallied for 162 yards of total offense – a career high that included 119 yards on the ground on a career-tying 16 attempts (7.4 avg), while punching in his fourth TD of the season. Saturday’s 100-yard rushing performance marked the third of his career. Rainey additionally tallied 43 yards on three catches in the air (14.3 avg) Florida accumulated 512 yards of total offense, including 300 yards on the ground and 212 through the air – UF had 28 first downs against UAB and 30 in the season-opener against FAU for a total of 58 through the first two games Florida’s running backs averaged 6.2 yards after 299 yards rushing on 48 carries against the Blazers and are averaging 6.6 on the season with 502 yards on 76 carries through the first two games The Gators scored 54 points, tallied 41 first downs, went 7-for-8 in trips to the red zone and forced eight opponent punts before booting their first punt of the season in the second quarter against UAB Wide receiver Quinton Dunbar opened the game with a career-long 40-yard reception from quarterback John Brantley, eclipsing his previous career high (14) by 26 yards Sturgis got the Gators on the board first with a 24 and 35-yard field-goals to start the game. He then connected with 4:10 left in the first half on a 28-yarder. Sturgis is now 5-5 on the season, and for the fourth time in his career as a Gator, he hit three field goals in a single game, the last time coming versus Mississippi State in 2009 Senior athletes Chris Rainey and Jeff Demps combined for 61-of-62 yards on UF’s second drive of the game, which resulted in Sturgis’ 35-yard FG (Rainey 41, Demps 20) With 2:09 in the first quarter, freshman running back Hunter Joyer scored a three-yard touchdown run on his first career carry donning the Orange and Blue, becoming the fourth Gator since 2008 to score a touchdown on his first career carry (Estopinan, 2008; Burton, 2010; Reed, 2010) Senior David Lerner booted UF’s first punt of the season – also his first career punt – for 32 yards early in the second quarter With 2:32 left in the first half, the Gators secured their first safety since 2008 on a mishandled snap by the UAB punter. The last time UF recorded a safety was 40 games ago, Sept. 6, 2008, vs. Miami when Jeff Demps blocked a punt that went out the back of the endzone Sophomore Trey Burton found the endzone for five-yard score at the end of the second quarter, his first TD of the season – 12th rushing and 13th overall of his career At the 12:22 mark in the third quarter, the Gators’ Matt Elam and Marcus Roberson teamed up for a forced fumble (Elam) and fumble recovery (Roberson), firsts for both Elam and Roberson Sophomore Mike Gillislee ran for his ninth career touchdown – first of the season on a 13-yard scamper with 6:25 left in the third quarter Saturday’s game marked the Blazers’ season opener. The last time Florida played an opponent in Week 2 that didn’t play in Week 1 was in 2005 when Louisiana Tech opened the season at Florida after the Gators had already beaten Wyoming in their season opener. UF defeated Lousiana Tech, 41-3 Florida is now 37-15-3 all-time against teams currently in Conference USA In their second meeting all-time, the Gators take a 2-0 lead over the Blazers
Other Tonight’s Attendance: 87,473 Game Captains: Seniors Chris Rainey (RB), Jaye Howard (DT), Caleb Sturgis (K) and Jeff Demps (ATH) Weather at Kickoff: 88ºF, fair, winds from the ESE at 5 mph, 51 percent humidity In honor of 9/11, prior to kickoff, the Gators recognized a representative from the following First Responder Units: Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, Gainesville Fire Rescue, Gainesville Police Department, Marion County Sherriff’s Office, Alachua County Fire Rescue, FBI, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Florida Highway Patrol and University Police Department In the first timeout of the first quarter, 2011 Gator softball senior Kelsey Bruder was honored with the 2011 Honda Award for softball, designating her as the nation’s top collegiate athlete in the sport Between the first and second quarters, Florida’s men’s indoor track and field team was recognized for their back-to-back 2011 SEC and National titles At halftime, Florida’s gymnastics, men’s and women’s swimming and diving and women’s track and field All-Americans were honored Florida’s 2011 softball team was additionally honored at halftime for its fourth consecutive Women’s College World Series appearance after finishing the season as the national runners-up
2011 Florida Football Will Muschamp, Florida Head Coach Postgame Quotes Florida 39, UAB 0 September 10, 2011
Opening Statement: “Anytime you win it is a positive. To win 39-0 is very difficult. At any level of football, it is difficult to get a shutout. I’m proud of our defense, but you have to contribute a lot to our offense and how they performed in the second half. The defense created one turnover in the game, and the red zone offense was disappointing. We need to fix that. I thought we had some miscommunications defensively. We can’t afford to take two timeouts in the first half, especially heading into SEC play this week.
On 9-11 remembrances: “We decided to contribute to 9-11 [remembrance] this weekend. All those men that carried out flags have family members in the military. We’re proud of all those people. Nine-eleven affected us all in different ways. We wanted to pay respect to those people.”
On getting his first career shutout: “I told Dan Quinn on the sideline to enjoy the moment. It’s hard to get a shutout. I’ve been a coordinator for a long time, and in this day and age it’s very difficult to get a shutout. We start the SEC next week, and we’re looking forward to that. We’re excited to get into conference action.”
On controlling the clock: “I think that this was UAB’s first game of the season, so they went through their pre-game jitters tonight. I’m proud of being able to line up and be able to still run the ball. There will be games where we will have to slow the tempo down offensively to help our defense.”
On adversity faced throughout the game: We had some miscommunication in one series. We had some penalties that put us behind; we had too many penalties – especially on third downs. The penalties were disappointing. We can’t afford to have those. You can’t put yourself behind in those situations. We’re going to go back and make the corrections we need to make.”
On the wildcat package: “We install for the season. We game plan each week and do what we can to win the game. Each week we pull a package – offensively and defensively – to do what we can to win a game.”
On facing procedural issues: “We need to make sure we handle it, first of all. We had a couple of guys go down in drives, so the substitutions put us down in the play calling, especially when it came to calling personnel in. We had to make sure we had the right personnel in the game. We’re a personnel-driven team and that put us at a disadvantage.”
On Chris Rainey: “Since I’ve been here, I’ve watched a guy that is extremely competitive. He’s a great practice player. He is extremely electric with the ball in his hands and a lot of fun to watch. He does everything that you want a good football player to do in order to contribute to your football team. He’s done everything we’ve asked of him. He’s competitive, tough and has done everything we’ve asked of him.”
On Trey Burton: “I think you’ve seen him line up in the slots, full back and halfback. He’s good at protection, excellent at receiver – he allows us to get a bigger back on the field. He’s just a good player. Football comes easily to him. He gets it and understands it. We’re happy he’s a Gator.”
On John Brantley: “He played well and did what we asked of him on the offense.”
On the offense: “We slowed it down in the second half. I think Charlie Weis did a great job ironing the issues out. We moved the ball in the first half, but when we got in the red zone we broke down with just getting field goals. It’s disappointing. If they make a good play defensively, I can live with that, but when you shoot yourself in the foot, I can’t live with that.”
On Mike Gillislee: “He’s different than what we have. You look at Demps and Rainey – they’re both speed backs. Mike can give us a tough drive up the middle. We like to run with him. He’s a down hill runner. We like to run with him at this point.”
2011 Florida Football Florida Players Postgame Quotes Florida 39, UAB 0 September 10, 2011
Redshirt Senior QB John Brantley On the offense’s performance: “We had some communication problems. There is easy stuff that we just need to work on and clean up a little bit.”
On taking care of scoring opportunities: “It’s very important for me, not just for me, but for everybody. Everything was pretty clean besides the red zone. We’re going to work on that this week and clean it up.”
On preparing for Tennessee: “We have a tough opponent each year in Tennessee. We know that the SEC start is here and it’s really time to crank it up. You prepare every game like it’s for the championship. We get a lot more energized heading into SEC action for sure.”
On the defense and getting a shutout: “The defense did a great job. We started out slow with those first couple of field goals, but the defense did a great job with keeping us in the game.”
On making corrections: “You never walk out of the game knowing that you did every single thing right. You get feedback and go from there, make the corrections that you need to make.”
On Chris Rainey: “He’s matured a lot this year. I think knowing that this is his last season, he has to finish strong.”
Redshirt Senior RB Chris Rainey On having a successful start to the season: “I’m just doing my job, trying to score touchdowns for the team. I have to give a lot of credit to the offensive line and receivers.”
On outrunning the defense: “I play a racing game. That’s how I look at it.”
On his work ethic: “I’ve been working a lot more. I’ve been trying to cut real fast, run out on the cut and not slow down at that point.”
Redshirt Senior C Dan Wenger On starting as a Gator: “It’s just been amazing. I can’t say anything else other than that this team is just awesome.”
On what he was thinking when he found out he would start as a Gator: “I was a little nervous, obviously from having a year off. That was probably the biggest thing, just getting those first-game jitters out. Coming in here in the summer and getting the first start almost made me feel like a freshman or a first-time player stepping out on the field.”
On how he assesses the offensive line: “I think we’re doing pretty good. We are heading in the right direction. We obviously still have to work on things. We have a couple corrections to do before each game. We’ll watch the film and we’ll correct it, but we come out and we work hard every week and we try to eliminate the mistakes we’ve made in the past and try to keep on growing from each game.”
On helping his teammates understand Weis’ offense: “Absolutely, the summer was the biggest thing. That first week I came in, I felt like a freshman again trying to work my way around and meet the guys. Once we got out and did some work, I’d started helping them, coaching them up on some things, some minor details and the way Coach Weis would want things. Everyone just kind of listened and took my advice and my coaching, and we were able to make great strides this summer.”
Sophomore RB Trey Burton On adjusting to his new role and the team: “I just told Coach Muschamp like I told them last year that I wanted to play whatever. I can play what you let me play, and I’ll go anywhere on the field. Right now, Coach Weis just has me going all over the place.”
On how it felt to be back in the shotgun: “It felt real good, it felt like back in high school. I enjoy stuff like that.”
On SEC play: “I think these first two games helped prepare the younger guys for the SEC games. I just know as a team we are really excited to start SEC football, and it’s going to be fun.” 2011 Florida Football Neil Callaway, UAB Head Coach Postgame Quotes Florida 39, UAB 0 September 10, 2011
Opening statement: “I would like to congratulate the University of Florida for winning the football game pretty handily. Obviously disappointed in the outcome. Coming in, we knew we were playing a very talented football team, but there is no excuse for all the penalties offensively. No excuse for the miscues in the kicking game and we didn’t do a good job of tackling. Our defensive line got pushed around. We are young up there, but that is what we have. We are going to have to do better than that next week.”
On things he is pleased with: “In the first half there were signs of things. We had some goal line plays defensively, and offensively we made some plays. We had a couple of big plays, one was nullified by an illegal shift and then we fumbled another. Overall we are just a sloppy offensive football team, and you can’t win ballgames if you do that.”
On Chris Rainey: “He is a very good back. He is very elusive. He has tremendous speed and quickness and is hard to hem up. We worked hard on containing him but obviously it didn’t do much good.”
On being surprised on not tackling well: “I am surprised that we didn’t tackle better because we had done that very well in camp. I am not that surprised about our defensive line getting pushed around because I know we are young and inexperienced, but again we have to grow up. I thought it was good at the end that they just ran it down our throats. We got some good work, but we have to get better.”
On the offense: “We had four or five offsides, not sure, but that is inexcusable. There is no reason for offsides. There were a couple of holding calls also, but foolish penalties are what we have to stay away from.”
On missed opportunities: “We started of moving the ball pretty well. Then we stalled for whatever reason. The touchdown callback was huge. It was 13 to zero at the time and that would have made it 13 to 7, Again, good football teams don’t make mistakes like that.”
2011 Florida Football UAB Players Postgame Quotes Florida 39, UAB 0 September 10, 2011
Senior Safety Jamie Bender On the defensive performance: “We missed a lot of tackles. Us as a whole, we didn’t do a great job tackling.”
On being a senior on the team and moving forward: “[This game] is over now. We aren’t even thinking about it. Congratulations to Florida.”
Senior QB Bryan Ellis On the defense’s red zone performance: “Defense was holding them to field goals. When they get put in that situation, that’s really the best they can do.”
On missing RB Pat Shed: “He’s a big part of our offense, but that’s the game. That’s football. You are going to lose guys, and the next guys are going to step up. I think Greg Franklin and Dontavius Jackson and two freshmen, I think they played great. They stepped up.”
On refocusing for the home opener next week: “This game, obviously, you would like to win it, but it’s over, it’s in the past. We can still have an extremely successful season and achieve all of our goals but one, and that’s winning every game we play.”
Junior LB Marvin Burdette On UF’s running game: “They have two great backs. They made things happen defensively. They really showed up to play. I believe we showed up to play, but we have to work on the little things and the little things for us are tackling.”
On Chris Rainey: “He takes his running, cuts and angles to perfection. He is very elusive.”