No. 13 UF stunned in the Swamp by USF

GAINESVILLE — Another early season no-show in the Swamp by the Gators.

Another season on the brink for Florida coach Billy Napier.

A week after UF was virtually flawless against an overmatched FCS foe, the No. 13 Gators fell apart Saturday night during an 18-16 loss to unranked USF that put Napier back in familiar spot — behind the 8-ball and on the hot seat.

A 20-yard field goal by USF sophomore Nico Gramatica silenced a sellout crowd of 89,909 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and sent the Gators (1-1) reeling before the season has even started — and will get only tougher.

“There’s no excuse here,” he said about his latest stunning loss at UF. “I’m not here to make excuses.”

When a 17.5-point home favorite doesn’t score even 17.5 points, there are problems.

Having been through it during each of his three previous season, Napier — now 20-20 at UF — said he’s prepared for an upcoming cacophony of criticism.

“We created it. We deserve it,” he said. “If you play football like that, you’re going to get criticized.”

Napier and the Gators will have to block out the noise while addressing a laundry list of concerns. If Florida cannot find some answers quickly, a season filled with high expectations could end up in free-fall.

Next up is one of the toughest four-game stretches over five weeks in program history, beginning with trips to No. 3 LSU Saturday and No. 5 Miami on Sept. 20. After a Sept. 27 bye week, the Gators host No. 6 Texas Oct. 4 followed by a trip to Texas A&M.

The Gators will have to improve in every way to have a chance against any of them.

“We can do much better. We can coach better. We can play better.” Napier said. “We have to do much better.”

Facing a Group of Five program visiting one of college football’s toughest environments, Napier’s Gators could not finish drives, committed costly penalties and struggled to get the Bulls offense off the field.

“I don’t want to discredit South Florida,” Napier said. “Give them some credit for hanging around and finding a way to win the game.”

Florida could do no wrong in Week 1.

Napier’s team didn’t commit a penalty during a 55-0 trouncing of Long Island University. But against USF (2-0), UF had 11 for 103 yards, including two costly flags on the game-winning drive. Starting from their 11-yard line, the Bulls went 87 yards in eight plays to earn their first win in five meetings with the state’s flagship university.

A second-down pass interference on Dijon Johnson first cost UF 13 yards. On the next play, officials flagged Baylor transfer defensive tackle Brendan Bett 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct after he spit on USF offensive lineman Cole Skinner.

“He made a mistake there,” UF QB DJ Lagway said. “That doesn’t identify his character at all. He’s such a nice guy. He was in there crying and stuff like that, feeling bad, talking to the coaches, talking to the players, and apologizing for it.”

On the next play, Alvon Isaac, a sophomore from Hawthorne just east of Gainesville, took a screen pass from quarterback Byrum Brown 29 yards to the Gators’ 39. A 12-yard completion to sophomore Joshua Port of Sebring put the Bulls well within Gramatica’s range.

USF picked up 18 more yards on four plays to set up a chip shot for Gramatica. The son of the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers kicker Martin Gramatica came up several yards short from 58 yards with 2:52 remaining and USF going for the upset win.

The Gators, though, ran just 27 seconds off the clock. A third-down incompletion by Lagway throwing to true freshman Vernell Brown III of Orlando forced UF to punt to the Bulls with 2:25 remaining.

“We got ourselves into a good play,” Napier said. “We had a chance on third down to put the game away basically.”

Things had begun to look bleak when the third quarter ended with the Gators trailing 15-9. The “Won’t Back Down” tradition played before the fourth quarter rang hollow for a Florida team at that point on its heels.

But the Gators and the Swamp soon came alive.

Fresh off a breakout performance in his debut, Brown III again ignited his team and sellout crowd, this time with a 40-yard punt return that ended with a shove in the back out of bounds from USF punter Chase Leon to tack on another 15 yards to the USF 24.

Three runs totaling 16 yards by sophomore tailback Jadan Baugh set up Lagway’s 4-yard scoring pass to Tre Wilson, a Tampa native once recruited by USF.

UF promptly forced a three-and-out with a second-down pass break-up by Aaron Chiles and third-down tackle in the flat by Myles Graham.

The Bulls, though, did not fade away after stunning Group of Five heavyweight Boise State 34-7 last week in Tampa.

Florida did not make the key plays on a night when Lagway was so-so, going 23 of 33 for 222 yards with a touchdown and an interception.

“Got to make the plays when I need to make the plays and when my guys are counting on me,” he said. “So I put all that on me.”

Meanwhile, the Gators defense could not contain Brown, who finished with 263 passing yards — including a 66-yard touchdown to Keshaun Singleton for a 13-9 lead — and 66 rushing yards on 17 carries.

Four of UF’s seven second-half possessions ended in punts, another with an interception, another with a USF safety and only one with a touchdown, when Lagway found Wilson to give UF a 16-15 lead with 12:29 remaining.

But the Gators could not hold on to their slim lead to prevent another inexplicable loss for Napier and tough scene in the team’s locker room.

“We were definitely heartbroken, sad, mad,” Lagway said. “We could have played a lot better. We left a lot of points on the drawing board.”

Edgar Thompson can be reached at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com

Click here to read article