Florida Football: Gators defense might outscore offense this year

Florida football doesn’t have a great offense. Could the Gator defense register more touchdowns than the offense this season?

Florida did not play last weekend. Their game against Northern Colorado was canceled as a result of Hurricane Irma. Because of that, the Gators only have the Michigan game and the Tennessee game under their belts. Two games isn’t a very large sample size, but the offensive struggles and defensive dominance have typified this program in every year of Jim McElwain’s tenure at the school.

Florida has scored three touchdowns in 2017. All three of them were scored by the defense. The offense has yet to find the endzone. It doesn’t help that quarterback Feleipe Franks has been handicapped by suspended starters, but it does raise an interesting question: can the defense out-score the offense?

Against Michigan, Duke Dawson returned a Wilton Speight interception 48 yards for a touchdown. CJ Henderson had a 41 yard interception return of his own in the same quarter. On Saturday against Tennessee Henderson found the endzone one more time. He picked off Vols quarterback Quinten Dormady and walked easily into the endzone to give Florida a 13-3 lead.

So close, but still no offensive touchdown for Florida

The offense came close to getting on the board in the fourth quarter of this game. Malik Davis burst away from the field with a pack of Vols in pursuit. He ran 74 yards and came within a few feet of the endzone where he was stripped of the football. The ball bounced harmlessly out of the endzone for a touchback. No offensive touchdown for Florida.

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Part of this was written tongue in cheek, but if that near offensive score doesn’t indicate some sort of bad luck, I don’t know what will. The Gator offense will find the endzone at some point, probably, but the defense is going to have to carry this team either way.