Florida Football: 3 takeaways from gutsy win at South Carolina

Florida football went on the road and picked up a big win over a South Carolina team that upset Georgia a week ago. What’d we learn?

How do you bounce back from a 14-point road loss against a fellow SEC contender on the road? Well, you go on the road to beat a team that just took down another contender, and top-five team, in Athens a week ago. Florida took care of South Carolina on Saturday, 38-27.

The outcome seemed to be in doubt after the third quarter as South Carolina held a 20-17 lead, but Kyle Trask and the Gators never panicked, putting up 21 points in the fourth while holding the Gamecocks to just one more score. This was huge for Florida’s SEC title hopes, improving to 7-1 on the season and 4-1 in conference play.

What’d we learn from the Gators’ big road win?

3. Defense needs a bounce-back

Florida came into last week’s LSU game with one of the best defenses in the country, but allowed 42 points and a heck of a performance to Joe Burrow and even Clyde Edwards-Helaire.

The Gators looked to take advantage of a shaky quarterback position of South Carolina with Ryan Hilinski favoring a bad knee and they tried to make the Gamecocks one-dimensional. That didn’t quite work even though they held Hilinski in check for the most part as Tavien Feaster went off for 175 rushing yards.

While the Gators may still have one of the more talented defenses in the country, back-to-back shaky performances have opened some eyes and they now look beatable on that side of the ball.

Dan Mullen and the Gators need to figure out what’s going on in the bye week so they can come back against Georgia on Nov. 2 and get back to work.