{"id":9389,"date":"2017-10-02T08:00:21","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T12:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosoncfb.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=9389"},"modified":"2025-09-13T16:02:57","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T20:02:57","slug":"florida-win-over-vanderbilt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2017\/10\/02\/florida-win-over-vanderbilt\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Takeaways From Florida Win Over Vanderbilt"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Florida Gators came into Saturday\u2019s game against the Vanderbilt Commodores with a lot of unanswered questions. How\u2019s the offense going to look with Luke Del Rio<\/a><\/strong> at quarterback? Is Malik Davis<\/a><\/strong> really Florida\u2019s best option at running back and is Florida\u2019s defense suspect? Most if not all of these questions were answered, and the Florida Gators came out on top against the Commodores. A lot of positives happened for\u00a0Florida as they put up\u00a038 points and 467 yards of total offense. Here are five takeaways from Florida win over Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n

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  1. \n

    Florida\u2019s rushing attack is their offense\u2019s bread and butter<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    For the second week in a row, the Florida Gators run game dominated one of the top rushing defenses in the country. Malik Davis and Lamical Perine<\/a><\/strong> ran the show Saturday night as the Florida Gators were running right through the Vanderbilt defense. Everybody knew Florida would continue to run the ball, but the Vandy defense didn\u2019t have an answer for the two running backs. It\u2019s pretty clear that the Florida offense\u2019s biggest strength is their running game. With Feleipe Franks<\/a><\/strong> back at quarterback, the running game must be successful if they want to take some pressure off their redshirt-freshman quarterback. The true freshman running back Davis has really shown out the past two weeks and could be a star in the making. Davis had 124 yards and two touchdowns on 17 carries against Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n

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    1. \n

      The offensive line continues to improve on a weekly basis<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      After having an ugly performance in the season against Michigan, the Florida offensive line has rebounded nicely and has improved little by little every game. While Vanderbilt defense did apply some pressure on the quarterbacks, they were only able to get one sack in the entire game. The Florida offensive line did a nice job of keeping a clean pocket for the quarterback and creating holes for the running backs. Brett Heggie<\/strong> and T.J. McCoy<\/strong> might have had their best games this season as he pushed the line of scrimmage forward. If the Florida offensive line can give Feleipe Franks a clean pocket, you could see more deep balls to Tyrie Cleveland<\/a>.<\/strong> You could also see more big runs from Malik Davis and Lamical Perine.<\/p>\n

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      1. \n

        Chauncey Gardner<\/a> is starting to become a big problem on defense<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        After having a great freshman season, Chauncey Gardner<\/strong> has become an issue for the Florida defense due to his poor tackling. The Outback Bowl MVP was expected to be a huge part of Florida\u2019s defense but he has not lived up to the expectations. Gardner continues to get bullied while trying to make a tackle. He was ran over by a Vanderbilt player at least two times in the game and didn\u2019t play a whole lot of coverage. He did play with a little more effort and tried to make a play but just couldn\u2019t. If Gardner continues to have issues tackling, the Florida coaching staff might have to pull him for the game. He\u2019s a great athlete with world class speed, but he needs to make tackles before\u00a0someone replaces him. He must show up for LSU before he loses his starting job.<\/p>\n

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        1. \n

          Florida needs to use the wildcat more often<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Kadarius Toney<\/a><\/strong> is Florida\u2019s most explosive offensive\u00a0player and is very dangerous with the ball in his hands. Head coach\u00a0Jim McElwain<\/strong> needs to get the ball in Toney\u2019s hands as much as possible because of his playmaking ability. And one of the best ways to do that is by using running the wildcat. By running the wildcat, Toney takes the snap at quarterback and runs with Mark Thompson<\/a><\/strong> as his lead blocker. When Florida ran it, it worked and Toney had some solid plays. He had three carries for 22 yards in the wildcat and always seemed to find big holes. Toney didn\u2019t do much at receiver as he only had one catch for five yards. Running more wildcats could help\u00a0get more involved\u00a0and take some pressure off Feleipe Franks.<\/p>\n

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          1. \n

            Florida had its best offensive performance this season<\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            For the first time this season, the Florida Gators had a nice tempo and moved the ball down field. It was easily their best offensive performance of the season. They did a great job running the ball and a pretty solid job throwing the ball. Luke Del Rio looked very comfortable to quarterback and the offense was constantly making plays. When Del Rio went down, Feleipe Franks came in and the Florida offense didn\u2019t lose a step. They continued to pick up first down and look smooth with solid tempo. The running game really helped the quarterbacks out and made life easy for them. The Gators actually looked pretty good on offense and they are capable of continuing to play well if they continue to run the ball well and get the ball in their playmaker\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

            Main Photo<\/p>\n

            \"\"<\/a>
            GAINESVILLE, FL – SEPTEMBER 30: Florida Gators running back Malik Davis (20) runs with the ball during the game between the Vanderbilt Commodores and the Florida Gators on September 30, 2017 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at Florida Field in Gainesville, Fl. (Photo by David Rosenblum\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            The Florida Gators came into Saturday\u2019s game against the Vanderbilt Commodores with a lot of unanswered questions. How\u2019s the offense going to look with Luke Del Rio at quarterback? Is Malik Davis really Florida\u2019s best option at running back and is Florida\u2019s defense suspect? Most if not all of these questions were answered, and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2113,"featured_media":9406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2330,1880,79,1977,244,1979,2006,245,2008,126,20,415,2331,96],"class_list":["post-9389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sec","tag-brett-heggie","tag-chauncey-gardner","tag-college-football","tag-feleipe-franks","tag-florida-gators","tag-kadarius-toney","tag-lamical-perine","tag-luke-del-rio","tag-malik-davis","tag-ncaa","tag-sec","tag-sec-east","tag-t-j-mccoy","tag-vanderbilt-commodores"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77907,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9389\/revisions\/77907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}