It was amazing, John Brantley completed his first pass of the night to Andre Debose for a 65 yard touchdown.  This was the start we needed. This was what would give Brantley the confidence he needed to have a monster game and dissect the Alabama defense. This was Brantley’s coming out party.  This was….nothing like I expected after that first play.  Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t like I thought we were going to crush Alabama, it was just that I believed it was going to be a good game and we were going to hang in there.

Unfortunately, we did hang in there, but only until our senior quarterback got injured and had to leave the game.  At that moment our ship’s sail was just deflated. Yes the score was 24 – 10 and we were down by two touchdowns, but Brantley had just driven down the field right before the end of the half and put his team in scoring position.  We had some great momentum. Then our offensive line made a couple of mistakes, which in return caused Brantley to be sacked two times in a row, one of them, causing his leg to bend awkwardly underneath his body and forcing him not to return to the game.  This is where the night ended, even though our defense still gave us a chance.

It was apparent, Brantley wouldn’t be returning and the game would be turned over to the Gators Freshman quarterback, Jeff Driskell.  In high school this guy was a phenom. He was the number one rated quarterback by Rivals.  He threw for a million yards and touchdowns. He was everything a team wanted. However on this night, he was just a freshman boy playing against a defense full of men and there was nothing he could do.  The Florida defense came out of the second half on fire. They were dominating the front line of the Crimson Tide and stopped their offensive drives on the first three series of the third quarter. They held Alabama to zero points in the quarter. But there is no way our defense was going to keep that effort up if they couldn’t get a break. Driskell tried to lead the offense, but he himself couldn’t muster anything other than two consecutive three and outs and one series where he ran for a 31-yard scramble, but produced nothing else. It was clear; Driskell was not ready for this top ranked defense and who could blame him. Alabama was vicious. They held the Gators to 15 total yards rushing.

Overall the final score does not give any insight to how this game played out.  The Gators star quarterback got injured and after that, it wasn’t much of a game. IT would have been a different story if our line could have protected Brantley a little more. This would have been a better game and much closer towards the end.

Next week will be telling for Jeff Driskell. He will probably start against the number 1 rated defense in the nation in LSU. Driskell better get prepared for them, because he will be coming into Death Valley trying to get a win in one of the most hostile environments in all of College Football.