ORLANDO — It was often sloppy. There were moments of inconsistency. There were several breakdowns in discipline. But at the end of the day, college football was back.
The Florida Gators withstood a deluge of penalties on a late fourth quarter Miami drive to hold off the ‘Canes, 24-20, at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Fla., on Saturday night.
With 1:30 remaining, Miami had just lost 20 yards on two penalties and had three plays for minus yardage on their final drive. Faced with 4th-and-34 on their own 36-yard line, redshirt freshman quarterback Jarren Williams dropped back to pass. As he was looking for speedster Jeff Thomas up the left sideline, Florida defensive back Marco Wilson grabbed Thomas to keep the drive alive.
Three plays later, Florida’s Trey Dean interfered with Mike Harley to give Miami new life again, this time on the Gator 36-yard line. However, Florida’s defensive front saved the day as senior linebacker Jonathan Greenard recorded Florida’s tenth sack of the evening which allowed the epic definition of survival to happen.
“That was exhausting,” Florida coach Dan Mullen said. “I’ll tell you what, though. I really loved the way that our guys continued to battle, continued to compete, continued to try to find a way to win for the entire four quarters, you know.”
Hit the Sack: Jabari Zuniga is a key leader on a Florida defensive front seven that is considered one of the best in the nation. The Gators took advantage of Miami freshmen tackles John Campbell, Jr. and Zion Nelson to collect those 10 sacks as nine different Gators had at least a piece of a sack.
Linebacker Ventrell Miller had two, while Zuniga, Jonathan Greenard and Trey Dean had one-and-a-half each.
“Obviously, it was a sloppy game,” Greenard said. “We’re at the beginning of the season. We got a lot of things to fix and correct, but that doesn’t take away from the time on this team and the drive that we have on this team.”
Greenard, a transfer from Louisville, came back to Camping World Stadium where he played his last game as a Cardinal. It came in last season’s opening loss to Alabama, as he suffered a knee injury that shelved him for the season.
“I was real nervous, very overwhelmed at the beginning of the game,” Greenard said. “I just prayed. My mom prayed for me. I had a lot of my friends and a good support system.
Looking the Part: Miami redshirt freshman Jarren Williams showed that he could be that quarterback the Hurricanes have been searching for the last few years. Despite getting pummeled with those 10 sacks, he finished 19-of-29 for 214 yards and a touchdown toss.
“I mean, you probably can’t put a guy in a more adverse situation than in this stadium,” said Miami head coach Manny Diaz, who debuted Saturday evening. “The amazing atmosphere from both sets of fans, you know, their defensive front, which we knew was really good. Jarren never really blinked.”
Williams’ biggest highlight of the game came when he scored on a 50-yard run late in the third quarter to give the Hurricanes a 20-17 lead.
“A lot of time he didn’t have a lot of time and I thought he just played with a little bit of courage, you know, made some plays with his feet, scrambled to throw to keep this some things alive,” Diaz said. “I think you can see why we picked him to be our guy.”
Frank-ly Speaking: Overall, Florida quarterback Feleipe Franks had an inconsistent night as he was still plagued with mistakes, but made a couple of big plays in the passing game to make a difference for the Gators.
He hit wide receiver Josh Hammond with a 65-yard pass to the Miami 15-yard line midway through the fourth quarter. That set up his 3-yard touchdown run three plays later which gave Florida it’s 24-20 lead and eventual win.
“One of the things I kept seeing from him is, even if things didn’t go right, if we made a mistake, he came right back firing,” Mullen said. “There wasn’t a hesitation. There wasn’t concern or lack of confidence in him in what he was going to do. And I was really pleased in that.”
Franks threw a touchdown pass to Kadarius Toney on a wide receiver screen early in the game that was a catch-and-run and that went for 66 yards. He later hit running back Lamical Perine on an eight-yard pass with 30 seconds left before the fourth quarter to give the Gators a 17-13 advantage after three.
“It was a little sloppy game – week one, but that’s why we have bye weeks for,” Franks said. “We’re going to get those things corrected and just come out here the next couple weeks, and play good ball and play a lot more cleaner, and there’s a lot of things that we can get cleaned up offensively and defensively.”
Franks threw an interception late in the fourth quarter when no one was around Miami’s Romeo Finley, who picked off the pass to set up the dramatic Hurricanes’ final drive, but they came up short.