The fourth week of the Southeastern Conference football season turned out to be the final week of the season for Florida’s junior quarterback Jeff Driskel.
Driskel was lost for the season on the third series against Tennessee when he threw a pass that was intercepted by Devaun Swafford and returned 62 yards for a touchdown. But things got worse when Driskel didn’t get up off the ground and he motioned for the UF trainers.
“Jeff is as tough a kid as I’ve been around,” Florida coach Will Muschamp said. “When he looked to the sidelines and waved, I knew it was not good.”
It wasn’t good. Driskel broke his right leg and will have to undergo season-ending surgery.
“It’s sad,” senior H-back Trey Burton said. “I feel for him.”
“I hurt for him, hurt for us,” Muschamp said. “This is going to hurt us. Jeff’s a guy who’s won a lot of ballgames for us here. I’m disappointed for him.”
The task of finishing off the Tennessee game fell to redshirt junior Tyler Murphy, who had not thrown a pass in college. But he capped a 31-17 Florida win over Tennessee by going 8-for-14 for 134 yards and one touchdown. He also provided spark with his legs as he rushed for 84 yards and a touchdown.
“My hat’s off to him,’’ Muschamp said. “He took the circumstances and defied what you would think a lot of backup guys would do in that situation. He hung in there and didn’t just manage our team, he produced.
“He had great production in critical situations in the game. Again, a guy comes out in the third quarter — it’s one thing when you get thrust in there; another when you get a chance to think about it — and two drives right down the field and made some really good decisions in the throwing game.”
The Gators will now live or die with Murphy.
LSU’s win over Auburn in the rain in Baton Rouge was LSU’s 29th consecutive win in September, dating back to 2006 when the Tigers lost to Auburn. Still, it wasn’t satisfactory to LSU coach Les Miles.
“We took such a strong lead initially, but I just didn’t like how we finished. We certainly can play better, and offensively we can run the football and finish the game in a fashion that controls to the end,” said Miles.
LSU quarterback Zach Mettenberger shared his coach’s feeling.
“I’m disappointed because I know how good we can be,” said Mettenberger. “I know the potential of this offense and I want us to do better. At the same time, we’ve got some good things to look at from the film and it’s going to be a learning experience to look at it.”
“I think it was obvious in the beginning of the game we did not respond very well to the elements and to the crowd,” said Auburn coach Gus Malzahn. “We kind of found ourselves in a hole. I am proud of our team coming back in the second half. They came back and battled. We did make some mistakes. We have been talking about improving each practice and each game, and even though it hurts right now I think there were some good things out there that we could improve upon for the rest of the year.”
Arkansas dropped its first game of the season by blowing a 24-7 second half lead when Rutgers scored 21 unanswered points.
Defensive line coach Charlie Partridge talked about the feelings in the Arkansas dressing room after the loss.
“I’m encouraged because they’re hurt,” Partridge said. “I would have been disappointed if I saw anything else. Very quiet, very solemn. I think [this is] a group that wants to learn what went wrong, what do we have to do to fix it, and then get themselves ready to play Texas A&M.”
Missouri kept pace with LSU, Alabama and Ole Miss as the only teams with perfect records for the first month of the season so far. The Tigers went on the road and downed Indiana to go 4-0 after breaking away from a 14-14 second quarter tie to a 45-28 win.
“(I’m) just very pleased overall with the effort and competitiveness of our football team. I think we’re a better football team now than we were a few weeks ago and that’s good,” said Missouri coach Gary Pinkel.
“There are certainly things on each side of the ball that we can do to improve. We get that and I think they get it and I think they’re driven to get better. I think it was just a lot of good things. Like we do every week; these are the things we did good, these are the things we need to improve and we’ll get back to work on Tuesday.”
Around the rest of the SEC things went pretty much as expected although Colorado State gave Alabama a tough battle until the Crimson Tide pulled away late for a 31-6 win.