Gators Squeeze Life Out Of Volunteers Florida Spreads Hugs Around After Wrapping Up Fifth Straight Victory Over Tennessee
A few minutes after Florida finished hounding Peyton Manning, the Gators started hugging each other.
“We’re all huggin’ in the locker room because it was a crucial game for us,” coach Steve Spurrier said after No. 3 Florida continued its dominance over No. 4 Tennessee with a 33-20 victory Saturday at steamy Florida Field.
“We got about three, four or five games a year that are huggers and this was one of them.”
The biggest hug went to safety Tony George, who stepped in front of one of Manning’s passes and returned it 89 yards for a touchdown with 15 seconds left in the first quarter.
His score put the Gators ahead 14-0 and the Vols never recovered as Doug Johnson threw three TD passes, Jacquez Green had eight catches for 185 yards and a TD and Fred Taylor ran for 134 yards.
Manning, without time to drop back and throw deep, could not overcome the obstacles.
“I needed to play well for us to win the game, and I didn’t,” Manning said after completing 29 of 51 passes for 353 yards and three touchdowns with two interceptions. “I apologize for that. You hate to lose. I probably hate to lose more then I like to win.”
The Gators, playing before a raucous record crowd of 85,714, beat the Volunteers for the fifth consecutive time and improved their record at “The Swamp” to 44-2 under Spurrier. They also extended their SEC winning streak to 23 games.
The Gators (3-0, 1-0 SEC) once again find themselves in a familiar situation - in control of the SEC East and still alive for a second straight national title. Coming up are “hugger” games against LSU, Auburn and Florida State.
And once again, the Vols (2-1, 0-1 SEC) are in the same sad situation - looking up at the Gators. And then there’s Vols coach Phil Fulmer, who is 0-5 against Florida and 45-5 against everyone else.
“It’s very frustrating,” Fulmer said. “I think our kids thought we were going to play well enough to win. We handled the crowd very well. We just didn’t make the plays. They did.”
Johnson, making his third start, handled the pressure of a big-game situation just like his predecessor, Danny Wuerffel. Johnson, a 6-foot-2, 212-pound sophomore, completed 14 of 32 passes for 261 yards, with two of his TDs coming in the first half as the Gators built a 20-7 lead. All three of his TDs came on third-down plays.
He led them on two second-half drives that resulted in field goals of 37 and 42 yards by Collins Cooper before hooking up with Taras Ross on a 30-yard TD pass with 6:23 left that put the Gators ahead 33-14.
In the first half, Johnson had TD passes of 11 yards to Jamie Richardson and 19 yards to Green.
Manning is 0-3 against the Gators despite passing for more than 1,100 yards and nine TDs in those games.