Somewhere, amidst the din of The Swamp, there had to be room for a little pity. It wasn’t just a heartbreaking 29-26 last-second loss for No. 7 Utah to unranked Florida on Saturday night, it was something akin to football torture.
It would be fair to say that college football has had its way with the Pac-12 lately. When they weren’t losing teams, in week 1, they just lost. It happened twice in different and painful ways on the first real Saturday of the season. It has happened to the Pac-12 in many ways over the years.
The Gators appear to have found a new quarterback (Anthony Richardson) and coach (Billy Napier) for a new age in their upset of the Utes, but the Pac-12 spent Saturday finding new ways to become irrelevant early.
We already know that the guts were surgically removed from the Conference of Champions this summer when USC and UCLA decided to move to the Big Ten in two years. Then their top two remaining teams lost to SEC opponents within hours of each other, possibly eliminating the Pac-12 from the College Football Playoff race before Labor Day.
No. 3 Georgia upset No. 11 Oregon in former defensive coordinator Dan Lanning’s debut with the Ducks on Saturday afternoon in Atlanta. The Bulldogs scored on their first seven possessions in a 49-3 victory. Utah then lost with 17 seconds left when Florida fifth-year linebacker Amari Burney intercepted Cameron Rising in the end zone with the game on the line.
Utah is an emerging national power that needed something like a win in The Swamp to give it that street cred. Last season ended with a similar loss against Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. Shutting down is not good enough, especially in Year 18 under Kyle Whittingham.
Credit the Pac-12: This slump has not only been long but creative. Saturday’s results moved the Pac-12 to 1-8 against SEC teams in season openers over the past 11 years. Pac-12 teams were ranked in seven of those eight losses.
The league has gone seven years without a team in the College Football Playoff. We already know that the conference will never be the same without its flagship programs in Los Angeles, if it remains a conference in the future.
Let’s go back to that lunch and that swamp. It revealed a tale of two trajectories. Utah and its league were on a downward trend. Richardson, wearing the number 15 of one Tim Tebow, provided some magic. He scored a career-high three rushing touchdowns, escaped pressure for a thrilling 2-point conversion in the fourth quarter and led off the game-winning drive. Richardson, a hometown product of Gainesville, Fla., who made his first career start in The Swamp, has the wheels (104 yards rushing) and the arm (168 yards passing) to honor that No. 15.
Napier has become normal when the Gators desperately needed normal. Dan Mullen’s wild train has given way to a uniform approach that was reflected in Florida’s comeback. The Gators were trailed four times by a team that was a legitimate playoff contender. Napier (and Richardson) then made all the right moves (and throws).
Remember when Napier was allegedly not recruiting well enough in the middle of the summer? He was ripped for writing an open letter to fans that had actually been composed a month earlier but landed flat when the Gators passed on a pair of commitments.
Note to recruitniks: Everything will be fine. In fact, that might be the team’s catchphrase right now. Napier “bounced back” on the recruiting trail to push Florida into a top-10 class prior to the start of the season. The Gators continued their rebound in The Swamp, the only place that counts right now, with Napier becoming the first Florida coach to beat a ranked opponent in his first game with the program. Wait until you see what it does for recruiting.
With their highest ranking to start a season, doing so as the reigning Pac-12 champions, favored Utah was at Florida’s 6-yard line with the game, and perhaps their season, on the line. Rising fell back and Burney dropped into cover.
It wasn’t clear if Rising had anyone open, but tonight it was clear that, at least for Florida, everything was going to be fine. The Gators will likely go to Kentucky next week ranked after finishing 38th in total voting in the AP preseason Top 25.
Meanwhile, the Utes will embark on a long flight home unsure of what happened, what’s next, or when the torture will end.