Saturday, 4 a.m.
So what's all of this talk about the Auburn defense?
Frankly, Florida's defense was better Saturday as the 10th-ranked Gators beat the Tigers, 24-13, to remain unbeaten at 6-0.
The Gators held the high-powered Tigers to 269 total. yards, and they intercepted freshman Bo Nix three times in the victory. Lamical Perine clinched the game with an 88-yard touchdown run with 9:04 to play.
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Florida quarterback Kyle Trask hit 19 of 31 passes for 234 yards, playing despite spraining an MCL in his left knee. Perine rushed for 130 yards, and receiver Freddie Swain caught six passes for 146 yards.
Trask said his knee felt good after the game, but that it would probably worsen overnight.
"To be honest. this is like a dream come true," Trask said. "I’m so proud of our defense. I couldn’t be more proud of this team.
One of the Gators' biggest plays came early in the fourth period, however. Auburn was threatening to take the lead when Donovan Stiner intercepted a pass in the end zone.
"Everyone coming into the game said Auburn's going to dominate both lines of scrimmages," Gators' coach Dan Mullen said. "Their great players made some great plays but it's hard to look at the stat line and say they dominated the line of scrimmage."
The Gators travel to LSU Saturday night at 8 p.m.
USF 48, UConn 22: Call it the return of the runner.
The Bulls rediscovered their ground game Saturday against UConn, rolling for 313 yards against the Huskies in a rare victory. USF had lost nine of its previous 10 games.
I keep saying it – we have a good football team," said USF coach Charlie Strong." It’s all about them just playing with confidence, coming together and believing in themselves. I told them that we (had) some guys down, but the thing about it is other guys can step up.
“What we wanted to do is establish the run and we were able to go run the football today.”
“Teams that win and teams that are successful, you’ve gotta get a running game going. You can throw for as many yards as you’d like to, but if you can’t run the football and you can’t score and be physical at the point of attack, you’re not gonna win.”
Also lost during that stretch was the running game, which was led Saturday by Jordan Cronkrite's 148 yards rushing. Cronkrite had been very good early last season with five 100-yard days in his first six games. After six games last year, he had 860 yards; he ended up with 260 in his last six.
But the Bulls were determined to run the ball behind freshman quarterback Jordan McCloud. McCloud threw for 157 yards and ran for 62 more.
USF scored the game's first 14 points. It was 27-14 at the half, but USF scored 21 straight to run away.
USF is home against Brigham Young on Saturday at 3:30 p.m.
Virginia Tech 42, Miami 35: A lot of yards. A lot of points.
And another defeat.
No, the University of Miami isn't back. Perhaps you could say they're blech.
The Hurricanes fell behind 21-0 after one quarter and 28-0 in the second. They went on to lose to a Virginia Tech team that has had its own problems this season.
Dalton Keene caught three touchdown passes for the Hokies.
Quarterback N'Kosi Perry came off the bench to throw for 422 yards and four touchdowns for Miami. But his final two passes were knocked away in the end zone.
The Hokies intercepted four passes, recovered a fumble and sacked Miami quarterbacks seven times.The Hurricanes fell to 2-3.
Miami did have decent receiving. Brevin Jordan caught seven passes for 136 yards, and Jeff Thomas caught six for 124 yards.
Miami plays Virginia at home Friday night.
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