Florida figured to need a perfect game to beat Nick Saban’s best Alabama team in years.
The Gators were anything but early on Saturday night and ultimately ran out of time during a narrow 52-46 loss to the unbeaten Crimson Tide during the SEC title game.
Dan Mullen’s squad was initially undone by third-down penalties, questionable coaching decisions and one too many miscues, falling into a hole against a team that had steamrolled the SEC all season.
The Gators, a 17-point underdog coming off a stunning home loss to LSU, rallied behind their high-scoring offense to push the top-ranked Tide during the final two minutes.
A 22-yard touchdown pass from Kyle Trask to Kyle Pitts, followed by a two-point conversion on a Trask run, cut Alabama’s lead to 52-46 with 2:07 remaining. But an onside kick by the UF ended up in the hands of Alabama star receiver DeVonta Smith along the Gators’ sideline to effectively end their upset bid.
Florida did get back the football with with 16 seconds left, but the Gators couldn’t go 91 yards and fell short of their first SEC title since 2008.
Alabama (11-0) won its seventh conference crown since then by holding off Florida’s furious second-half charge behind record-setting performances from quarterback Mac Jones and tailback Najee Harris, along with another stellar night from Smith.
Jones outdueled Trask, UF’s signal caller and a fellow Heisman candidate. Jones, a junior from Jacksonville, Fla., finished with a championship game record 418 passing yards to go with five touchdowns on 33-of-43 passing. Trask responded with 408 yards and three scores.
Jones gave the Tide just enough cushion with a 15-yard scoring toss with 4:59 to star receiver DeVonta Smith — his second touchdown on a night when he totaled 15 catches for 184 yards.
Incredibly, Harris had an even bigger night than Smith, scoring a game-record five touchdowns and totaling 245 yards from scrimmage — 178 rushing — as Alabama finished with 605 total yards.
Trask and the Gators could not keep pace, but they did enough to keep the Tide on edge all night.
With his team trailing 35-17 to open the second, Trask quickly found Trevon Grimes for a 50-yard touchdown pass.
After it yielded touchdowns on all five first-half possessions by Alabama, the Gators’ much-maligned defense made consecutive third-down stops on tackles by senior safety Brad Stewart.
Following Stewart’s second stop, the Gators drove 80 yards on 12 plays to cut the lead to 35-31. Trask even impersonated Tim Tebow — the last UF quarterback to beat Alabama — on the touchdown drive. Trask followed a 4-yard run for a first down in the red zone with a 6-yard run to set up Nay’Quan Wright’s 3-yard scoring run.
But UF (8-3) effectively lost its shot to slip past the Crimson Tide due to a sloppy, mistake-filled first half.
Officials flagged Florida’s defense for offsides, a personal foul and 12 men on the field on third down on three separate Alabama touchdown drives.
Even when Florida’s defense did force a turnover Saturday night, the Gators gave it right back to the Tide to squander a rare chance to slow down an offense averaging an SEC-leading 49.2 points.
UF safety Trey Dean fumbled after making an interception deep in Gators territory when Alabama receiver John Metchie tackled Dean from the blindside and 'Bama recovered the loose football. Jones found Smith for a 31-yard touchdown on the next play.
“We’ve had some chances to make stops defensively,” Mullen told CBS at halftime. “We’ve gotten off the field a bunch of times, but just stopped ourselves. That’s disappointing.
“You can’t give an offense like that five extra opportunities, that’s not going to happen.”
