Vanderbilt-Florida recap: The good, the bad, the ugly

If I'd told you before Saturday's game in the Swamp that one of the teams would have seven tackles for loss including four sacks and the other team would have one tackle for loss and no sacks, is there any question who would have what?

No. But Vanderbilt's defense came to play. That's the good, and let's recap most of it.

THE GOOD

• The VU defense: Let's say it again: seven tackles for loss and four sacks (Benoist, Stone, Foster/Fugger, Brannon).
• And we held the Gators to 4-13 on third down conversions.
• And surrendering only one touchdown drive of more than 35 yards.
• The VU offensive line: This unit is missing both of the tackles who started the season (and our two best O-linemen). Still, no sacks allowed and we consistently started drives with runs of three and four yards. Ryan Seymour played a great game because we never noticed him out there, which means he had no penalties and wasn't getting burned by the likes of Dunlap and Cunningham.
• The front seven: We put pressure on Tebow and we hold them to 148 yards rushing on 37 carries, about 100 yards below their average.
• Warren Norman: True freshman had 170 total yards on 19 touches.
• Eddie Foster: True freshman started at cornerback; he's supposedly our fastest player and he looked the part on Saturday night.
• Few penalties: We had two for 15 yards, while Florida had nine for 68 yards, but zero eye gougings.

THE BAD
• Turnovers: Two of Florida's three touchdowns resulted from Vandy gaffes, including a Mac Adams pick.
• Our passing game: Yes, Florida probably has the nation's best secondary. But playmakers make plays, and our receivers are not playmakers. Our O-line gave Mac enough protection and he did a good job of getting his passes off quickly and hitting Brandon Barden. But we lack big, fast, physical receivers. You know, like the ones Florida has. Just like in the South Carolina game, the obvious difference between the two teams was that our opponent had playmakers at receiver and tight ends that ran and caught like NFL receivers.
• We lost. Let's face it: Florida is a winner and all they these days is win. I don't think Urban Meyer gives a rip about stats or points as long as he wins and feels like he's improving to the point where he can beat Alabama and Texas when he finally faces them in the inevitable big pressure games. He did not want to crush Vanderbilt. He ran a vanilla game plan because he knew he would win, and so he did. He has a great defense and he knew we couldn't score on it, so he didn't need to score a million points on us like Georgia Tech did.

THE UGLY
• Upson's inadvertent kneeling on the punt was an absolute killer. It gift-wrapped a touchdown for a Gators offense that was having trouble scoring against us. And, if stats mean anything to you, it meant we finished with 27 carries for 99 yards instead of 26 carries for 113 yards.