How another special teams gaffe impacted Florida football's loss at Kentucky

It's become a recurring theme for Florida football in the Billy Napier era. Eventually, something will come up on special teams that will impact the Florida Gators in a negative way. During Saturday's 33-14 against Kentucky, it occurred late in the first quarter.

UF was teetering, already down 10-0, when its defense forced a three-and-out at UK's 10-yard line. The Wildcats lined up to punt, but during the rush, Florida freshman defensive back Dijon Johnson was whistled for attempting to leap over the line. The 15-yard penalty resulted in a UK first down.

On the next play, Kentucky running back Ray Davis broke through for a 75-yard TD run, extending UK's lead to 16-0. "It's disappointing because we had a similar situation in last week's game," Napier said. "We covered it thoroughly throughout the week.

We actually sent a play in from last week's game to the SEC and talked about the exact rule and how it's interpreted. We showed the clip in the meeting. I think we just got a young player out there that made a poor decision, and he knows he made a mistake.

" Overall, Florida had another sloppy, undisciplined game on the road with 10 penalties for 86 yards. But that penalty stung the most. "I do think that was a pivotal moment in the game," Napier said.

"It's still a close game, we're off the field and going to get it at mid field on the short field for probably the first time the whole day and we put them back out there and they end up getting a touchdown on that possession. I think there's no question, huge play in the game. " Of course, Florida's defense could have handled the sudden change as well.

The Gators had issues all afternoon handling Davis, who rushed for a career-high 280 yards and scored all four of UK's TDs (three rushing, one receiving). "Football is football," Florida linebacker Shemar James said. "Unfortunately, things will happen throughout the game, and it was on us as a defense to get back on the field and get another stop, but unfortunately we couldn't do that.

So, I feel like that's up to me and my other linebacker to just get our defense ready and have them ready at all times. " .