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Gator bait Grossman throws for 375 yards, 3 TDs in 49-14 rout
Updated: Sunday September 02, 2001 8:54 AM
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- Rex Grossman looked like the right choice at quarterback, and Florida put on an opening-night show worthy of its No. 1 ranking. Grossman set his career high by halftime and finished with 375 yards passing Saturday night to lift the Gators to a 49-14 victory against undermanned Marshall. Florida's sophomore quarterback, who won the job against Brock Berlin this offseason, threw for three touchdowns and Earnest Graham scored three times as the Gators improved to 12-0 in openers under Steve Spurrier. "It was a good throw-and-catch night for our guys," Spurrier said. "Rex threw the ball well, and the receivers caught pretty doggone well." No opening-day opponent in recent times has come to Florida with the pedigree of the Thundering Herd, the four-time defending Mid-American Conference champions. But through a dominating first half, the Gators made Marshall look just like -- or sometimes worse than -- all the Ball States, Citadels and Southwestern Louisianas who have rolled into The Swamp, hoping for an opening-day upset. Somebody asked Marshall head coach Bob Pruett -- the former Gators defensive coordinator -- if he thought that was the best team he would see this year. "I hope so," Pruett said. "They might be the best team anybody sees all year long." It wasn't all because of Grossman. Pass-rush specialist Alex Brown, who chose to stay for his senior season, had two sacks, as did Andra Davis, the senior linebacker who missed last year with a knee injury. "It felt great to finally be out on the field with my teammates for the real thing," Davis said. Playing almost exclusively with seven defensive backs, Florida confused quarterback Byron Leftwich and forced Marshall to pick and poke its way downfield to little avail. Marshall's only big play came in the third quarter, when Leftwich hit Darius Watts for a 62-yard score that cut the deficit to 35-6. Leftwich finished 27-for-43 for 274 yards -- stats largely padded during garbage time in the second half. Marshall played without two starters -- running back Franklin Wallace and nose tackle Marlan Hicks -- and two key reserves, as the Herd learned of several NCAA suspensions Thursday. The suspensions, for improperly receiving extra benefits, may have demoralized Marshall, but with the way Florida played, it was doubtful four players would have made a difference. "We're not going to use that as an excuse," Pruett said. "It certainly was a distraction. We spent very few minutes working on football the last few days." Grossman looked like the right choice for the quarterback position, completing 20 of 30 passes, and deciphering Marshall's soft zones for big chunks of yardage. His favorite receiver last year, Jabar Gaffney, caught five passes for 102 yards, but the biggest completions went to other receivers. Midway through the second quarter, Grossman looked helpless as Marshall linebacker Max Yates chased him toward the sideline on a fourth-and-5. But the quarterback found Robert Gillespie streaking across the field, hit him in stride, then watched Gillespie break two tackles for a 27-yard score that made it 28-0. Late in the first half, Grossman spotted Taylor Jacobs running downfield through a broken coverage. They connected, and when Jacobs outran Yancey Satterwhite to the corner of the end zone, Grossman had surpassed his career passing record (334 yards vs. Vanderbilt last year). "I think we executed incredibly well in the first quarter," Grossman said. "I said going into this game that I was going to play with as few mistakes as possible, and did pretty good at that tonight." He entered the second half 119 yards short of Danny Wuerffel's Florida yardage record for a game, but the Gators bogged down. Spurrier spiked his headset to the ground in the third quarter when Grossman missed a wide-open Aaron Walker for what could have been an easy touchdown. On the next play, however, Grossman and Walker connected on the same play for 11 yards. Three plays later, Graham had his third touchdown. Despite the second-half slowdown, this was a much more convincing opener for Florida than the last three years, when teams like Ball State and Western Michigan rolled up big chunks of yardage and kept things competitive well into the third quarter.
"We were fired up for Ball State and those guys, we just didn't play as well," Spurrier said. "The efficency in those games just wasn't as good."
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