The Florida Gators (8-5) took down the Tulane Green Wave (9-5) 33-8 to win the Gasparilla Bowl. The Gators cap off their season with four straight wins and their first bowl win since 2019 in front of a crowd that was virtually all orange and blue.
On that note, here is the final stock report of the season. See who got one last boost and who took one last hit before the focus shifts to 2025.
It was the final game of his collegiate career, and he made it count. Dike made six catches for 96 yards. He accounted for nearly a third of Lagway’s 305 passing yards in the game.
Dike finished his Gators tenure with a career-high 783 receiving yards in a season and a career-high of 18.6 yards per reception. He now heads to the NFL Draft, and now we await where he ends up come the end of April.
This isn’t a category you get to do often. This might be the lone time. But too many records and career firsts happened in the game to leave this out.
First, we start of with kicker Trey Smack, who set a Gasparilla Bowl record with four field goals in the game. Quarterback DJ Lagway set a Gasparilla Bowl record with his 305 passing yards en route to earning the game’s MVP award.
Some notable firsts on the scoresheet include touchdowns by KD Daniels and Anthony Rubio. Myles Graham and Alfonzo Allen Jr. each had their first career interceptions. And Desmond Watson had a legacy game that included his first career carry – which got him his first career first down. Speaking of Watson…
Nobody is ever gonna forget this man. He might not have been the MVP on record, but he will forever be one in the hearts of the Gator Nation.
From stiff-arming Spencer Rattler to turning Ty Thompson into Simba, Watson never missed a highlight moment. He finished his Gators career with 63 total tackles, one pass defended, one and a half sacks and one legendary fumble recovery.
The penalties got out of control at one point for this team. Early in the game, they had 35 penalty yards when Tulane still only had 39 total yards on offense. Not sure if that counts as a knock on Florida or Tulane. Either way, finishing with nine penalties for a loss of 95 yards is not acceptable.
Napier had to call a timeout because they only had 10 players on the field and Bryce Lovett had to knock over a coach to get to on the line for one of Smack’s field goals.
“We were sloppy early. Obviously, red zone struggles. A few too many penalties. We had a lot of different pieces in different spots. I think overall we know – we played pretty good defense, created some takeaways.”
That’s going to need to be a focus this offseason. This has been a long-standing issue, even with the improvements on special teams.
Smack set a field goal record for a reason. The Gators went to the half up only 6-0 for a reason. This team took a long time to get going in the red zone. Lagway’s second interception was thrown into the end zone which Tulane got a touchback on.
Had Tulane come with it’s full roster, maybe Florida suffers the consequences. But toward the end of the game, they were still able to run up the score.
