AUSTIN, Texas (AP) \u2014 Florida quarterback Tramell Jones Jr. threw two touchdowns to Lacota Dippre in his first career start, Jadan Baugh scored a fourth-quarter touchdown and the Gators rallied to beat No. 7 Texas 27-24 Saturday and hand the Longhorns their second consecutive loss.<\/p>\n
Florida (5-2, 3-2 Southeastern Conference) had risen as high as No. 8 after a 4-0 start under first-year coach Jon Sumrall before consecutive blowout losses, but delivered what could be a season-saving victory.<\/p>\n
The Gators earned the program\u2019s first road win at a top-10 opponent since 2012. After the game, some Florida players did the \u201cGator Chomp\u201d or flashed the upside down \u201chook\u2019em horns\u201d hand sign to their cheering fans as they left the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe kept fighting. We didn\u2019t do that the past couple of weeks, to be honest with you. When things got tough, we flinched the last couple weeks,\u201d Sumrall said. \u201cOur team grew today \u2026 because we fought.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Florida defense, ranked last the Southeastern Conference, shut down quarterback Arch Manning and the Longhorns offense, holding Texas (4-2, 1-2) under 300 yards. They sacked Manning five times and the last one by Myles Graham forced a fumble<\/a> on Texas\u2019 final possession.<\/p>\n Jones started in place of the injured Aaron Philo and after a slow start led a methodical Gators offense that rallied from a 17-3 deficit in the second quarter.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t take it any bigger than it was,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIt feels great, but this is just the start. It\u2019s not over.\u201d<\/p>\n His first touchdown pass<\/a> cut the Texas lead to 17-10 with 18 seconds left in second quarter. The second capped a 15-play drive that chewed up eight minutes of the third.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t play good football today. Kind of bled out,\u201d Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said. \u201cThey controlled the ball in the second half and our inability to convert on short yardage.\u201d<\/p>\n A 28-yard field goal by Patrick Durkin gave Florida its first lead before Baugh broke outside<\/a> for an 11-yard touchdown.<\/p>\n Texas quickly answered on Manning\u2019s 9-yard touchdown pass to Cam Coleman. That score came after Manning avoided a sack on a fourth down and found Emmett Mosley V for 62 yards to set up the TD pass.<\/p>\n Texas led 17-3 in the second quarter after Ryan Niblett returned a punt 63 yards for a touchdown, the third of his career.<\/p>\n The Takeaway<\/p>\n Florida: The Gators had looked awful on defense the previous two games but the unit was excellent against Texas after the first two drives. They limited Texas\u2019 big play receivers and allowed only one first down on the Longhorns\u2019 first three drives of the second half as the Gators took the lead.<\/p>\n Texas: The Longhorns have lots of problems. Manning struggled for the fourth consecutive game. The defense, one of the best in the country, gave up scoring drives of 15 and 14 plays in the second half. And star edge rusher Colin Simmons left the game in the fourth with an apparent ankle injury.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not great right now,\u201d Manning said. \u201cComing off two losses in a row, it stings.\u201d<\/p>\n Up next<\/p>\n Florida plays at No. 1 Georgia on Oct. 31.<\/p>\n Texas hosts No. 9 Mississippi on Oct. 24.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here<\/a>, visit the Top 25 here<\/a> and see AP\u2019s full college football coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas (AP) \u2014 Florida quarterback Tramell Jones Jr. threw two touchdowns to Lacota Dippre in his first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-469299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}