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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- With a welt under his left eye and a
lump on his forehead, Jesse Palmer hardly looked like a quarterback
for No. 3 Florida.
|  | | Florida quarterback Jesse Palmer tied a school record by rushing for four touchdowns Saturday against Kentucky. |
He didn't resemble one on the field, either.
Palmer finally got into the Gators' record books Saturday,
although not the way anyone expected. He accounted for five
touchdowns, four of them rushing to tie a school record, as the
Gators beat Kentucky for the 14th straight time, 59-31.
"Now I can appreciate what the running backs go through," said
Palmer, who became only the fourth Gator to score four TDs on the
ground and the first since Fred Taylor.
Palmer wasn't the only one who looked whipped.
While the Gators (4-0, 2-0 SEC) took command with two touchdowns
off turnovers in a span of 49 seconds late in the first half, the
defense never could solve Kentucky and its 275-pound quarterback
Jared Lorenzen.
The Wildcats (2-2, 0-1) never led, but they never quit.
Lorenzen had his fourth straight 300-yard passing game, and Kentucky piled up 504 yards, the most by an SEC team
against the Gators since Steve Spurrier took over as coach in 1990.
"Even with as poor as we played on defense, without the
turnovers we're still in the game," Kentucky coach Hal Mumme said.
The Gators closed out the scoring with a 43-yard touchdown pass
from backup Rex Grossman to Jabar Gaffney with five seconds left, a
decision Spurrier defend.
"If there's 1:13 left, would that have been any nicer?" he
said. "They were blitzing every down. They were trying to run up
their stats, so we tried to run up ours -- because ours were
suffering."
Mumme didn't have a problem with the late score, especially with
it coming from a backup.
"If the situation were reversed, I'd have done the same
thing," he said.
Despite the late touchdown pass, and the performance by Lorenzen
-- 35-of-59 for 363 yards -- the shocker came from Palmer.
The senior from Canada scored on two 1-yard sneaks, an inside
bootleg from 14 yards and a quarterback scramble from 13 yards. He
also threw a 32-yard touchdown pass after the second of
back-to-back turnovers by Kentucky at the end of the first half.
The Gators needed them all.
"They hogged the ball and we struggled getting them off the
field," Spurrier said. "I was a little disappointed our inside
pressure wasn't better."
Kentucky held the ball for nearly two-thirds of the game, and
each team punted only once.
Earnest Graham scored on a 57-yard run and finished with 128
yards on 14 carries.
Artose Pinner had 125 yards for the Wildcats, but he also
fumbled twice. The Gators scored touchdowns off all four Kentucky
turnovers.
Palmer also had a good day throwing, 12-of-19 for 190 yards and
no interceptions. His 32-yard touchdown pass and a 44-yard pass to
Reche Caldwell were perfectly thrown.
"We kept saying, 'Let's go. We've got to score.' Their offense
was kind of marching on us," Palmer said. "But we knew if they
wanted to do a shootout, we could do it."
Desperate to match Florida touchdown-for-touchdown, Lorenzen
directed a 17-play, 76-yard scoring drive in which the Wildcats
twice converted on fourth down and three times on third down, the
last one an 8-yard TD pass to tight end Derek Smith.
That trimmed Florida's lead to 24-17 late in the first half, and
sent a strong message that the Wildcats would be tough to stop --
unless they stopped themselves.
That's just what happened, in a shocking turnaround that took
only 49 seconds.
After the Wildcats forced Florida to punt for the first time in
the game, they took over on their own 32 with 1:52 left and a
chance to go into halftime with a tie. But Lito Sheppard picked off
Lorenzen and returned it to the 16.
Palmer ran another inside bootleg to the 1 and scored on the
next play.
Spurrier said he thought about taking time off the clock, but
changed his mind and told one of his assistants, "Maybe we'll get
another turnover."
Sure enough, they did.
On Kentucky's next play from scrimmage, Alex Brown stripped the
ball from Pinner at the end of a run and recovered the fumble.
One play later, Palmer hit Kirk Wells for a 32-yard touchdown
pass for a 38-17 lead.
"It was the turning point in the game," Mumme said. "With a
team as good as Florida, you have to be able to hang in there with
them for the whole game."
They did on offense.
Lorenzen faced little pressure and hit a couple of 45-yard
passes to Quentin McCord to inside the 5-yard line. One set up a
short field goal that tied the game at 3, and the other let to Chad
Scott's 2-yard touchdown run.
He later threw two touchdown passes and also scored on a
5-yard run.
It was the second straight game in which the Gators' defense was
manhandles. They escaped Tennessee with a 27-23 victory on an
interception return by Sheppard and Palmer's late heroics -- passing
the ball, on that occasion.
"What did they have, 600 yards or something?" asked defensive
end Kenard Ellis. "That's terrible. We don't ever want to give
anyone 504 yards. We plan to play better."
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