The SEC announced Monday that three Florida Gators players and one Tennessee Volunteers player will be suspended for half of their next game after an on-field brawl during Florida’s 29-16 upset victory Saturday.
Offensive linemen Damieon George Jr. and Micah Mazzccua and tight end Dante Zanders were suspended for Florida, while defensive lineman Omarr Norman-Lott was suspended for Tennessee.
Florida plays Charlotte on Saturday, while Tennessee plays UTSA the same day.The fight took place as Florida tried to run out the clock.
Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel called a surprise timeout with nine seconds left, and on the next play, Florida quarterback Graham Mertz ran into the backfield before taking a knee .
As he fell, he was hit by Tennessee’s Omari Thomas. The Florida players didn’t like the contact and a fight broke out, with the teams throwing punches.However, Thomas was not punished for the contact.
Heupel justified the bizarre timeout by pointing out that he was trying to catch the ball for a touchdown and then catch it again offsides as Florida faced a fourth-down fumble.
“I don’t know if you’ll have enough time during an onside kick and maybe have a chance to recover,” he told reporters. “You try to finish and compete the right way.
Obviously at the end, when that happened, we wouldn’t have been able to have a full series of plays to try to get back to the end zone.
Then, instead of scoring when he got the ball back, Tennessee quarterback Joe Milton took a knee, ending the game.
Heupel also defended his players and how they responded to the time on their knees.“Do we want to remain calm in this situation and in all situations? Absolutely,” he told reporters.
“Their guy is dancing and you have to deal with him.”Thomas said the volunteers thought Mertz was teasing them by running into the field.
“We expect you to take the ball, step back and get on your knees,” he told Adam Sparks of the Knoxville News Sentinel Monday at the Knoxville Quarterback Club.
“But as soon as we see you dancing back there with the ball, we consider it a sort of disrespectful because you could easily kneel there.”
