Dooley: Game-winning drive may define season

It wasn't a game-winning drive and it started with a simple four-yard pass to Percy Harvin on a crossing route.

But when it was over, you knew.

Florida had put together the most important drive of its season.

In a battle between the last two national champions, you could feel the flip.

The Gators had dominated for almost the entire first half. They led 20-0 with less than a minute to play. When LSU took the ball at its 40-yard line, the Tigers had managed all of 65 yards of total offense. Their star tailback Charles Scott had been turned into an afterthought by the Gator defense. Florida's maligned offense had stormed out of the tunnel and through the LSU defenders.

But at the end of the first half and the start of the second, it flipped.

LSU scored twice and seemed to have figured out the Gator defense by throwing quick passes and using both quarterbacks Jarret Lee and Andrew Hatch. The touchdown at the end of the half was particularly deflating. When Hatch capped off the 80-yard drive with a three-yard touchdown run on the first drive of the second half, Florida was in trouble.

Big trouble.

You don't let the defending national champions back into a game without giving your fans some queasy stomachs.

Florida needed an answer to get the momentum flowing back the other way.

Then came The Drive.

It was 67 yards on eight wonderful plays. Tim Tebow picked up a big first down on third-and-3. Jeff Demps, who had another special game, got another with a seven-yard burst. And then it was Tebow throwing a laser to a streaking Louis Murphy down the east sideline to put the ball on the 2. On the next player, the defending Heisman Trophy winner made a sweet pirouette and ran untouched for the score, and the game was back in Florida's control.

Nobody could have foreseen what would happen the rest of the way with Florida ending up with half-a-hundred. But without that drive, who knows what might have happened?

They had to have it.

And on this night they would not be denied.

There will be no grousing this week about the offense (except for the decision up 41-14 to throw the ball which led to a turnover which led to an LSU score).

It was clear when the sun was still out that Florida got it, that the Gators understood what this game meant. When they arrived for the Gator Walk, a usually jovial part of Game Day for the players, they were stoic and focused. Tebow looked straight ahead, looking as if he heard nobody but family members, until he reached the inside of the stadium. There at row 32 in the north end zone, he let out a primal scream.

And judging by the way Florida played in the first quarter, to say the Gators were ready for this night would be like saying your 16-year old is ready for his first driving lesson. It was the most impressive start since the Ohio State game (without the kickoff return) and the Gators led 17-0.

It was exactly the start they needed.

But The Drive was this whole game.

It was Tebow and Harvin and Murphy and Demps but let's get this straight. The Florida offensive line played a huge part in the huge victory. I called those Gators out in the picks column Friday. I said they wouldn't be able to handle the monsters from the Bayou, and that's why LSU would win.

They proved me wrong.

They protected Tebow. They opened holes. All of Florida's speed and skill only works when the line plays the way it did on Saturday night.

Maybe this line, with what is essentially four new starters, found itself against LSU.

Maybe this team found its mojo, its swagger, whatever you want to call it.

Thanks to The Drive.