By JOEDY McCREARY
AP Sports Writer
ACHING GATORS: With injuries mounting and a big Southeastern Conference game looming, No. 11 Florida took it easy this week.
The Gators practiced in shorts Monday and Tuesday, hardly what they have grown accustomed to under coach Urban Meyer.
“We have to get healthy and rested,” Meyer said as his team prepared for Saturday’s game at No. 10 LSU.
The Gators had seven offensive players sidelined or banged up last week against Mississippi State. Quarterback Chris Leak missed most of practice leading up to the game and received a cortisone shot before leaving the locker room Saturday.
Center Mike Degory played despite a sprained knee ligament. Running back DeShawn Wynn played, but only because freshman Kestahn Moore fumbled twice in the first half. Wynn had missed the whole week of practice with a shoulder injury.
The receiver position was even more afflicted.
Andre Caldwell is out for the season with a broken leg. Jemalle Cornelius missed Saturday’s game with a sprained ankle. Starters Chad Jackson (knee) and Dallas Baker (leg cramps) left the game briefly but returned and practiced this week.
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The last coach to lead Alabama into the top five says the current Crimson Tide share one important quality with his 1999 Southeastern Conference champions – a strong running game.
“Based on what I’ve seen, if they continue to play at the level they’re playing at … especially running the football the way they do offensively, they’ll be a difficult team to beat,” former coach Mike DuBose said of the present No. 6 Crimson Tide.
DuBose knows how important running back Kenneth Darby is to today’s Tide. DuBose, with Shaun Alexander leading the SEC in rushing in ’99, helped Alabama briefly return to national prominence before the program spiraled into despair.
Five years later, and both the exiled coach and the Tide are back.
DuBose is coaching college football again, coordinating the defense at Millsaps College, a tiny Division III school in Jackson.
Meanwhile, Alabama is once again among the sport’s elite.
The Mike Shula-led Crimson Tide (5-0, 3-0 SEC) will defend their highest national ranking since the DuBose era when they play Mississippi in Oxford, some 180 miles north of their ex-coach’s new home.
“I haven’t followed them closely, because I’ve been trying to win here (at Millsaps), but I’m very excited for Mike and his staff and the football program,” DuBose said. “I told people back in the summer that he was doing a great job, and if they gave him enough time and gave him the things he needed to do the job, he would do a wonderful job, and I think he is.”
DuBose was the SEC’s coach of the year at Alabama in ’99, but he was forced out a year later in disgrace amid a sexual harassment complaint, an NCAA investigation and a miserable season in which the Crimson Tide plummeted from a No. 3 preseason ranking to a 3-8 finish.
This year, after five wins to start the season, the Alabama program Bear Bryant built is on the brink of returning to the top five and maybe even playing in its sixth SEC championship game.
DuBose coached the last time the Tide reached, and won, the SEC title game, when they beat Florida 34-7 in 1999.
That was Alabama’s second victory over the Gators that season. The Tide also won 40-39 in Gainesville.
The Tide announced their return to national prominence with a 31-3 rout of the Gators two weeks ago behind three touchdown passes from Brodie Croyle, one of a number of fifth-year seniors recruited in 2000 by DuBose before his dismissal.
“It’s special to see them doing well. That’s the reason they went there – they went there to compete for championships,” DuBose said. “And, obviously, if they continue to play the way they’ve been playing, they’re going to have a chance to compete for a championship.”
DuBose downplayed further comparisons between the Alabama teams of today and yesterday.
“Each team is a little bit different, the program is different and the teams they’re playing are a little bit different,” DuBose said.
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WHOOPS: Four turnovers during a seven-snap stretch in the second half doomed Kentucky in its last game.
Kentucky trailed 24-16 late in the third quarter when tailback Rafael Little fumbled and South Carolina’s Lance Laury recovered. Kentucky got the football back via an interception, but on the Wildcats’ next offensive play, Little fumbled again, and South Carolina’s Ko Simpson returned it 19 yards for a touchdown.
On Kentucky’s next snap, Little’s backup, Arliss Beach, fumbled and Stoney Woodson recovered for the Gamecocks. Again, Kentucky’s defense held, but four plays after the Wildcats regained possession, Simpson intercepted Andre Woodson and returned it to the Kentucky 14, setting up a South Carolina touchdown.
The Gamecocks eventually won 44-16.
Kentucky’s Rich Brooks, in his 21st season as a college head coach, said he’d never seen such a run of turnovers.
“Not that many in a row,” he said. “That’s unbelievable that we turned it over in four straight possessions. We did it with chances to get back in the hunt and get back in the game.”
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OPTIMISTIC DOGS: Mississippi State is winless in four SEC games and are coming off a three-week stretch in which three top-15 teams outscored them 95-26.
So why isn’t anybody panicking in Starkville?
“We’ve got a new season,” quarterback Omarr Conner said. “That’s how we look at it. We just have to start something new and hope we can put a smile on some people’s faces.”
Incredibly, Mississippi State (2-4, 0-4) can still dream about the postseason because its schedule is much more manageable the rest of the way.
Only two of the Bulldogs’ remaining opponents – Houston and Alabama – have winning records. Their other games are at Kentucky and Arkansas and against Ole Miss at home to end the season. Mississippi State needs to close the season with four victories to qualify for its first bowl since 2000.
The Bulldogs first four SEC opponents were Auburn, Florida, Georgia and LSU.