MIAMI _ Lamical Perine's Orange Bowl statement began with his first touch.
The Florida senior running back took a handoff from Kyle Trask, found a hole to his left, slipped past a Virginia defender and was off for a 61-yard touchdown 40 seconds into the final game of his Gators career. Fellow seniors Trevon Grimes and Josh Hammond were the first to greet him in the end zone.
He kept going from there.
Whether it was on the ground or through the air, Perine made his presence known. He ran for 138 yards on 13 carries, added another 43 receiving yards on five catches and scored three total touchdowns to lead the No. 9 Gators to a 36-28 win over 24th-ranked Virginia on Monday at Hard Rock Stadium.
Perine's other touchdowns were a 16-yard catch from Trask midway through the first quarter and a 10-yard rush with 2:13 left in the first half.
Just how special was Perine's outing? He now has two bowl games in his career with at least one rushing touchdown and one receiving touchdown after also doing so in the Peach Bowl last season.
Only one other Florida player has accomplished that feat in a bowl game over the past 20 years: Percy Harvin in the 2008 Capital One Bowl against Michigan.
Even more special for him and the Gators: The win closes the Gators' second season under coach Dan Mullen with an 11-2 record and consecutive wins in New Years Six bowl games after defeating Michigan in the Peach Bowl last year. Mullen is the first coach in UF history to win at least 10 games in each of his first two seasons.
It's the eighth time UF has hit that mark and the first time since the 2012 season under Will Muschamp that ended with a loss to the Sugar Bowl.
That 2012 team was a break away from competing for a national championship and failed to show up on the big stage.
This year's Florida team showed no signs of backing down.
The Gators racked up 549 yards of offense _ their third time in 13 games eclipsing the 500-yard threshold and 11 shy of their season-high of 560 against Vanderbilt. Trask completed 24 of 39 passes for 305 yards, one touchdown and one interception. He added a fourth-quarter rushing touchdown.
UF's seniors beyond Perine made an impact in their final game, too.
Van Jefferson caught six passes for 129 yards.
Freddie Swain caught three passes for 21 yards, but one went for 11 yards on a fourth and 8 in the second quarter. Perine scored his third touchdown of the game four plays later.
Jonathan Greenard, a graduate transfer from Louisville, had a strip sack in the third quarter to give him a team-best 9.5 sacks in his lone season at UF.
"To put themselves in this position, to be in a position to be better than we were last year, that's not easy to do," Mullen said in the leadup to the game. "We've had a good year. Obviously you want to finish it the right way and send everybody out, all our seniors out the right way."
But Virginia (9-5) put up a fight against the two-touchdown favorite Gators, with quarterback Bryce Perkins putting up big plays in big moments to keep the game competitive until the final minutes.
It started with a 34-yard touchdown to Terrell Jana one play after Trask threw his lone interception of the game.
Perkins followed it up on Virginia's next drive by breaking past the Gators' blitz, skipping over defensive lineman Zachary Carter, rolling to his right and throwing a jump pass to Hasise Dubois, who made an incredible grab in the end zone over Marco Wilson to tie the game at 14-14 with 14:53 left in the first half.
UF, however, scored 13 unanswered points to take a 27-14 lead into the fourth quarter.
Virginia closed the gap to one score twice in the final quarter, first with 13:05 left in the game on a 7-yard touchdown pass from Perkins to Joe Reed and again on a 1-yard pass to Dubois with 38 seconds left. Perkins finished with 323 passing yards, four touchdowns and one interception on 26-of-38 passing. He had just 24 rushing yards on 14 attempts.
In between, Florida marched 65 yards down the field on seven plays, capped by Trask's 1-yard rushing touchdown, that essentially put the game out of reach. Freshman Kaiir Elam, who started at cornerback opposite Marco Wilson, recorded his third interception of the season after Virginia made it inside the UF 5 with 5:11 left in the game. Evan McPherson kicked his third field goal of the game between the Cavaliers touchdowns, as well.
Perine, fittingly, made two big plays on the touchdown drive, gaining 2 yards an option pitch on fourth and 1 in UF territory and rumbling 23 yards down the left sideline before stepping out of bounds at the 1.
