MILLER REPORT: Are the Gators ready?

The Gators are off to Tuscaloosa to find themselves. Well, to at least find out who they really are. Are the Gators a team on the verge of returning to their rightful place among the football elite or are they just another mid-tier SEC team hoping to somehow win enough games to play on New Year’s Day? After Saturday all the speculation will be over. Good or bad, the Gator Nation will know the truth about their beloved team, the coaching staff and Jeff Driskel. There are no shadows to hide your flaws in Tuscaloosa.

It will take a solid performance and sixty minutes of nearly mistake free football to beat Alabama. If your receiver gets loose behind the Tide secondary, you cannot afford to overthrow him. It will take a near miracle to hold Alabama’s running game in check. If you manage to do that you cannot then give up a forty yard pass play with broken coverage. Those will things will get you beaten in Tuscaloosa, probably badly. Hopefully, Will Muschamp will fix the secondary issues.

Personally, I think that Alabama and Florida are very similar teams. Both teams have a great group of running backs. Both have one wide receiver that is carrying the bulk of their load in the passing game. Both teams have strong front sevens but are waiting for inexperienced talent in the secondary to catch up. The one very big difference is offensive line where Alabama appears to have a decided advantage, especially with DJ Humphries out for the Gators.

Obviously, the first priority is slowing down the Tide running game. TJ Yeldon and Derrick Henry make up a powerful one-two punch. They run behind a very good offensive line. It is important to get penetration and get a hit on these guys before they get all that power moving downfield. This is a little easier with Henry who doesn’t have quite the first step speed that Yeldon possesses. It is next to impossible to shut down the Alabama running game but you must find a way to slow it down. If they start ripping off five or six yards a carry they will wear down the Gator defense and pull away in the second half. This will almost certainly mean stacking eight or nine in the box and daring either Blake Sims or Jacob Coker to beat you through the air.

This means finding a way to keep Amari Cooper from making big plays downfield with man to man coverage. Cooper is a legitimate future NFL star wide receiver. However, much like the case with Demarcus Robinson. Cooper makes up a disproportionate amount of the Tide passing game. I would expect to see Vernon Hargreaves III on Cooper all day. Strength against strength. This will isolate other defensive backs against the other Tide receivers. They will need to respond to the challenge better than they did against Kentucky or this game could get ugly early.

On offense, Florida must prevent Alabama from doing the same things listed above against them. The offensive line must create holes to allow Matt Jones and Kelvin Taylor to get into the open field. If the Florida running game is ineffective and the Gators are forced into third and long situations it will be a long day for Jeff Driskel. Jeff must get off to a better start against Alabama than he did against Kentucky. There will not be the luxury of waiting for the game to come to him. He will need some help to accomplish that. The offensive MUST pass protect better. Receivers other than Robinson must get open and actually catch the ball when it gets to them. It would be nice to see Kurt Roper find a way to incorporate Andre Debose into the offense. There should be opportunities to make plays but they will likely be fewer and farther between than in the first two games. Florida must be able to take advantage of the opportunities when the do arise.

All in all, this game is expected to be a very difficult one for the Gators. Few people expect the Gators to win this one. However, Florida and Will Muschamp cannot really afford moral victories anymore. Muschamp needs a signature win to put his team back in the limelight. The Gators have become an afterthought on the college football shows and that cannot remain if you want to recruit with the elite programs on your schedule. A close, hard-fought loss Saturday would not be devastating for the Gator program but it will do little to help the Gators either. This Florida program is afforded an opportunity to make a statement in this game. Lose this game and future games will change from opportunities to must-wins and that is not where anyone associated with Florida wants to see it end up.