Playing defense and special teams at the University of Florida from 2000-2003 gave Keiwan Ratliff the best seat in the house to watch Steve Spurrier’s fun-n-gun offense for two years. After finishing a record-setting career at Florida, Ratliff played in the NFL for the Cincinnati Bengals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Indianapolis Colts and Pittsburgh Steelers before returning to Florida to begin coaching.
Gator Country recently caught up with Ratliff in Bradenton, Florida for the IMG 7-on-7 championships and Ratliff expressed his delight that Florida was moving back to a spread offense under Kurt Roper.
What makes his opinion valued — more than just playing for the Gators — is Ratliff’s involvement in the high school ranks, coaching some of the top talent in the state.
It’s simple in Ratliff’s mind. Florida has a valued commodity, one that most people say can’t be taught — and the move to a spread offense will take advantage of that.
“First and foremost, I believe that the state of Florida is the fastest state as far as recruiting goes,” Ratliff said. “That being said, I think it’s kind of hard not to run that spread, up-tempo, fast offense with all the recruits you have in the state.”
He’s right. You can argue that Florida — for whatever reason — doesn’t produce the best offensive linemen. The state will put out one or two every recruiting cycle but most Florida schools have to go out-of-state to find their offensive linemen. You can even argue that more states produce better passers as well. Florida signed Will Grier (North Carolina) the last recruiting cycle and has another signal caller, Sheriron Jones (California), pledged to the 2015 cycle.
But Florida does produce speed. It’s something that Spurrier began to take advantage of at Florida, getting speedy wide receivers to heave the ball all over the field. Urban Meyer took that idea and injected it with steroids. He came to Florida and simply stated that he wanted to field the fastest team in the country and that’s what he did. You can teach big kids of to pass block, teach linebacker proper tackling technique and even re-tool a quarterbacks’ throwing motion.
You cannot, however, teach the blazing speed that Florida is overflowing with.
That is why there is so much excitement surrounding the hire of Kurt Roper. Coaches and people around college football have called this Muschamp’s best hire since he’s been at Florida and they might be right if Roper can take advantage of Florida’s most abundant recruiting resource, speed.
“Having Roper come in and being able to spread it out and get those one-on-one matchups in space, I think it will help our offense tremendously,” Ratliff said.
The first part is getting those in state playmakers on Campus, something Roper was able to do in a short time after being hired and something that a good offensive showing will continue to do in the future.
“I’m looking at a guy right now and a guy that loves that move in George Campbell; a guy like a Ray-Ray McCloud, those type of recruits. They see that offense spread around and all these guys are going to the Ohio State’s, the Clemson’s, the Oregon’s and to the Florida State’s,” said Ratliff. “They’re going to those schools that are spreading the ball around and getting the ball to their playmakers. In college football, just like the NFL, just like Pop-Warner, it’s a copycat league. The spread is what’s hot right now so all of these kids want to play in what’s hot and that’s the spread, up-tempo.”
A defensive player, Ratliff naturally loves what Muschamp has been able to do defensively at Florida. Ratliff enjoys watching the defense, one he considers (and rightly so) to be one of the premier defensive units in the country. He expressed his confidence in the defense and the entire defensive coaching staff, even though, in his opinion, the offensive philosophy was out of touch.
The hire of Kurt Roper changed that in his mind.
“I just think our offensive philosophy was a little contradictory to what we have in the state as far as the speed and he [Muschamp] wanted to be a power team,” Ratliff said. “Now, the speed I think will help put more points on the board, let our defense play with a lead and I think we’ll be lights out.”
Ratliff has remained a Great Gator! I wish more of the Alumni would get involved to help get the program back to the top. Where is Tim?
Working for the SEC Network this fall.
Ratliff is a great spokesperson for the team and he has helped them off the field with his 7-on-7 team.
All the guys are not going to the wide open offenses. I think Alabama has as good a set of skill players as anyone in the country and they continue to lure the best. They already have one of the best receivers from the state this year and have Amari Cooper from Miami and Derrick Henry from Yulee on their roster. Cooper may be the best receiver in the country. FSU runs a pro-set as well. It doesn’t matter what system you run, if you are successful running ti, the best players will come. It wasn’t the pro-set offense Muschamp ran that was the reason for the offensive failure, it was the inability of the players to execute it. It begins with the quarterback. It doesn’t matter the style of offense. If you have a good quarterback, you have a chance. If not, it’s very hard to be successful with any offensive scheme. The NFL will find you if you are a good player, it doesn’t matter what kind of offense you’re in.
You make a number of valid point to support your argument and I almost completely agree with you. But the one caveat to consider is this…the system in place can be an asset or detrimental to a team if it does not befit the type of player a program is recruiting. In the case of Jeff Driskell he was known to be a top echelon dual threat QB, and he was asked to fundamental change what made him an attractive commodity for various football programs throughout the country. I personally believe with the acquisition of Roper, he will finally be able to use his skill set to its full potential. And quite frankly anyone who can make Duke look like an offensive juggernaut, despite the lack of talent in comparison to what Florida has at its disposal can’t be called anything short of a miracle worker. I truly look forward the Gators ascending back to its rightful place as a national powerhouse in the very near future.