Spivey Senses: Digging deep into Florida Gators “embarrassing” win

Where to start in talking about the Florida Gators 31-24 win over East Carolina on Saturday, because, let’s face it, a lot happened during the game. A game which, at times, felt like Florida was on the losing end of things.

There were some good things in the game and then some not so good things like 12 penalties, one of which was a very dumb unsportsmanlike penalty on Kelvin Taylor for a throat slashing gesture after scoring a touchdown.

Most fans will remember that play because of the way Jim McElwain reacted to Taylor on the sideline were he “lit” into him with some choice words, but this is where I see a coach that is establishing his brand and a disciplined football team.

This Florida Gators football team has been one of the most penalized programs in the country the last few years and that’s something that McElwain is desperately trying to change in his first year as head coach.

Everyone in the country knew that Florida would have more than one penalty, like they did last weekend, but the dumb penalties that were committed on Saturday were a lack of discipline and that’s something that McElwain will not stand for.

McElwain called the game an embarrassment to the university and the administration at Florida and that, to me, was his way of setting the tone for what the program will look like under him. That’s a team that is disciplined and doesn’t embarrass themselves with silly penalties on the field.

I expect next week’s practices to be tough and to be a wake up call to a lot of veterans who are used to being able to make dumb penalties without consequences.

Penalties were a major issue in the game but the offensive woes were bad as well and the offense looked like an offense that was in training camp mode. There were several things that factored into the offensive struggles.

The first is the merry-go-round at the quarterback position with the two-quarterback system. While I support and understand McElwain’s philosophy of why he’s doing this, I think it’s time to settle on one guy and let him win the job or lose the job.

I say that because neither quarterback is ever truly able to get in a rhythm, which threw off the rest of the offense on Saturday night. Yes, that can be seen as an excuse for the offense, it’s also reality from my point of view.

So, you ask, who should be the quarterback? Well, therein lies  the biggest issue, because neither quarterback has set the world on fire and both do things well, while also struggle with other things.

I’m not a politician, so I won’t weasel out of the question, and I’ll answer by saying that right now I would start Will Grier because he throws the ball better, has more touch on his passes and he reads the defense better, from what I’ve been able to see from two games.

Grier believes in his game and his ability to thread the needle, which does get him in trouble sometimes, but for the most part, he does a better job in the pocket while also being able to escape the pocket when need be.

This is not to say that Treon Harris isn’t a good quarterback or to say that he did anything to drop him down, but it’s more of his ability as a quarterback and ability to read the defense.

Harris is and has been a one-read and run guy and that’s not a fit for McElwain’s offense. Furthermore, with the offensive line struggles, Harris needs to be able to step up in the pocket, something that he hasn’t shown he can do.

Now that I’ve hit on the quarterback position, I have to move to the offensive line, which was knowingly going to be a weak spot for this team, but getting no push against ECU is concerning in a big way.

There are some bright spots on the line and that was evident on Saturday night when most of the positive runs came when the Gators were running behind the left side of the line, which was behind David Sharpe and Trip Thurman most of the game.

Right now those two guys are the Gators best blockers followed by Antonio Riles, who had a let down from the New Mexico State game, but still, all-in-all, had a decent game.

Moving forward McElwain and offensive line coach Mike Summers have got to find a way to get five guys on the field that move the point of impact onto the defensive side of the ball rather than the offensive backfield.

Florida should get Martez Ivey back next week and it remains to be seen if he will be at left tackle or right tackle, but one positive thing for me is that he will be at one tackle spot and Sharpe at the other which frees up Halter to move inside.

All of the above issues are personnel issues but there was one play calling issue that I found very noticeable on Saturday and I wish I could my figure out why it happened but I can’t.

That issue is the lack of outside running from the Gators receivers that was very evident and was shown a lot last Saturday night against New Mexico State.

The outside running puts less pressure on the offensive line, while also giving your playmaker the ball in open space to make plays.

That brings me to my next point in that McElwain has said over and over again that he wants to get the ball to his playmakers as much as he can but the Gators duo of Antonio Callaway and Brandon Powell touched the ball just four times during the game and all of those touches came from Powell.

My thinking is that McElwain and offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier would love for that number to be much higher and will look to those guys much more in the coming weeks.

While Powell and Callaway didn’t touch the ball much on Saturday two guys touched ball quite a bit and make plays happen when they were targets and those guys were receiver Demarcus Robinson and tight end DeAndre Goolsby.

Goolsby had two really good wheel routes that resulted in big plays and Robinson stepped up to haul in five very important passes, including one touchdown and another one that was called back by a phantom pass interference call on Jake McGee — that myself and McElwain are still looking for answers on.

If I haven’t bored you enough with the offensive side of the ball let me take you to the defensive side of the ball where there were a lot of good things with just a few bad things mixed in.

First issue is that Florida missed Alex Anzalone a ton on Saturday night and if his shoulder injury keeps him out for a long period of time then the Gators may have some trouble at the position.

The trouble will come in the passing game where Anzalone is your best cover linebacker. That showed  on Saturday night when ECU picked the Gators’ linebackers apart in the middle of the field with the underneath routes.

Morrison is a very good linebacker, but he will be the first to tell you that he’s not as athletic as Anzalone, and that lack of athleticism showed up on Saturday night.

The other weak spot for the Gators right now is at the safety position, where Florida hopes to have Keanu Neal back next week and it will be a welcomed addition back there to team up with Marcus Maye — who returned from suspension on Saturday night.

Neal is an athletic safety who is the leader of the defense but he’s also a sure tackler and a guy that makes plays in space. That’s something that was missing on Saturday night against ECU.

The bright spots on the defensive side of the ball are the defensive line, who got good pressure and penetration on Saturday night and the cornerbacks who stepped up to fill the hole created by Vernon Hargreaves missing the game due to a leg injury.

Digging in a little further to the defensive line, Jonathan Bullard moved back inside to defensive tackle at times on Saturday night and shined at the position as he was able to get pressure on his own, plus he was able to open up some space for Alex McCalister who had a solid game after returning from suspension.

All in all I thought the defense did well and certainly helped the Gators win this football game.

To close out this column I want to just state a few things that are becoming clearer to me. One of those is that Jim McElwain is a fine head coach who is going to be very successful at Florida and he isn’t going to change his philosophy or his way of running a program to win one game or have one successful season. He’s looking at the long-term future of this program and he’s setting the standards from day one.

The final thing that I have to say is that McElwain has surrounded himself with some good football coaches who have made tremendous strides with this football team. I can say that this football team is a much better place than it was a year ago.

As McElwain said, ECU is in the rear view so let’s move onto the Kentucky Wildcats.

 

Andrew Spivey
Andrew always knew he wanted to be involved with sports in some capacity. He began by coaching high school football for six years before deciding to pursue a career in journalism. While coaching, he was a part of two state semifinal teams in the state of Alabama. Given his past coaching experience, he figured covering recruiting would be a perfect fit. He began his career as an intern for Rivals.com, covering University of Florida football recruiting. After interning with Rivals for six months, he joined the Gator Country family as a recruiting analyst. Andrew enjoys spending his free time on the golf course and watching his beloved Atlanta Braves. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewSpiveyGC.

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