I am not afraid to admit that I was legitimately scared of USF pulling the upset on Florida this week, especially after the horrendous performance on offense in week 1 against Miami Ohio. I knew that USF would be sky high, and although I felt that UF would show improvement, I didn't know if it would be enough to handle USF's early intensity.

Well, I was right to be worried. Florida came out on its first possession and really looked uncomfortable, while USF came out prepared to slay the Giant. Florida hung in there with some decent defense and just enough offense to keep the field tilted against USF. Once UF finally got in the endzone, the floodgates opened, and UF looked much more comfortable playing with a lead in the 2nd half after Demps' big run.

So here is what I took from the game:

First - Florida is not a first half team right now. An interesting stat at ESPN shows that in 2 games, UF has 635 yards of offense (#92 in the country) and 460 of those yards (73%) have come in the 2nd half. I think this is happening for 2 reasons right now.

1. UF is FAR more comfortable playing with a lead.
2. Brantley and the rest of the offense seem to need a few series to hit their stride.

One mitigating factor in these stats is that both games had events that disrupted the offense. The Miami game had the bad snaps, and then USF had a 10 minute first quarter drive that probably killed the offensive energy, just standing there on the sideline watching.

Second - The Florida LBs are not playing extremely well. They are fast and talented, but they are missing tackles at the point of attack. Many of USFs big plays were because of missed tackles by the Lbs. When the score was 7-7, Murray had a big run for USF where he hit the hole, and Bostic was waiting for him, but then just whiffed badly on the tackle. Murray rumbled 33 yards, and if not for an unforced fumble at the UF 12 yard line, USF probably would have scored again. Who knows how that would have effected the game. Instead, UF recovered the fumble and scored 3 plays later to make it 14-7, and UF didn't look back after that.

There were at least 3 missed tackles in the first drive that hurt Florida as well. So, if UF wants to win more than they lose in the SEC, they'll have to clean that up, because teams in the SEC will eat them up with YAC if they don't fix that.

Third - UF may have one of the best secondaries in the entire country. Even with Hill out, and Jeremy Brown not playing in the 2nd half, UF DESTROYED USF's passing game. Janoris Jenkins and Ahmad Black are 2 of the best DBs in the entire country, and that allows the younger guys (shaw, elam, watkins, and riggs) to play with a lot more confidence because they know that if they make a mistake, Black can clean it up.

Black by the way, leads the team for the 2nd straight week in tackles, and now has 20 tackles and 3 INT.

Josh Evans has also played pretty well. He hasn't made any big mistakes and he is much faster than I thought. He provides UF with a solid option at FS, and has looked pretty good when he slides down into man coverage.

When Will Hill comes back though, this unit could really be unreal. Jeremy Brown needs to stay healthy though.

Final - You can see that this Gator team is a work in progress. 4 new coaches are working to try to find a groove with a bunch of new players. UF still has a number of starters out as well, and that has also effected the development of both the offense and the defense.

One thing is for sure: this team will rely a lot more on the freshman class than I originally thought.