This game went almost exactly as I expected.

I though Florida would win by about 14 points, and I thought that UT would threaten in the 4th quarter on an offensive miscue like a fumble by Florida. I figured UF would be extremely conservative, with Brantley throwing fewer than 30 passes and UF running more than 40 times. I was exactly right on that.

I know people are frustrated with the offense, and I knew they would be in the off season, because people had the unrealistic expectation that UF would be throwing the ball all over the field. But people need to understand UFs very real limitations:

#1 - John Brantley is not ready to throw the ball around 30-35 times a game and be expected to win games for Florida on a consistent basis.

#2 - The WRs on this team, while talented, are not world beaters. It's a solid group of guys from top to bottom, but there isn't that one guy that scares defenses, and more often than not, these guys are covered down field pretty effectively.

With these two issues, plus the fact that it was Brantley's FIRST SEC road start, it was easy to predict that Florida would be running way more than passing against Tennessee. And without the fumble 7 UT points, the strategy would have worked perfectly and UF would have blown UT out of the water.

I predicted before the game that turnovers and blown assignments would be the only way UT would keep it close, and I was 100% right. Both TD passes were blown coverages in the secondary, and the FG came on a short field after a 4th down stop. UT would have scored AGAIN after the PR fumble, but the UF defense stepped up and got that INT.

So UF gave up field position 3 times (downs, 2 FF) but they still managed to win the game, and that is mostly because of the defense. The defense was really awesome today. UT had 23 rushes for 29 yards, were sacked 6 times, and had 3 turnovers, 1 of which was a CRUCIAL stop in the red zone.

There were only 3 clearly bad plays all day. The 11 yard run by Tauren Poole where he broke 5 tackles. And the two blown coverages for TDs. (the last blown coverage on 4th down was PARTICULARLY terrible).

The 5-2 formation that UF used a lot of the day was devestating against the run, and gives me a lot of hope against Alabama that UF can at least slow them down a bit this year on the ground. UF has a lot of beef on that defensive line, and they have a creative blitz package that will cause havoc with every opponent UF plays. UF has some very tough games in October, but as long as the defense is mostly healthy, they should keep UF in every game they play, including the Alabama game in 2 weeks.

Leaders today:
Bostic - 8 tackles, 1 INT
Hicks - 6 tackles, 1.5 sacks
Je Jenkins - 6 tackles, 1 sack
Lemmens - 5 tackles, 1 sack

All in all, after a mediocre perfromance against USF, the LBs and the front 7 had a great day yesterday against UT.

Some things to think about going forward:

1. The slow first quarter/first half starts absolutely need to be addressed. When UF plays a good team like LSU or Alabama, they will find themselves in a big hole early if they cannot put up at least a few points to start the game. (Alabama had 300 yards of offense in the 1st quarter ALONE against Duke yesterday).

2. Special teams and defense for Florida look very strong this year. The only weakness that I can see is the PR game. UF is going to need good field position all year if they want to win games, so UF needs to work on the PR game.

3. The pass blocking this year has been really strong. If the line can just get some continuity and start run blocking better, you'll see UF's offense really take off. They just have to sort it out soon, because Alabama, LSU, and MSU all have top notch run defenses, and if UF doesn't have things sorted out, all 3 of those games could end up being extremely ugly.

4. I don't think Jeff Demps will survive much longer if he gets 26 carries per game. Gillislee and Moody combined for 13 carries. That should probably go up just a little bit because a healthy demps running 15 times on counters and sweeps is better than a tired, hurting Jeff Demps that runs 26 times per game, half of which are between the tackles for little or no gain.

5. That being said, I love the 2 back formations. I think we'll see a lot more of that going forward.

6. John Brantley needs to work on his deep throws down the field. He isn't very accurate over 15 yards down field right now, and that is limiting the offense.

7. UF needs Will Hill to have a good year in the secondary, so I hope he bounces back from what was a poor game in coverage. He did have 6 tackles and 1 FF, so he didn't have a terrible game, but he has decision making problems when it comes to his deep coverage responsibilities that need to be addressed. UF won't survive October with those kind of mistakes that he made in the 4th quarter.

All in all, I thought that this was a strong performance by a young team on the road, and I like that I continue to see improvement all over the field from game to game. UF has a tough test at home against a better-than-you-think Kentucky team that has some good skill players on offense this week, so lets see if the offense can show some good improvement this week before the big game @ Alabama.