Florida’s defense didn’t quite live up to expectations in Saturday’s season-opening victory. The Gators allowed 21 points and nearly 400 yards of offense to FAU.
Defensive coordinator Brad White spoke to the media Tuesday morning to discuss where things went wrong.
“That was not the standard and the bar that we want to set for to how to play defense around here,” White said. “When you watch the tape, it wasn’t an effort thing; it was an awareness thing and understanding football and basic football IQ.”
FAU has one of the fastest offenses in the country, and Florida struggled to handle its tempo. The pace of play caused issues with communication and aggression.
“The No. 1 goal we talked about was embracing the tempo. We knew that was going to be high pace. We knew it was going to be different than expected, and I think in a significant portion of the game, we did not do a good enough job. We let it get to us and dictate how we played as players,” White said.
Prior to the game, White preached to his team the importance of emptying the tank on every play rather than trying to preserve energy against up-tempo teams. He doesn’t believe they lived up to the billing.
“There was a little bit of survival mode,” White said. “We talked about what you can’t do against that is get into that mode where, ‘Hey, I just got to survive this down. I got to survive.’ You got to have a killer instinct, empty it on every play.”
Florida can learn a lot from this, however. The Gators will face another one of the fastest offenses in the country in two weeks when they travel to Auburn.
“It’s a really good learning experience,” White said. “We need to take a significant step forward in terms of our mentality and how we play and then awareness on the football field.”
The weakest area of Florida’s defense was the pressure its defensive line generated on the quarterback. The Gators didn’t use many exotic fronts in Week 1, and it can be difficult to generate pressure against an up-tempo offense that emphasizes quick passes. Still, White pointed to a lack of technique and strain as the primary reasons Florida wasn’t more successful.
“It never felt real clean. It didn’t feel like we were getting a ton of clean wins,” White said on the pash rush. “There was a couple other times that we were at the top of the pocket that I think our top-of-pocket mechanics could be better: How we reach, how we strain at the top.”
“I got to push the play. So some of the rush lanes got a little bit off. First game, the technique went out the window a little bit,” White added.” [They] let the moment, you let the game get bigger than the training.”
According to PFF, Florida’s pressure was the only category in which the Gators graded outside the top 40 nationally through Week 1. Florida’s pressure grade ranked 85th in the country.
The other issue throughout the game was Florida’s defensive alignment on third-and-short. FAU repeatedly took advantage of the Gators’ soft coverage with hitches, out routes and comebacks.
Head coach Jon Sumrall acknowledged the issue when discussing his assessment of the defense Monday.
“We can’t play nine yards off the corner,” Sumrall said.
White assured the media that the soft coverage was not by design, instead pointing to a lack of awareness and communication.
“It comes down to field awareness,” White said. “The best part about playing in The Swamp is being in The Swamp. And it’s 90,000 loud on third down. Well, at that point, you as a coach cannot communicate any more. So, again, it goes back to, you have to be trained. And we have not done a good enough job, obviously, of those guys truly understanding every down, every distance.”
“I have to not just get the call, but I have to know the situation,” White added. “All right, it’s third-and-1 on the goal line. It’s third-and-1 in logo zone shot area. It’s third-and-1 backed up. What are their offensive tendencies in all of those moments? Not just, ‘Man, I’m so tired. Please, just somebody make a play.’ You know, ‘I can’t get beat deep.’ You’ve got to dig deep and you’ve got to in those situations, but we have to continue to do a better job as coaches.”
Florida will have another week to iron out those deficiencies before its SEC season opener on the road at Auburn.