Gator Country provides you with six early takeaways from Florida’s 33-14 loss to Kentucky in week five.
UNPREPARED DEFENSE
The biggest surprise for me was how unprepared Austin Armstrong’s defense looked against Kentucky. Wildcats’ running back Ray Davis ran for 280 yards while totaling four touchdowns on 10.8 yards per carry. This was far and away the worst tackling game we’ve seen from Florida in 2023. Linebackers were not filling their gaps, making it painfully easy for Kentucky’s offensive line to get leverage and find their way into the second level, leading to many big runs from Davis.
QB Devin Leary had his worst game of the year, but it didn’t matter because Florida could not stop Kentucky’s ground and pound.
“I do think that we had a good week. I think that they beat us up pretty good,” Napier said postgame. “Anytime a team rushes for 300-plus and they hold you to under 100, ultimately, that’s where the game was won today. Line of scrimmage, edges, tackling, fundamentals, we misfit some runs, and then we were unable to do that on offense.”
HIRE A SPECIAL TEAMS COACH
The Gators are now five games into Billy Napier’s second season at Florida and we have yet to see a consistent stretch of competent special teams play. And I’m not talking about the actual specialists, because kicker Trey Smack and punter Jeremy Crawshaw did their jobs against Kentucky. I’m talking about the coordination, coaching, and preparation within the unit.
Throughout the 2023 season we have seen the Gators’ punt returner, Ricky Pearsall, opt to not field the punt and let it bounce. This happened several times in today’s contest, which costed Florida good field position due to friendly bounces. It almost seems as if Pearsall is being told not to field the punt if it is not kicked right at him, for whatever reason. Pearsall has not given the Gators much trouble in terms of fielding punts, so that doesn’t make sense to me. If Pearsall is hesitant to field punts, he should not be in that role.
The Special Teams unit costed Florida seven points against Utah when true freshman Dijon Johnson leaped over the group of blockers on a punt return, which is illegal.
“It’s disappointing, because we had a similar situation in last week’s game,” Napier said on the ST penalty. “We covered it thoroughly throughout the week. We actually sent a play in from last week’s game to the SEC, talked about the exact rule, how it’s interpreted, showed the clip in the meeting. I think we just got a young player out there who made a poor decision, and he knows he made a mistake. I do think that that was a pivotal moment in the game.”
Throughout the season we have seen countless special team penalties and a rather poor return game, and that can’t go on for another year.
DOMINATED IN THE TRENCHES
Florida was dominated in the trenches on Saturday afternoon. Florida has the clear talent advantage on the defensive line, but they were not able to capitalize. Florida’s offensive line allowed constant pressure, which made things really tough for QB Graham Mertz and Florida’s offense. The Gators have struggled to bring in highly rated recruits along the offensive line, and that has become abundantly clear in 2023.
ROAD STRUGGLES
Florida is just 1-7 in road or neutral site games since Billy Napier became the Gators’ head coach in 2022. Many of the games were lost due to undisciplined penalties. While the penalties didn’t play much of a factor in today’s game, Florida was flagged 10 times for 85 yards, which is simply not a recipe for success.
If Napier wants to have long term success at Florida, he’s going to need to find a way to win away from The Swamp.
POOR PACE OF PLAY / TEMPO
Florida’s offense continues to struggle when they are playing from behind, and part of that is from the lack of an up-tempo offense.
There were times throughout the game where Napier showed some signs of a competent two-minute offense, such as when the Gators scored their first touchdown of the game after going 75 yards in six plays and two minutes and 14 seconds right before the end of the first half.
However, the entire second half Florida was not going nearly fast enough to overcome their large deficit. When you can’t operate at a faster pace, every drive you have becomes that much more meaningful.
Part of the frustration is the lack of consistency. Florida will have one play that they snap with 28 seconds left on the play clock, and the very next play they run it down to five seconds.
LACK OF EXPLOSIVE PLAYS OFFENSIVELY
I said before the game that the main key in this game would be explosive plays, both creating them and limiting them defensively. The Gators only recorded five explosive plays, which is defined as a play of 10 or more yards (Pearsall x2, Johnson, Etienne, Douglas). Kentucky’s defense swarmed Florida for four quarters and the Gators did the opposite.