Florida football film study: defense against Charleston Southern

The new-look Florida defense did a spectacular job against FCS Charleston Southern, at least in the first half before they began emptying the benches. The starters were downright suffocating, and the Buccaneers left the game with a lowly three total passing yards.

Here were the things that stuck out to me about the new scheme.

Personnel packages

As you might expect, the Todd Grantham kept things very simple with such a massive athletic advantage over the opponent.

For most of the game, he only used two sets. The primary one was a 3-3-5 nickel alignment with three down linemen, the buck standing up on the edge of the line with two linebackers behind the line, and five defensive backs. When you look at the official depth chart, that is the base defense for the team this year.

The other set they used was a true 3-4 with three down linemen and four linebackers. That said, two of the linebackers would always be lined up on the edges of the defensive line.

It gives something of the feeling of having two buck players at the same time. And, because so many of Florida’s buck players were defensive ends in the prior scheme, it also presents a similar feeling to a 5-2 kind of front that was popular decades ago but fell out of favor in the ’90s.

Modern 3-4 coaches will ask those linebackers standing up on the line to do many things in this scheme so it’s not like they’ve resurrected Bud Wilkinson’s defensive playbook from the ’50s. I also expect to see some 3-4 sets where one of those outside linebackers is not right on the line but is back a few yards. Again, though, they were keeping it very simple for Game 1.

Finally, they used a 2-4-5 set during Charleston Southern’s final drive of the game. The defense was in something of a prevent mode where they were just looking to avoid giving up big plays. I don’t expect to see this used for much other than similar situations.

A star at star

Grantham’s arrival brought with it two positions that the Gator defense didn’t have last year. One is the buck, the hybrid outside linebacker/defensive end position which should be familiar from when the defense used it in the Will Muschamp era.

The other is the star, which is a jack-of-all-trades position that will at times be called on to do a little bit of everything other than line play on defense.

Chauncey Gardner-Johnson is the starter at the star position, and he had a monster game against the Buccaneers. He had five tackles (four solo) with 2.5 for loss and two sacks. He’s a perfect fit for the position, something Grantham recognized right away.

I made up a video showing the star’s three main roles: as a blitzer, in run support, and as a cover corner. Gardner-Johnson excelled at all three on Saturday night.

New faces

The Gator defense had several guys who played sparingly, if at all, in the past who really stepped up.

The first one that comes to mind for me is Rayshad Jackson. He was a lightly regarded recruit from Jim McElwain’s transitional 2015 class who largely only saw special teams work prior to this year. He began standing out in the spring, however, and when David Reese II dropped from the starting lineup with an ankle injury, Jackson’s number was called.

He scarcely could’ve played better in his first start. Not only did he look good in run support, but he was great in coverage as well — a significant shortcoming of last year’s linebacking crew. This was one of his best plays, where he has his legs taken out by the running back on a QB draw but stays with it and makes the tackle.

Next up is redshirt freshman Zach Carter. He blocked the field goal right before the half and managed to harass the CSU quarterbacks with regularity.

I’m not going to show you any of those plays. Instead, I want to show you an effort play.

Carter is the defensive end on the offense’s right side. The offense runs a speed option to the left. The play is not going in his direction, so he easily could’ve decided not to bother.

Instead, Carter follows the play the whole way. He first stays with the middle of the line in case the quarterback keeps it and is right there at the end with Brad Stewart forcing the running back out of bounds.

That is the kind of play as much as anything that will earn him more snaps. Relentless effort until the whistle is what Dan Mullen is looking for, and he got it from Carter on that play.

I’ll show you one more since three is a nice number, but there were plenty of new guys who stood out thanks to the coaches emptying the benches in the second half.

For this final one, I’m going to highlight true freshman Amari Burney. He got some action at Gardner-Johnson’s star position in the second half. While he’s not officially the backup there — the older C.J. McWilliams is according to the released depth chart — it probably won’t be long until he’s the next one up when Gardner-Johnson needs a breather.

Burney is lined up in man coverage on the slot receiver, but he’s also keeping an eye on the man in motion. He sniffs out the pass to the flat knowing he has help from a deep safety and covers eight yards in a flash. He makes a good, sound tackle and drops the guy for a loss.

The Gator defense had some lapses here and there once the score was out of hand, but it also was playing a lot of young guys who got some good experience. Burney was one of those young guys, and he looked good in his first game action.