This weekend’s loss was once again the same old story on the defensive side of the football for the Gators. After only recording one sack as a group to an LSU team who had given up 22 sacks on the year, there’s really no excuse. This Florida defense now ranks 131st in the nation on third down defense after dropping their third loss of the season, which is last place in the entire FBS.
It’s something Florida fans don’t like to do, but Gator Nation needs to understand that it’s going to take a lot of time. Coach Napier and Coach Toney will adapt over the years, especially as they get their type of football players.
Fortunately for Gator fans, one thing Billy Napier isn’t afraid to do is make the necessary changes. There’s almost too much to clean up on the defensive side of the football, but Napier sees that as a huge opportunity for players waiting on their shot to make a difference.
“What I see is opportunity. I’m seeing a lot of opportunity. You have to give a little bit of credit to LSU tonight,” Napier said. The skill players, the quarterback. I don’t know that we tackled. I don’t know that that’s one of our better days from a tackling perspective. Individual matchups, they won their fair share tonight. We got the guy. We are all over the guy a lot of times and the guy out runs us or breaks the pocket. I think that, when we look at it, we’ll see a combination of things. We’re going to see a lot of things that we can do better schematically. I think we are going to see things that we can do fundamentally better. I think there are going to be opportunities for guys to make plays. It’s going to be a combination of all those things. I do not think it’s one thing or another. I think it’s a combination of all those things. Ultimately, with the things that we can control from a coaching perspective and the things that we can do better, we need to do those things better. I think that we are going to be sick when we watch this tape. That’s what I can tell you.”
The offense, on the other hand, was back and forth all night. Anthony Richardson seemed as if he was going to have a big game throwing the ball after hitting Justin Shorter on a 51-yard touchdown pass on the second play of the game, but it was quite the opposite. Anthony Richardson and Montrell Johnson both had huge games on the ground Saturday combining for 166 yards and three touchdowns.
“Definitely feels good,” Richardson said on his 81-yard touchdown run. “Right before we went back out there, I was talking to Coach O’Hara and we were down, and he said, ‘We’re going to score and make it 42-28, and put us right back in the game.’ And it just so happened that I made that play right there and it did put us in a position to come back and win the game. So, it felt pretty good just to be a part of that.”
Unfortunately, the Gators came up short, losing by 10 points due to a roughing the passer call that took back an interception from Jason Marshall and sealed the win for LSU.
“I think there will be some opportunity to teach there. That’s a judgment call,” Napier said on roughing the passer penalty. “It is bang-bang. The guy felt like it was unnecessary roughness on the quarterback. We didn’t get a replay of it. I wasn’t able to see it, so it probably wouldn’t be right for me to comment on it. Officiating wasn’t an issue tonight. They let them play tonight. That’s what I would say, and that’s what I always want them to do. They let them play. We got a great crew, great people there. There will be some things there. We’ll ask for feedback. When we get to the tape, we will be able to coach them better based off the feedback just like we do every week.”
It wasn’t the outcome this team wanted in any circumstance after losing their third SEC game of the season, but this team knows there’s bigger and other important obstacles ahead. It’ll be tough to let it go, but it’s the only step to this team getting better.
“Another SEC loss, we wanted to win that one. We needed to win that one,” Richardson said. “So, we’re not really happy about that, but it also gives us a chance to come back in and see what we can work on and improve on. It gives us a little bit more time to prepare for the next game and make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
There’s a whole lot for this offense to work and improve on for the next two weeks preparing for Georgia. Anthony Richardson knows that he’s been inconsistent hitting his targets and it’ll be his main focus this week. Richardson will really need to dig deep this week at practice and continue to build his confidence without trying too hard.
“Definitely connecting with the receivers a lot more. You know, I missed a few over routes. Few balls behind the receivers. I got to make it easier for them to make plays,” Richardson said on his focus heading into bye week. “I can definitely improve on that. Protection checks. Improve on that. Help the O-Line. Help the running backs. Just playing confident. I feel like that’s the main thing to improve on. Just being able to communicate better with each other and knowing that we’re all on the same page.”
The offensive line played well enough for this team to win Saturday, but the defense just couldn’t match it all night. Richie Leonard was someone who was given high praise after his performance Saturday after stepping up in place for injured O’Cyrus Torrence.
“I thought, for the most part, we fought them pretty well. I don’t know what the numbers look like. We had some leakage here or there. Richie Leonard played for the most part and did a good job in the game,” Napier said on Leonard and the offensive line. “They had some really good players on the edges. On third down in particular we had some issues with their dime package, but overall that group played well. I think we’ll be pleased with that when we go back and look at the tape.”
O’Cyrus Torrence has arguably been one of the biggest pieces to the success of this offense this year. Although Leonard might not fill the shoes, he did his job Saturday evening.
“I didn’t expect anything less from Richie. He plays hard,” Richardson said on Leonard. “He’s always going to play hard. He’s always ready for the moment, whenever he does get a chance to get out there. So, I didn’t expect anything less from him, and I thought he did pretty good.”
The Gators will have two weeks, like they do every season, to prepare for the Georgia Bulldogs in Jacksonville. A spark needs to be ignited in that locker room leading up to October 29th if Florida has any chance at winning that football game, especially on defense.
“Ventrell Miller came in, he really picked the team up and brought us all back together,” Justin Shorter said on the mood in the locker room after the game. “Coach Napier came in, said some really, really positive stuff. You know, we’re just going to go back to the drawing board. Tomorrow, come in there and just put that work in, really to improve and get better because we got Georgia now.”
Ventrell Miller can’t do it all for this defense every game. The senior linebacker is frustrated and is ready to see this defense succeed.
“I’m obviously not going to say everything he said, because it’s a locker room thing – but he just told us how like we need to come together and come in and really just go back to the drawing board, and just work hard and work together every day, and really just work as hard as we can and have great practices. Because that’s the only way we’ll be able to get better and really improve,” Shorter said on Miller and his message.
After suffering their third loss in SEC play, giving up 528 total yards to LSU and putting up some of the worst defensive numbers this program has seen, things need to get figured out quickly.
Florida and Georgia will both once again travel to Jacksonville in two weeks for the cocktail party, and it’s not going to be a good day on defense for the Gators if they can’t ever execute in all aspects.