It’s no secret that the Florida Gators’ defense has disappointed through five weeks of the 2022 season. The Gators rank 10th in the SEC in total defense, giving up 412.4 yards per game, only leading Arkansas and Vanderbilt.
The Gators are coming off a 52-17 victory to Eastern Washington, in which they allowed 411 yards of offense. The issue wasn’t with how many points they gave up; the first team only allowed three points on Sunday. The problem was the Gators lacked dominance. The Gators defense in week five was very much a “bend but not break” style, which can be and was successful at times. However, when you are facing an FCS team, you’d like to see more dominant play throughout the game. I thought the Gators were pushed around too easily on Sunday afternoon. We saw a number of missed tackles early on, resulting in long drives by the Eagles. The linebackers need to play with better leverage, eliminating the easy yards on first down.
“We got work to do,” Billy Napier said in the post-game press conference.” Today we did what we needed to do to get them off the field. We got through the opening script and then after that we settled down and played pretty good I thought.”
“Eastern Washington, credit them, they had a good opening script there and moved the ball,” Napier said. “I think we are going to see that we could have done some things better, played with better leverage, played a little tighter in coverage. I think we are very much a work in progress there. I think a lot of guys got really good experience today that I think will be very beneficial for them in the future.”
Eastern Washington is a well-built offensive minded program. Giving up 411 yards and 17 points in a game where the Gators had a limited number of snaps is not the end of the world. However, Florida’s defense has been pushed around in every game besides Kentucky.
Justus Boone made his first start in a Gators uniform against EWU. Boone says he feels as if this team improved by one percent since the Tennessee game.
“I feel, as a team, we gain confidence every day because every day we should be getting one percent better,” Boone said. “Coming off the game against Tennessee and coming in with a chip on our shoulders trying to get better I feel like we’ve improved one percent.
Florida is set to face a Missouri team that has struggled to move the ball offensively through five weeks. The Tigers rank 10th in the SEC in total offense, averaging 374.6 yards per game. However, the Tigers are coming off a game against Georgia where they found success running the football, averaging 8.4 yards per carry in the contest.
Gators defensive end Tyreak Sapp said that the Gators will be looking to improve ahead of their week six matchup with Missouri.
“Every week, regardless of who we play we try and improve things, watch the film, and look for things to tighten up just like we prepare for any other team,” Sapp said. “Just work hard and prepare like everybody else.”
“I saw some things over there, they got some weapons over there and they some guys that can do some damage,” Sapp said on Missouri. “We have got to prepare the right way for them. We’ll make sure we take all the steps that need to be made to actually go out there and be prepared to play against that team.”
Florida ranks last in the SEC in rush defense; you can expect Missouri to run it early and often. The Gators front seven is going to need to take a step in the right direction ahead of their week six matchup with the Missouri Tigers.