The Florida Gators took one on the chin on Saturday in the loss to the Michigan Wolverines, as the Gators were simply overpowered in the loss.
A visibly shaken and upset Jim McElwain backed that up in his postgame press conference in Dallas on Saturday.
“Well, their guys were bigger and stronger,” McElwain said after the game. “They whooped us. Plain and simple.”
While the offensive line will get most of the heat and rightfully so, they were not the only reason the Gators feel victim to Michigan on Saturday.
We’re going to dive right into the things that went wrong for the Gators on Saturday and then look at ways they can change the tide and get the season on track.
What went wrong
- The offensive line was the “strength” of the team heading into the season, according to McElwain, but that didn’t show on Saturday. The Gators finished the game with 11 rushing yards, which includes sack yardage. That simply doesn’t cut it and most of the blame has to be placed on the offensive line. In the passing game, the Gators gave up six sacks and all but one of those was on the line. The other was credited to Mark Thompson.
- Offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier has said numerous times that they have a “get it to him” column on the play sheet. Well where’s that column on game days? McElwain even went on to say in his post game press conference that they simply didn’t get to those plays on Saturday. That was very noticeable after we all heard so many positive things about Kadarius Toney and Dre Massey in fall camp.
- There’s no identity on offense and changing the quarterbacks in and out won’t help that. Malik Zaire and Feleipe Franks are two different type of quarterbacks who make the offense do different things. Also after the script plays end in the first quarter. You can clearly tell the difference between the first 5-10 plays and the rest of the game plan. The sense of urgency to start the game is completely different after the scripted plays end and they brings the energy level down tremendously.
- Florida’s defensive is very aggressive and that cost them in the game against Michigan. Florida’s defensive line rushed straight up the field on third downs a lot and didn’t play their assignment and that cost them. Michigan used that against Florida on several draws plays and is something that will have to focus on this week.
Ways to fix these things
- The offensive line simply isn’t going to get tougher over night and there’s no way around that. You’ve got to find ways to help them out whether that’s going to more zone blocking or adding an extra body on the line. Maybe even go to using Tyler Jordan as an extra line at times. I’ll expand on this more in the next answers.
- Not sure there’s answer to the getting the ball to the playmakers hands except to say do it. But with a weak offensive line, getting the ball out quick to the playmakers in space is something that can get the offense moving. Massey and Toney have the ability to take a screen to the house at any time but they simply didn’t do that on Saturday. Crossing routes or something else quick is going to be a key going forward. Find a way to get speed out in the open field.
- Pick a quarterback and ride with him because the offensive line simply isn’t good enough to adjust on the fly. Feleipe Franks didn’t play bad on Saturday so develop your offense around him and find ways to go up-tempo. A quick passing game and more toss plays are both ways to counter for no push up front. You can have a package for Zaire but you can’t rotate quarterbacks and expect success.
- Focus more and, and more on assignment gaps because staying home and setting an edge is a key in the SEC. To add to this point, the Gators have to improve in tackling because when these big plays happened the poor tackling led to even more of a gain. This is something the Gators will improve on as the get more experience under their belt.
- One added point that I have to add here is that McElwain needs to be more involved in the play calling because the scripted plays that he’s involved in are always the best plays of the game.