The Florida Gators’ 2023 season opened with a disappointing loss Thursday night in Salt Lake City. Other than talent level slightly increasing and some improvements defensively, this team looked eerily similar to the 2022 squad from a discipline and situational standpoint.
Mental errors and costly mistakes had the team attempting to crawl back from behind late in the game. From undisciplined penalties, special teams’ mistakes and poor situational football offensively, this team beat themselves once again.
There’s a lot this team and its staff needs to figure out rather quickly before the Gators enter SEC play. It’s going to take more than just talent to win games in year two.
“Early on, a couple of those short-yardage situations we had procedure issues, guys flinching, two in particular that were costly,” Napier said on penalties. “Then we just were a little bit on and off in two formations there, we’ve got to communicate with the official better, those proved to be issues. One of them was the third-down conversion that did cost us, the other was the costly third-and-one where we convert the play, but it gets called back because we’re a little bit illegal in the formation.”
The Gators had a total of 5 short yardage plays that resulted in penalties pushing them back. Four of those penalties came on third down and once on fourth down.
The offensive line was all over the place which didn’t help the run game production. However, there’s no world where Montrell Johnson and Trevor Etienne should have a combined total of 10 carries in four quarters of football.
“I think a lot of it has to do with the way they play, but there’s no doubt that’s an area where we need to improve,” Napier said on the run production. “We’ve got to get production out of the two backs. We’ve got to give them an opportunity to impact the game. Then when we did run it, I don’t necessarily think it was as effective as we would want it to be. I can tell you more after we watch the tape. In general, there’s no question, we have to run the ball effectively in the future.”
On a positive note, Graham Mertz performed well and better than many anticipated, throwing for 333 yards while completing 70.5% of his passes. The players around Mertz and this staff must do a better job of putting the transfer quarterback in a better position to succeed.
“I was pleased with Graham,” Napier said on Mertz. “I think there was a handful of plays that he’d like to have back. A few early that were a little inaccurate at times, but he made a lot of plays, too. It’s the first game he’s ever tossed for 300-plus. For the most part out there, the guy is doing what we would want him to do. The ball is going where it’s supposed to go. Often times, the quarterback gets too much credit, too much blame. It’s about, when you really dig into it, it’s going to be about the players around him playing well.”
This Florida team is in a completely different situation after week one compared to the start of last season. There were many mental errors that this team can clean up in practice, all of it comes down to preparation from this team and staff.
“There is a lot of good stuff on that tape,” Graham Mertz said on promising moments. “I’m not going to sit up here and say it was all terrible. A lot of young guys making plays, a lot of guys making plays. Like I said earlier, I think this tape as a whole will be great to learn off of, to build guys confidence, to correct. I think in the long run we will look back at this and be like ‘this is the changing point in our season’. A lot of guys learn from that, and that’s what I expect the guys to go through.”
On the defensive side of the football things looked much better but there were still issues that we saw from last season. There were some missed tackles and players struggled to line up at times, but this defense improved as the game went on Thursday night.
Shemar James finished the game with 13 tackles and 1.5 TFL.
“It’s really an execution thing. You take it one game at a time, and unfortunately, we fell short this game,” Shemar James said on execution defensively. “We get back to the drawing board when we get back to Gainesville and prepare for our next opponent. The opening play was a big one, but we bounced back from it in the second half. It was just our errors and comes down to execution.”
Correcting the mental mistakes and discipline issues should be a top priority this upcoming week for this staff and its players. Special teams was a big key to Florida winning this football game and it hurt them miserably. Little things like having two players on the field with the same number and less than 11 players on the field should never happen. Receiving the ball inside the 5-yard line on punt returns was also a big issue for Florida on special teams giving Utah a big advantage defensively.
With McNeese State traveling to Florida next weekend, the Gators will have a good opportunity to correct the issues that cost them a week one win over Utah. Execution, penalties and situational football must improve rapidly if the Gators are to find any success in 2023 and improve upon last season.