They’re not very good. That’s what the head coach admitted Saturday night about his team, which we didn’t need him to tell us. All we had to do was watch the game.
If the record of 4-3 doesn’t prove it, then what we saw with our eyeballs did.
“We just didn’t get ‘er done,” Meyer said. “We’re not very good right now.”
Indeed, and there are no valid excuses, even with the rash of injuries. The players can talk all they want about working hard and the coaches can keep saying “we’ve got to get better,” but the results just aren’t there.
Florida had not only lost three in a row since 1999; now it has dropped two straight as favorites at home. And for the first time in 22 years, the Gators lost a Homecoming game.
In one of the most painful nights for Gator fans in recent memory at The Swamp, former Meyer offensive coordinator Dan Mullen brought his 4-2 Mississippi State to Ben Griffin Hill Stadium and turned it into his own personal homecoming. All he needed was the points the Bulldogs scored in the first quarter to win, 10-7.
Painful in more ways than one: Some of the boo birds were back to express their dissatisfaction with play-calling.
Combined with the players hurt before the game, the Gators’ list of walking wounded looked like a M*A*S*H hospital.
“We were down to zero backs,” Meyer said, also noting that even his backup kickoff specialist, Brad Phillips, was injured, leaving Chas Henry to punt, kick field goals and kick off.
Sadly for Henry, it came down to a desperate 42-yard field goal try for him in order to send the game into overtime. It was wide right. But as Mike Pouncey said, it should never have come to that. For a while, it didn’t appear that it would, because it took nearly three quarters for Florida to make a game of it.
Opportunities were few and far between, but when they came, the Gators could not convert them. When the deep-freeze offense thawed and Johnny Brantley finally got the ball moving in the second period, he took his unit on nearly a six-minute drive before he was sacked on a third-of-5 option for a loss of five yards — a curious call. Result: A missed field goal and no points.
The improvement in the offense that coaches, players and fans had hoped for was non-existent, nor was the play-calling inspiring. In fact, the offense looked like it had gotten worse, not better, and the running game was pathetic: 17 yards on 17 carries in the first half. Without the threat of a running game, the Bulldogs blitzed frequently and Brantley was constantly under assault.
Speaking of pain, however, nothing hurt worse than the fumble coughed up by Jeff Demps with just under eight minutes to play. Florida had driven all the way to the visitors’ 23, needing just a field goal to tie, when the calamity occurred.
Gator fans could just about kiss it goodbye right there, but there was one more shot as Brantley got the Gators in position for the field goal try which failed.
It’s also painfully evident that some modifications must be made – especially in the offense – and Meyer admitted that would likely happen.
When asked if changes were in store for the offense during the off-week, he responded: “I think so.” But he didn’t sound like a coach planning to make wholesale ones.
With a white towel draped over his shoulder, Meyer stayed calm and deliberate in his answers, but admitted when asked how far-reaching the problems were and how he planned to fixed them: “I can’t say right now … but we are going to have a chance to reflect here a little bit in the bye week and make some adjustments.”
When pressed as to what the first thing he’d do, Meyer responded: “You have to be able to run the ball. I think the offensive line gets hammered pretty good, whether it’s deserving or not. There’s enough blame to go everywhere.”
Clearly the opponent can smell that weakness. Every time Trey Burton came into the game he was run-blitzed by Mississippi State. Burton was able to exploit that later by running the option and pitching to Omarius Hines for some of the biggest gains of the night.
The Florida offense is schizophrenic, if not broken, and can’t get back in sync. Whether or not it is the fault of Steve Addazio remains to be seen, but just like baseball managers under the gun for losing, the finger will continue to be pointed at him.
Seven games into the season, this offense doesn’t know its personality yet – nor does the team.
Now it remains to be seen if Urban will take over the reins of the offense himself.
It’s puzzling why Burton often has more success running the single wing or Wildcat than Brantley does in the passing game, except for the lack of a running game. Could it be that this whole system was built around a running quarterback and that those same linemen who are used to dancing forward just can’t dance backwards?
Then there is the defense, which seems vulnerable to the running game and is getting punished by big backs. The 6-foot-4, 240-pound Chris Relf took two or three defenders to bring down and rushed for 82 of Mississippi State’s 212 yards. The 215-pound Vick Ballard was equally as tough on direct snaps and netted 96 yards.
Mullen was determined to play it safe and only let his quarterback pass once in the second half. Maybe that conservatism only resulted in 10 points, but that’s all that was needed.
There is some ingredient missing in this Florida team and nobody seems to be able to identify it. When I asked Meyer the thing he was most disappointed in, he responded: “We’ve got to find a way to win a game.”
For the past five years, that never seemed to be a huge issue. Perhaps it is assumed that by putting on the uniform of the Florida Gators that this legacy is automatically passed along, as if it were in the genes. For sure it’s not going to be a birthright, because as this team is finding out, it must be earned.
There are no silver linings left, although to a man, every coach and every player stated emphatically how close players on the team were and that nobody was pointing fingers and weren’t mad at each other.
It seems hard to believe that after all this, Florida still will lead SEC East play following South Carolina’s loss to Kentucky, but that’s a topic for another day. Some wiseacre wondered aloud if, like a bowl invitation, the Gators might consider declining the invitation to Atlanta.