Imagine this. You’re the defensive coordinator of a Southeastern Conference team on Florida’s schedule this year. You’re sitting up in the booth, still trying to figure out what you’re going to do next time Dan Mullen slips Chris Rainey into the backfield to go along with Percy Harvin and Brandon James in the slots and suddenly the Gators break the huddle with Louis Murphy, Deonte Thompson, Percy Harvin and Chris Rainey. Then you notice the guy on the far side of the field. That’s Jeff Demps. We’re talking about trouble, right here in River City and that’s trouble with a capital T.
Murphy has run a 4.27 40 yards and he’s a sprinter on the Florida track team. Thompson has done 100 meters in 10.3 seconds, Harvin has done it in 10.4 and Rainey outran Walter Dix in the first leg of the 4X100 relay at the NCAA Track and Field Championships a couple of weeks ago.
And then there is Demps. Saturday he did a 10.01 in the hundred meters at the Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon and by the way, he beat Dix to the tape in the quarter-final race in which he not only tied the world record for his age group, but broke the all-time American record for 100 meters by a high school kid. That record was formerly held by Dix, who just closed out his collegiate career by leading Florida State to its third straight NCAA track championship. Dix can run like the wind but he’s no football player. Jeffrey Demps was a fast football player who had to be coaxed into coming out for track at South Lake High School down in Groveland, not the other way around.
So there you are in the booth, Mr. Defensive Coordinator. The computer that is your mind is on information overload and about to crash. You just spent a week preparing for situations just like this but at this very moment it hits you that you’ve spent all this time getting ready for the fastest college football team in the nation and you were trying to simulate their speed with your own guys.
You’ve got some fast guys, but there’s fast and there is Florida fast.
Maybe you’ve got one guy that’s as fast as Murph and maybe another one that’s almost as fast as Percy-cution but your third guy can’t stick with the Rain Man and you don’t have anyone, not even on the track team, that’s as fast as Deonte
And now they’ve put Demps on the field. Trindon Holliday of LSU used to be the fastest player in college football. Used to be but no longer. Demps now gets the title of faster than a speeding bullet college football style.
Yikes!
Suddenly you realize that if you have seven defensive backs in the game — about what it’s going to take with all these fast Gators in the game — and all of them are playing so deep that even if you have everybody checked if all of them go long you don’t have enough people in the box to take out Tebow.
Ruh-roh!
That’s right. You forgot about Tim Tebow. Florida has five offensive linemen. You have three. You have one linebacker. Florida has Tebow. He’s bigger, stronger, faster and meaner than your linebacker. He’s already run over your middle linebacker once at the goal line and that was with nine in the box. It was kind of embarrassing that the Gators had to point your middle backer to his own huddle after he took on Tebow. He might not think clearly for another week.
You might not think clearly for the rest of the season and you’re the defensive coordinator.
This is what they call deepest and darkest linguine. Or something worse.
You scream into the mike on your headset, “Somebody get me a time out! Somebody do it real quick!” That’s when it hits you. Your father-in-law has been trying for years to get you to take over his used car lot back home in Hahira. You’ve been laughing about it all these years but at this moment, when you’re thinking about how they’re going to be roasting you on the message boards in the morning, that used car lot doesn’t seem like such a bad gig.
Something very similar to that scenario is going to play itself out on a stage that’s surrounded by 90,000 or so screaming fans in seats this fall, not to mention another 10 or 15 million watching on national television. Some defensive coordinator in the SEC is going to be thinking death by booga-booga isn’t nearly as bad as trying to slow down this evil spread offense that is the product of the very twisted mind of Urban Meyer, who has lived up to his promise of fielding the fastest college football team in America.
The fastest team in America. That’s the Gators and the fastest Gator is Jeffrey Demps, who just might break 10-flat Sunday when he runs in the semifinals of the Olympic Trials. It’s bad enough to try to defend Murph, Percy, Rainey and Deonte and all those other fast guys the Gators can put on the field.
Having to defend those guys is unfair.
Throw in Demps and unfair has been taken to brand new extremes.
Here is the problem.
Everybody in the SEC has at least one or two very fast defensive backs. With a bit of cushion, a little coaching and a lot of scheming maybe those two can play head up with two of the very fast Gators.
The problem is the third guy. Usually he’s the third guy because he’s not as fast as the first two. In the SEC the fastest two corners are usually the starting corners. If number three isn’t as fast as one and two, imagine the dilemma for four and five.
Play the Gators straight up with two safeties over the top and that means there are going to be seams wider than an interstate waiting to be exploited.
Double up on the outside means the slot guys run wild and anyone that catches a drag route over the middle will have plenty of green grass up ahead. Double the slot guys and the outside guys are one-on-one and there’s no deep help.
What if the Gators only go four wide and it’s Rainey and Tebow in the backfield together? Okay, some DB will have to masquerade as a linebacker in case Rainey gets the ball handed to him but the Gators are still plus one in the box because of Tebow.
Go zone with the safeties 25 yards off the line of scrimmage? Remember Ohio State? What was it? 41-14? Go zone with the safeties back far enough to take the deep threat away and that’s what happens. Just ask the Buckeyes and they were defending a Florida team that isn’t nearly as fast as the one that’s going to take the field this fall.
The possibilities for this offense and all this speed are endless. With this much speed, every play has the potential to go the distance. Scary isn’t it?
It was scary before Jeffrey Demps put a jetpack in his shorts Saturday afternoon. It’s the “Nightmare on Elm Street” or “Friday the 13th Part 12” when Demps is thrown into the mix.
Urban has his wish. He’s got the fastest team in America. If you think he was in the heads of some folks the last three years, just wait until this fall when some defensive coordinators are going to face up to the fact that they won’t get a call from Pete Carroll when he takes his sideshow to the pros.