Let’s Talk about the defense for the Florida Gators vs. Tennessee

Where to even begin? After an emotional, sensational victory over the rival Volunteers, most Florida Gators fans are probably going to be asking that question all next week as they search for the words to describe the pandemonium that ensued Saturday night.

For the third straight week, the Gators walked the razor-thin line between playing just enough offense and just enough defense and came away with a 4-0 record. While the offense is going to have articles upon articles written about its fourth quarter performance, and rightly so, there are a few points about the defense that need to be addressed as well.

To come away with three straight wins by a combined score of 13 points, the defense had to do some things right for Florida to pull off its latest miracle. The “some things right” include third downs pass defense, and the turnover. What went wrong: the tackling and the trick plays.

Let’s get the negatives out of the way first. To be blunt, Florida’s tackling against the Vols was pretty poor. Oddly enough, though, their poor tackling came primarily against Tennessee quarterback Josh Dobbs. For the most part, the Gators defense did a solid job of corralling the Vols’ other skill players, a few misses notwithstanding.

This leads into the second point: the defense began having problems once Butch Jones dug deep into his bag of tricks and put his quarterback in position to make all the plays — and it was something the Volunteers had to do. On Tennessee’s first two drives, they totaled three first downs, with most of that gained yardage eaten up by sacks. Each one was accomplished on “Money Downs”- the Gators’ name for third and fourth downs as the Vols had negligible passing lanes thanks to “DBU.”

Trailing by seven and with no momentum, Butch Jones pulled his first punch with a trick double-pass that found Josh Dobbs on the receiving end of a 58-yard touchdown pass. That, as well as a 24-yard jump pass on fourth down in the second quarter, gave Tennessee the edge early. And with that edge, they found that they could continue with running their quarterback, who finished as their leading rusher, passer, and receiver on the night. Although he was able to elude the Gator defense for much of the night, that was just about the only play that consistently worked well for them. Even that probably had something to do with the fact that the Gators kept trying to arm tackle the shifty passer turned runner. Fortunately, when Florida needed one more stop to give the offense the shot at the win, they came through and brought Dobbs down for a loss to force a punt with just over two minutes left. Whether those rushes by Dobbs were by design, or just him trying to make plays when there were no passing options, it’s clear that Tennessee felt more comfortable keeping the ball on the ground than putting it in the air.

Speaking of the secondary, the few times Dobbs did pass, he didn’t even try to go near Vernon Hargreaves. Once again, he kept his island locked down tight when he was out on the field. On top of that, Dobbs’ passing numbers were extremely pedestrian going 10 of 17 for 83 yards. Also, if fans consider that 82 of the total 165 passing yards the Vols accrued were made off of those two grudgingly well-timed trick plays, only 83 yards of regular passing offense remain. That’s terrible for Tennessee, a team that not so long ago had aspirations for the College Football Playoff, and a terrific number for the Florida defense to hang its hat on. It was apparent on Saturday that the biggest threat that Dobbs posed to Florida’s defense was with his legs and not his arm — and that sounds an awful lot like a running back.

And how about Money Downs for this defense? While there is still plenty for this squad to improve upon in this area considering the fact that they allowed Tennessee to go five-for-five on third downs on the Vols final scoring drive, there is a lot to celebrate too. Besides that drive, the Gators only allowed Tennessee to convert on two third downs the rest of the game. That left the Volunteers with an abysmal 7-16 (43.75%) third down conversion rate.

Then there was the all-important turnover that started the turnaround for the Gators. With the Vols up 20-7, holding the ball in the third quarter, Florida needed a big play and fast. That came when the ball was stripped from Josh Dobbs hands and recovered at the Tennessee 29. That will happen when a coach dials up as many quarterback runs as the Vols did. Tennessee lived and died by Dobbs legs. On Florida’s ensuing drive, they converted one of their five total fourth down conversions and outscored the Volunteers 21-7 over the remainder of the game.

The defense gave the offense a chance and the offense took the chances given and capitalized when they had to. That’s synergy between the offense and defense. A major talking point for the past few games that needs to continue to be hammered home, the discussion of the relationship between the offense and the defense becomes extremely relevant once again with Florida’s 11th straight win over the Volunteers. One side of the ball just needs to make a play that will give the other side a chance to change the game. Once that happens, the team builds momentum, and with it, confidence.

For a select few teams that confidence leads to the ever-coveted identity — something that Florida has generally lacked since the departure of Urban Meyer. With this gut-check win for the Gators, they may just have been able to find their identity as a balanced team that leans on their defense when they need a stop or leans on their offense when they need a score. While that may sound obvious, balance is something that coaches die for, and balance will be just what Coach Mac’s Gators will have in the years to come.

Game Notes:

The Gators mounted a furious comeback from down 13 points in the fourth off of the arm of Redshirt Freshman Quarterback Will Grier. Florida defeated the Volunteers 28-27 in a rivalry matchup that featured everything from missed calls to trick plays to questionable coaching decisions by the Volunteers.

This was the first game that Hargreaves has played in that he has not logged an interception since last year’s regular season finale against FSU.

Not including Florida’s defensive penalties, of which they were charged for two, Florida’s defensive success rate was 56 percent in the first half and bumped up to 58 percent in the second half. Florida ended the day with a 57 percent success rate overall.