PD’s Postulations: Thoughts on the Florida Gators

Well we’ve seen this movie before. Noon start, lightly regarded SEC bottom feeder, coming off an emotional and physically draining win or loss the week before (and losses are worse), on the road…historically speaking, under all coaching staffs, Florida Gators teams don’t usually answer the bell with much energy or focus. Enough to win? Almost every time. Enough to please the fans (or coaches) or keep the fans from having a long day of dyspepsia? No way.

A lot of fans and pundits played that familiar prognostication tune of “poor Vandy” because more often than not, when a power team suffers a painful defeat and faces a much lesser opponent the week after, they take out their frustrations against the unlucky team in the form of a behind-the-woodshed beating. But that hasn’t been the Gators’ modus operandi in a long time, so I certainly didn’t expect it this week.

Getting Offensive Again

Sadly, we have seen this movie before as well: Florida’s offense needs a lot of work, with very little margin for error, and then BAM the starting quarterback goes down with injury or otherwise disappears right beneath our noses (or rather, right beneath his own nose), and the serviceable offense that had hopes of developing into something much better suddenly can’t get a first down or score a touchdown. Or execute a snap on the goal line. Last week, however was not the fault of the backup-made-starter slinging the rock. He played quite well, in fact, when the coaches let him. Against Vanderbilt, however, the foibles that dogged Austin Appleby at Purdue were in much sharper focus.

The reason Appleby sometimes struggles isn’t because of what he does after he makes a read – when he recognizes the open man, he can make the throws and do some damage. His issue is what he doesn’t read before he makes a throw. He just misses too many open receivers when he throws to a well-covered guy. And sometimes his target is bracketed tightly and we have to hope the defensive backs are defensive backs (and not receivers) for a reason.

However, Appleby was not the primary reason the offense struggled in Nashville. And he certainly was not the reason the team collapsed the previous week in Knoxville. A big part of that was the defense, which gave Gator fans fits Saturday against Vanderbilt as Ralph Webb scampered for 110 yards against our vaunted defense.

I’m not that concerned however that we gave up some yardage to Webb. After all, he came into the game leading the SEC in rushing. Not Leonard Fournette, not Nick Chubb, and not Rawleigh, Trayveon or Stanley Williams. Ralph Webb. Regardless of what anyone thinks of our defense, in 18 quarters this year, they’ve only given up 2 touchdowns. That’s four and a half games and only twice letting the opponent into the end zone. They had one miserable quarter where they gave up 5 touchdowns, but in the other 18, just two. If the Gators didn’t go soft after thinking the Tennessee game was over at halftime…if the Gator coaches didn’t go into a conservative shell…if the UT kicking game didn’t keep Florida in the shadow of its own goal posts the entire second half, making the coaches too timid to throw the football (or if our starting quarterback hadn’t been injured, thus giving our coaches a lot more confidence to throw from our own red zone with a lead)…who knows how our defense would have performed in that second half after dominating Tennessee in the first half?

But that brings me to the point that no defense can dominate statistically the way we expect this defense to dominate when the offense reeks the way the Gator offense has reeked the last 6 quarters. A defense needs a little rest to stay sharp and quick. We saw that dynamic on crack in the second half last week; we saw it in rigor mortal slowness against Vanderbilt. A great defense needs to be motivated, as well. That shouldn’t be a problem with a well-coached team, but we saw it be a problem for many well-coached Florida teams over the last quarter century, so it is not unique to Coach McElwain’s crew.

The problem with the offense in the last 6 quarters can be broken out into a lot of component parts, but the story of the stagnation begins and ends with the failure of the offensive line to execute blocks or move their feet. The first running play of the game (the second snap of the contest) could have been a big gainer, but Fred Johnson simply watched his mark run right past him without even giving him a wave. Fred ran right by him like he didn’t know he was supposed to block him. Maybe he didn’t? Beyond that Vandy defender was nearly 20 yards of completely vacant turf with only a safety to beat to the end zone. But the untouched Commodore made the tackle and that same scene repeated throughout the game on running and passing downs. But I don’t want to pick on Fred because to a man, this was epidemic across the line the last 90 minutes of football. And I don’t even want to pick on the offensive line alone because neither the receivers nor the tight ends have done their jobs blocking either since halftime of the Tennessee game. Which is a shame because all three units did a superb job of blocking in the first half last week (“superb” being a relative term for our line and tight ends, granted).

So What Gives?

Is it just that our offensive line is terrible and regressing, or is it that Vandy’s defensive front is just that much better than the Kentucky front that Florida comparatively mauled a few weeks ago? And is the North Texas defense better up front than Tennessee’s, given that Florida owned the line of scrimmage in the UT game before they clocked out at halftime, and struggled to command the line of scrimmage against the Sun Belt also-ran the week before?

Jalen Tabor said the low-energy effort and meager outcome Saturday was because the Gators knew it was Vandy. This is a dynamic we’ve known goes on at Florida (and many other places) most of the time, but it was a bit shocking to hear a player say it. Out loud. For all its championships and high character and high energy players and teams through the years, one thing that has been symptomatic throughout all coaching eras at UF since at least the mid-eighties is that they routinely play down to the level of bad opponents. Maybe it’s the rigors of not only the SEC season and playing FSU and sometimes Miami in addition, but that most years Florida has the toughest or one of the most challenging league schedules in the SEC. Maybe it is just what Urban Meyer called in 2006 “all that Florida nonsense”, a sort of Gator-specific steroid-level version of believing too many of their own press clippings. It is usually a thing that only happens after a sustained period of strong performances, but in this day and age of instant gratification, the lifecycle is tremendously short, and clubbing Kentucky and believing they should have clubbed Tennessee is more than enough to spark it off. Or maybe it’s just in the Gainesville water.

Whatever the reason, Tabor harkened to it directly and specifically. And the implication was that this week, the players know it’s going to be LSU, and they’ll be ready to play their best, and give their best effort.

That’s something else we’ve seen a lot at Florida and other places as well. While I believe it and certainly expect it, it’s a dangerous game, because complacency becomes habit if you practice it too much. And we seem to be practicing it a lot more than we practice our run blocking.

The Summers Of Our Discontent

So why are we still having so much trouble with the offensive line? And more importantly, what is the solution? According to recruiting accolades, we may not have the pedigree of Alabama’s line, but we should have a first unit that is very stout. Eventually. But when? And who takes the hit if they don’t get there? Soon.

Offensive line coach Mike Summers has well-documented recruiting weaknesses, so he has to make up for that in coaching. And it has to be significant. And we have not seen that. This is only his second year with Coach Mac but it’s his third year in the program, so from a surface glance, we should expect much better results by now. However, most of the guys he worked with in year 1 are gone. When this season began, the starting offensive line had an average of 1 year playing in the program, and the backups had just 0.2 years average experience playing in the system (1.2 years in the program). So basically, Summers started from scratch last year with everyone on the 2-deep except tackle David Sharpe (perhaps by no coincidence our only lineman performing at an acceptable level) and Cam Dillard, and everyone but those two started from scratch with Florida as freshmen in the last 2 years. So it’s tough to expect a quantum leap in OL play at the beginning of this year.

However, they are nearing the halfway point in year 2, and they need to start to show significant improvement the rest of the way. Not just for the sake of the season’s success, but if they are going to demonstrate that Summers is the man for the job here. Otherwise, we are just spinning our wheels on the offensive line the way we’ve been doing for the last 7 years.

It was clear that in interviews during and after the game Saturday that Mac is extremely displeased by the team’s performance, and specifically that of the offensive line. For the portion of his ire reserved for the O-line, there is no telling if it is directed at the players or their position coach, or both, but one thing is certain: he is not going to stand for this sub-standard level of production much longer. Without the luxury of a strong bench as a motivator, it remains to be seen what he can do about it, short of yell and fidget a lot, but if the line does not improve and put forth the effort the way he wants it to in the coming weeks, there will be changes made. Mac in less than two years on the job has been quick to replace assistants he identifies as not the right fit or performance level, and he won’t hesitate to make that move here.

The Up Side of Winning When You Feel Like You Lost

So the game wasn’t all gloom and misery. Jalen Tabor grabbed another interception, making him and teammate Quincy Wilson first and second in the conference in interceptions. Florida leads the SEC in picks with 8 overall. Jabari Zuniga got his 5^th sack of the season, the most for a Gator freshman since 1987. Florida got two more sacks and still leads the SEC in that category (seventh in the nation). Despite the second half implosion two weeks ago, the Gators are still 4^th in the nation in scoring defense, 2^nd in the country in passing efficiency defense and 2^nd in the FBS in total defense. Jarrad Davis had a career day with 15 tackles, topping his previous career high by 50%. And it wasn’t all just on defense. DeAndre Goolsby caught eight passes, which was just one shy of a school record. And….well, okay, it was mostly all just on defense.

Waiting For The Great Leap Forward

So when does it end? The waiting. Waiting for us to return to the elite.

Well, it isn’t going to be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. But we knew this in August. We knew this back in spring practice. We knew this way back in November 2014 when Will Muschamp was fired. We knew this was going to take a few years. We – yes, even I, accused felonious sunshine pumper that I am – have been sifting through the minutia of the road blocks this season trying to assign blame as to why the program’s return to greatness is following the exact path and pace we knew it was and were bracing for all along. Why is exactly what we knew would happen, happening? Why?! But we should not let the stunning second half collapse against Tennessee (and let’s face it, the first half success was almost as stunning) warp or obscure our perception of the progress being made. Yes, we want it to be moving faster. Mac wants it to be moving faster. The players sure want it to be moving faster. But we just haven’t caught any breaks to help speed things up. Or even maintain stride. And you need breaks. Just asks the 5-0 team in Knoxville that could (and probably should) be 0-5 right now. Good luck is often more important than precision, and bad luck is always going to cost you or at least slow you down.

For instance, let it sink in that this is now the fifth consecutive year that Florida has won football games with multiple starting quarterbacks. And we used multiple quarterbacks the year before that, as well…we just didn’t win with them. You just can’t stay on any rebuilding pace when you keep losing the most important player on the team in the middle of the year. Sometimes more than once. Six years in a row…that goes in the “can’t make this stuff up” file.

So let’s focus on the horizon and invest in the return of Luke Del Rio and the return to the Swamp to face LSU, a program against which we are far overdue for a victory. And it is a team that has looked very average all year until having a breakout night against a bad Missouri team Saturday. And it is a team with some key injuries that we may be able to exploit to balance out our injuries and poor offensive line play. We will see. Until then, though we need to value this win against Vanderbilt. It is an SEC road win, and at the end of the year when they tally up records to see who goes to Atlanta, all wins and losses count the same. As Coach Mac said after the game: “A wise man once said, ‘You even have to bring your ugly babies home from the hospital,’ and that was ugly.’” So bring this baby home. And be glad it wasn’t a miscarriage like FSU suffered against North Carolina. Or like Georgia suffered in the final 10 seconds against Tennessee. Or like Louisville suffered against Clemson. This Vandy game baby won’t win any beauty pageants when it grows up, but it will go fishing with you on Fathers’ Day, make you breakfast in bed on Mothers’ Day, and that’s good enough.