Dustin Doe doesn’t think the Florida defense hits any harder or runs any faster than they did in 2007. From a physical standpoint, he doesn’t see a whole lot of difference in the team that had problems getting people off the field and this year’s team, which is one of the best in the nation at three and outs. The difference, he says, is all between the ears.
In 2007 the Gators fielded one of the highest scoring teams in the nation led by Heisman Trophy quarterback Tim Tebow. They averaged 457.2 yards per game, scored on 50 percent of their possessions and averaged 42.5 points, which is a good thing because the defense was an adventure. The Gators allowed 331 points and 361.8 yards per game in 13 games.
Contrast that to the 2008 Gators. They still rack up the yards and the points — 442.4 yards and 45.2 points per game — but the defense has done a complete about face. Florida has allowed only 167 points and 279.3 yards per game in 13 games and the Gators rank fifth nationally in scoring defense and ninth nationally in total defense.
Last year’s team went 9-4, finished third in the SEC East and lost to Michigan in the Capital One Bowl. This year’s team is 12-1, won the Southeastern Conference championship and will play Oklahoma in the FedEx BCS National Championship Game in Miami January 8.
“Last year was a really bad team,” said Coach Urban Meyer after the Gators finished practice Tuesday. “We had some really good players that played well. We had a guy who won the Heisman, we won nine games and we had the third highest offense in the history of Florida football so there was some good stuff but it was not a good team. Accountability and leadership was almost minimal.”
Accountability, leadership and focus on what’s important began shaping up for the Gators in the offseason. They went through what players and coaches alike have deemed the most intense mat drills ever in February and followed that up with a very good spring practice.
During the summer, when contact by the coaches was at a bare minimum, the leadership began to take shape and a team began to grow up.
“All of it’s pretty much maturity, just from just the way we attacked the offseason to the way we did mat drills, stadiums and the way we worked out as a team,” said Doe, the starting weakside linebacker and one of only four juniors (there are no seniors) in Florida’s two-deep defensive depth chart. “It’s all mental.”
Never was the lack of maturity more evident than in Baton Rouge, when the Gators collapsed in the fourth quarter against LSU. In losses to Georgia in Jacksonville and to Michigan in the Capital One Bowl in Orlando, the Gators couldn’t get third down stops and spent the majority of the second half on the field.
Doe isn’t making excuses when he puts a portion of the blame on inexperience.
“We had never handled going into the fourth quarter down or playing at LSU with the crowd booing you and they’ve got momentum,” said Doe. “We hadn’t been through situations like that and last year we got the opportunity to go through them. The best coaching is experience and I feel that our sophomore year we didn’t have that experience but this year we have it.”
The bad experiences last year were indeed a learning lab for a team that has rebounded with a vengeance in 2008. The immaturity and inexperience of 2007 have given way to a team that plays with tremendous confidence.
“Maturity and confidence are the two big things that have changed since 07,” said sophomore cornerback Joe Haden, whose freshman year was on the job training. From a starting freshman corner that had never played the position, Haden developed into a second team All-SEC corner this year and he has star written all over him in the future.
Florida’s maturity and confidence on defense were called into account on September 27 when the Gators lost their only game of the season. Ole Miss beat the Gators 31-30 that day, a game in which the Gators gave up big plays on defense and turned the ball over four times on offense.
After the Ole Miss loss, Tebow vowed that the Gators would work harder than any team in the country the rest of the way and he would step it up as a leader and make the Gator Nation proud. A week later after a 38-7 win at Arkansas, middle linebacker Brandon Spikes apologized to the team for playing poorly and he too vowed that he would lead by example and effort on the field the rest of the way.
The Gators have put away eight straight opponents since that win over Arkansas and now they are in position to win their second national championship in three years.
Following the Ole Miss loss, the national media questioned Florida’s toughness but in the weeks since then the Gators have one by one silenced their critics. By stuffing Alabama in the fourth quarter of the Gators 31-20 SEC Championship Game victory, Florida’s defense truly earned its newfound tough guy label.
Doe says the toughness is actually more mental than it is physical.
“I think we’re a lot tougher,” he said. “I think we’re a lot tougher as a team, mainly mentally. Physically I feel we go out there and we hit people just as hard and run just as fast. Mentally we got fatigued [last year] and we had letdowns like in a zone defense or people getting out of their gaps. I think we’re stronger mentally more so than physically.”
Improvements are obvious in every phase of the defense. The Gators can pressure quarterbacks and they tackle better. They don’t miss assignments. In the secondary, the coverage has morphed from porous to air tight. The Gators are ranked second nationally to Southern Cal in pass efficiency defense.
Yet for all the improvements, this is not a defense that thinks it has come anywhere close to reaching its potential.
“I don’t think we’ve completely arrived yet,” said sophomore defensive end Carlos Dunlap, who made second team All-SEC. Dunlap finished second in the SEC with nine quarterback sacks but he has been in the film room since the SEC Championship Game reviewing his season and determining that he has plenty of room to get better.
He thinks the Florida defense is going to dedicate itself in the offseason to improving at every position.
“I think we have a lot of room to get better,” said Dunlap. “This offseason we’re going to work at doing things even better so we don’t have to lose that one game.”