Perhaps Les Miles, recently the winningest coach in the SEC, has that old school cap on a bit too tight. Perhaps it’s his Big 10 tough talking roots overcoming the aw shucks, soft pedaling of Southern football. Miles has always sounded like he is channeling Woody Hayes in interviews: a little batty, a little rough around the edges. Just enough to make you think he might line ‘em up and give ‘em a go on fourth down five times in a row in a must have game, or that leaving no time for a game-saving field goal, he’d have his QB toss the fade for an improbable touchdown on the games’ final play. Whatever the cause, in a recent interview Miles underscored his meaning: “the point is going to Florida to win.”
Special to GatorCountry.com by Naphta
The last time Miles was in The Swamp, he didn’t. Was the loss improbable? Not if he and the nation had known a bit more about the eventual National Champs. What Miles really meant was that LSU needs the win to continue its latest BCS run, a familiar scenario. While Florida also must win to infuse its BCS hopes with new energy, by contrast with LSU, the Gators also need the win to demonstrate that they have addressed the issues so apparent in the first chapter of the season, and found their footing this year among the nation’s elite. Both teams have held serve in the last two meetings, and Florida must have the win to re-establish its home dominance, a bit tarnished by an “improbable” loss to Ole Miss in its last home stand, where the Gators looked like anything but BCS contenders on both side of the ball.
Let’s get to the details:
With 21 point single quarter breakouts this season, the take on Florida’s offense is that it is inconsistent, but explosive. If you go to sleep on it, you will be three scores down when you wake. The Gators have four score from anywhere-on-the-field athletes. So the book on UF’s offense this year, as last, is limit touches by its playmakers. The new clock rule is helping to accomplish that this year. UF is averaging a third fewer plays, and on average, two fewer possessions this year than last. Last week’s game saw UF recover some of those plays, and look for the same clock management approach to maximize offensive plays.
LSU is going to want to shorten the game for Florida’s offense, take the air out of the ball, and play a bit of keep away. They enter the game with a live armed, but short on experience QB, Jarrett Lee, who’s appeared to be a gamer since establishing himself over initial starter Andrew Hatch, throwing the game winner against Auburn two Saturdays ago. LSU Miles is a bit of a gambler, but he’s not going to want to put the game on Lee’s shoulders in only his night night SEC game away from the friendly confines of Death Valley, and his first start. LSU will look to dominate the line of scrimmage and get its all conference RB Charles Scott established, relying on its giant OL to lean on Florida’s smaller DL and wear it down. LSU wants to stay out of long third downs and give itself opportunities to widen its play selection with good first down running and short second downs. If they can do this with consistency, UF will have to commit players to the run defense, and LSU’s receivers will be able to get some favorable matchups in single coverage. Since UF wants to limit the rub and provide support to its OL, you will likely see them come out in some form of zone coverage, in an attempt to keep a maximum number of players near the ball and near the LOS. LSU has shown it can find holes in zone coverage.
LSU will look to make UF run the football, with consistency, further shortening the game, and believes it can do so without committing a safety to run defense. So you are going to see a one high look with disguised coverage on the strong safety, with the safeties playing at mid-depth, to decrease the approach to UF’s underneath routes. I believe that LSU will dare the Gators to beat them with the running game and go man up on Florida’s receivers, just as they did with Auburn’s, further shortening the game if UF must run overmuch. Florida will need to get behind this coverage and draw off the FS and hit some of its longer routes to force deeper drops and pull LSU out its initial safety look.
With Florida’s lack of running prowess, statistically, this year, I’m expecting LSU to come out in man coverage with a nickel back and challenge the Gators to run against their four down front. Expect them to have installed some of the fire zone blitzes that were so effective when used by Miami and Ole Miss. The power of the Ole Miss front was underestimated by most fans and their ability to get DL into gaps outside of our double stacks and blow up plays from the back side, as well as to individually dominate the point of attack in some cases.
Luckily, UF has been able to plug in Carl Johnson and has stanched the bleeding in the A gap. If big Carl (and a limited Tartt and Gilbert) can have a good game, Florida may be able to create the seams needed to get its cutback artists into the second level, get matched up on a linebacker or strong safety, and break some long runs, pulling LSU reluctantly out of heavy coverages and back into the 4-3 that we can take advantage of, getting single coverage on Louis Murphy or Percy Harvin. UF’s short yardage interior running game, in the absence of Emmanuel Moody is Tebow, Tebow, and more Tebow. Look for UF to continue its winning combination on the flanks, and take some short yardage situations wide to take advantage of the spacing.
You may see a good number of short, hard drops on the boundary corner, playing inside technique, receiving help from the nickel back. The field corner will play up, outside technique and try to keep his receiver outside the hash and limit him to short outs and other flat routes. LSU played a lot of man coverage against Auburn, thinking it had favorable matchups. With the lack of consistency shown by UF’s OL and RBs in the running game, I would expect this.
This should get the slot on a LB with regularity. The idea for LSU being that they want to push UF’s offense forward, funnel everything to the LBs and nickel back, prevent the over the top with the one deep and try to confuse Tebow’s safety read with disguised coverage. In this alignment, the safety can provide rollover coverage for the vacated OLB spot on run blitzes, triggered by the presence/position of the RB relative to the QB, since we cross almost all our interior paths to the line in from of the QB to maximize the effectiveness of the ball fake. Due to this, you will probably get the run blitz to the opposite side of where the RB locates himself, leaving LSU vulnerable to speed options where the RB can get a good block and the spacing is sufficient to make the give DE commit, and the OT to get the seal on the MLB.
Aaron Hernandez is going to be matched up on an OLB who will either shade to him or man up on the line. Hernandez needs to beat his man and get to that sweet spot in front of the safeties. I tend to doubt whether LSU will play two-deep zone, out of respect for Florida’s playmakers, or, rather, challenge the manhood of our receivers in single coverage. Well, that is what Florida wants, single coverage, man up, so we’ll see what LSU determines is the best approach.
Tim Tebow must run the football effectively. To do this, we are going to have to allow him to get on the flanks in the option more, as well as in the bootleg. I agree with Brady Ackerman that Tebow needs around 15 carries. If he is able to get yards on the middle isolation play right or left, then we must return to it. The key is to not allow the linebackers to set up confidently. We have to get them moving and thinking by coming at them multiple ways with multiple personnel packages. If Tebow gets these carries, the OLB spy on him is going to have to flow with him and this is going to open up opportunities in the middle, both in the dive play and in the inside shovel on the speed option.
We are going to want to keep a RB in game unless and until we can create the lanes for Tebow’s middle isolation plays, which I expect to see more of if we run a few successful QB zone counters, which we saw against Ark.
UF will need to prevent LSUs DE’s from over-committing to the pass rush by doing a credible job of controlling the interior and making the DEs crash to stop the zone read to the A and B gaps, if they expect to be able to give longer-developing pass plays time. If UF cannot establish the run, the middle and deep routes will not be open, because LSU will be running heavy coverages. They want to control the run with a front five or six and stay in nickel or dime a great deal if they can. This would permit the fire zone and unbalanced line blitzes that have proven effective against UF in the past with Ole Miss and Miami. Tebow will need to be aware of his keys, and glance over at his outlet receiver on the back side of these plays, and his outside receiver on the field side will need to consistently read his strong safety key correctly and be ready, and come back for the ball if Tebow is flushed from the pocket.
Tebow will need to be sharp and accurate on the deep routes, or LSU will crowd the short zones and make it difficult to pass. Extended handoff plays such as the WR screen should enable the Gators to get playmakers into space on the flanks, while not risking coming out of a run look, or taking the time that a run play to the flanks requires to develop, and I recommend that we use it, along with the screen play we flashed against Ole Miss to slow the pass rush. We must stick with these plays, since even the potential of them going for long yardage will have the LSU DL thinking twice about getting upfield too quickly.
UF should stay out of 5 wide unless in zero coverages. If we get zero coverages, we have to attack the deep middle by an audible to the slant in the early downs and run the middle ISO in the late downs. With effective running, UF can force LSU out of its heavy coverages and the skinny post and posts we thrive on will open up. The credibility of the play fake will be key in this situation.
Again, LSU wants to prevent UF from getting the personnel mismatches that its offense thrives on. Think of the zone read play to Demps against Arkansas. That is a mismatch play that gets a smaller, more agile player on a SS or an OLB. In order to get these mismatches all over the field, UF has to force LSU out of zone coverage if they present it. I’m not so sure they will. I think they believe they can match up athlete to athlete in the secondary and leave their DL and LB to control the run game without requiring a zone to keep defenders around the ball. LSU will also gamble that they can bring a late double in the secondary on Percy Harvin, and this being the case, Florida will need to do a better job of looking off the safety. And make secondary and tertiary receivers a credible threat. UF should decoy Harvin early and often, unless the other options are ineffective. If UF is not proficient at getting the ball to its 3rd and 4th receivers, then they may be tempted to think that. Teams have been trying to force UF to beat them with players other than Tebow and Harvin all year. Coordinators went to the films rooms in the summer with the objective of slowing down Harvin and Tebow. It is not as difficult to take away 2-3 players as it is 4-5. Florida must get the ball to Deonte Thompson, Riley Cooper and Aaron Hernandez in the passing game.
Let Tebow occasionally break contain with his feet. Don’t force him to go through unnatural progressions every passing down, since this causes the OL to have to hold blocks unnaturally long. He sees the field better in space. The reads need to be quick. Good things happen when Tebow is in space. Still, Tebow SHOULD have time to throw, absent a blitz. LSU has not been as effective in bringing pressure as in the past. Tyson Jackson is the big end LSU likes, and is like having a third DT out there to crash the off guard gaps. Still, UF can turn Marlon Favorite, seal Jackson, and get a quick, small back to the second level. Tyson Jackson can sometimes bull rush an OT right into the QB. We can counter much of the safety blitzing LSU is sending this off of an unbalanced line by rolling Tebow away from it, and I would think we installed an audible for this during the game preparations. That is, a play outside of our package we can opt to by a simple audible.
On defense for Florida, its ends will need to crash on early run downs, which will leave the defense vulnerable to counters and bootlegs. Backside contain is key, as LSU runs a number of zone counter looks this year. LSU may be able to get some good matchups against the safeties, and has the speed to get behind you and a QB who can deliver the ball to the deep zones with some accuracy. I would recommend Florida stay in a one high look, but shade the Strong to be able to assist in the run game as well as in the middle zones. They key for Florida, as always, is to limit the big play and to give the defense more downs to stop the offense, taking advantage of mistakes by the offense. It will be interesting to see if respect for Charles Scott causes UF to initially show three LBs.
Running out of a base 4-3 set, but going to nickel in the long downs, I am expecting conservative run blitzes from the MLB and perhaps the corner blitz from Haden. UF does not like the exposure of exotic blitzes. I would not expect to see many chances being taken by Florida with its safeties, a la Nick Saban. Florida’s OLBs have had issues with tackling and being in good football position, and injuries have not helped the situation. Still, the Gators will welcome the return of Ryan Stamper, who has big play potential from his strong backer position, and seems to be always around the ball.
On the DL, Torrey Davis and Brandon Antwine are back, and I expect to see UF use a deep rotation to try to exhaust the heavier LSU OL. Look for us to use our quick down lineman package in late downs to exaggerate this effect and get upfield and into gaps. I expect some line stunts to confuse the look post-snap for Lee. Florida has the quickness on the interior to test LSU. Look for Davis to be used as a disruptive influence at the three technique throughout the game in the long downs. First down is key for Florida in limiting LSU’s play selection on second, by creating second and long situations. Florida cannot lose Demetrius Byrd and Brandon LaFell in coverage. Ahmad Black will need to be quick to the ball in run support and cannot get scraped in coverage mistakes.
As usual, Florida will mix zone and man coverages to confuse the QB. I look for this to be somewhat effective against the relatively inexperienced Lee. But Florida should not rely on Lee to play timidly. Les Miles has shown he will take chances others won’t, and tends to play every game like it is his last.
Final Notes:
- Third down efficiency is over-estimated as a success indicator. The best offenses don’t get to third down.
- UF’s offensive line must gel and limit drive killing penalties.
- LSU will blitz the nickel back to get numbers on the edge
- 6-5, 350-pound Ciron Black and 6-7, 375-pound Herman Johnson. They open the holes for Charles Scott, the SEC’s leading rusher at 133.8 yards per game. Brandon Spikes will need to have double digit tackles. If the field corner or the free safety have double digit tackles, we will likely have lost the game.
- LSU will try to get isolated on our free safety.
- We need more hang time on kickoffs, and better kickoff coverage. Will we play the percentages and kick to the end zone, or will we try to play coffin corner ball?
- Whatever the scenario, the Gators MUST tighten their kickoff coverage. LSU starting multiple drives on the 50 yard line is not part of the plan to win.
- UF needs to send two gunners at Holliday on kickoffs and not allow him any space. High kicks will be the key to this.
- UF must get big plays from its special teams. I look for this to happen at home under the lights. Two or more short fields provided by Brandon James for UF and it will be difficult for LSU with a young QB to win this game.