by David Parker
PD’s Postulations: The Missouri Game
Well that was interesting. It felt underwhelming, but in the end, statistically and on the scoreboard, this was a marked improvement for the Gator defense. And that’s all that matters right now. Yes, the offense was slow and rusty and off their game to start the game, but that’s to be expected after the long layoff. The defense had a lot more focus in the off time, and it showed. Personnel was different, but that was a small part of the story.
The KT Show
Before I get to the defense, a tip of the hat to the KTs on offense. They’ve been playing football in the SEC for nearly 90 years, and nobody has ever thrown as many touchdowns in the first four games of the season as Kyle Trask just did. And all 18 of Trask’s scoring tosses came against SEC competition, which is not the case for the other players near the top of that all-time list, who took advantage of at least one out-of-conference patsy to boost their totals. Trask also became the first player in Gator history to throw at least 4 touchdowns in 4-straight games. Which is astonishing given the quarterbacks and offenses that Florida has had.
Then there’s the other KT, Kadarius Toney. Three big, impressive touchdowns. Doubling his season total, and doubling his career total coming into the year. And three different kinds of scores. A deep bomb off a perfectly run route, a sort of delayed end-around he took on a scamper around the defense, and a short pass taken in deep traffic, basically being wrapped up and tackled, popping out of a head lock, reversing field twice in an eye blink, and zipping into the end zone. Toney has become the polished, disciplined wide receiver we always hoped he would be.
If you consider the rust that left between 8 and 15 points on the field, this was another impressive game for the O, and a step forward overall. The offensive line, issues aside created mostly by a missing starter, improved, pushing around a defense that closed down Kentucky like a Blockbuster Video last week, making more big holes than we’ve seen against an SEC team in a long time. We are going to need a big game from this unit, and the offense in general, to pull off a win in Jacksonville.
Defense Not Offensive
Before heaping too much praise on the D, there’s the caveat that Missouri isn’t exactly a ferocious offense, right in the middle of the SEC pack statistically. The caveat that our best pass defense is still the bad pass by the opposing quarterback. The caveat that or linebackers are still out of position too many times. That aside, this was a solid improvement. To cut to the quick, this was what we HAD to see this week to even entertain having a chance to beat Georgia next week. That’s a significantly bigger step to take, but if this defense repeated the non-entity effort from the first three games against Missouri, there would be no way conceivable they could make a big enough 1-week jump to compete with Georgia.
Because the Dawgs are going to slow down our offense. If for no other reason, by keeping them off the field. But their defense will give us the biggest challenge of the regular season by far.
3 bad passes; 1 wide open completion where the linebacker was slow to react, but closed fast to stop him 1 yard shy; 4 big pressures from the defensive line, and a shovel pass stopped short by a quick recognition by the linebacker (though they gave up the conversion on fourth down). The numbers don’t match up because I had to watch the truncated replay, and missed some plays that were edited out. With accurate passes, this would have been a less impressive third down performance, but we can’t overlook that this was a big improvement. Our coverage scheme didn’t change to my eyes, what limited field I could see, so the key difference maker was the push by the defensive line. In the first 3 games, we were seeing pillow-soft bail coverage teamed with zero pass rush, particularly on 3rd down, which will just never work. Great coverage will facilitate more sacks and throw-aways, and great D-line play can save the bacon for the secondary. I think we saw the latter on Saturday. Adding our best tackle to the lineup proved me wrong. I said during the week that his return would make little difference if we didn’t change anything schematically. We did play more press and mix coverage than we had in the first three games (I’m guessing they finally acknowledged what we saw: that press of mixed coverage consistently produced much better results than off coverage). But also, very significantly, Grantham’s standard tack of rushing only 3 on third-and-long went out the window. We rushed 4 in most of those situations, and the difference was felt big time in the 3rd down efficiency. Grantham told Gator Nation after the A&M game that he wasn’t going to change anything, but he clearly did.
And here we go. The whole season, as ever, is on the line in Jacksonville. Win and our path to Atlanta and the playoffs are under our control. Lose, and the rest of the season is just an exhibition. In Mullen’s first two years, he has in my opinion made the Phil Fulmer mistake of treating the Georgia game as too important, putting so much emphasis on it that the team has not played loose and downhill. It has led to confusion, tight play and mistakes they didn’t make the rest of the year. Even with all that, we only lost to Georgia because we refused to let our defensive backs play pass defense, and refused to rush the quarterback on third down. At least one of those has to change to beat the Kirby Creeps next week. See you there.