SEC 2010 // Three Things We Know and Don't Know About Florida
by Year2 on Aug 3, 2010 4:31 PM EDT
in SEC Football
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PrintTHREE THINGS WE KNOW
1. The running game should be very good.
Yawn... ho hum. Another SEC team set for a good running game. It feels like a broken record in this weekly feature, and we're up for another skip next week too. Anyway, four of the five offensive linemen from last season are back, including preseason All-SEC pick Mike Pouncey and the humongous 360 lb Carl Johnson inside. Plus, every running back on the roster is back. The even-faster Jeffrey Demps figures to be the primary back, while the elusive Chris Rainey will get some carries in the "Percy position." Emmanuel Moody will finally get the lion's share of the power back carries now that Tim Tebow is gone, and hard running sophomore Mike Gillislee (No. 23 here) figures to get some carries too. Oh, and if anyone goes down, there's five-star freshman Mack Brown to bring into the mix. Despite not having Tebow, Florida is not going back to the days of Kestahn Moore and DeShawn Wynn taking turns being underwhelming in 2005.
2. The secondary will be tough to throw on.
Joe Haden became a top ten pick and Major Wright went in round three in this year's NFL draft, but the crew they left behind is still very good. Preseason All-SECer Ahmad Black, who shared the national lead in interceptions in 2008, anchors one safety spot while Will Hill, a regular rotation man a year ago, holds down the other. Freshman All-American in 2008 Janoris Jenkins steps up to the shutdown corner role Haden vacated, though he'll need to return to form after somewhat of a sophomore slump last season. The other corner is a bit of a mystery at this point, but it's coming down to senior Moses Jenkins, four-star sophomore Jeremy Brown, and four-star freshman Joshua Shaw. VHT true freshman Matt Elam figures to get a lot of playing time at the nickel after impressing the coaches all spring long. The proven guys are great, and the question marks are still very talented. Expect UF to continue to have a great rank in passing efficiency defense in 2010.
3. There is more back on defense than you think.
Brandon Spikes, Ryan Stamper, Haden, Wright, Jermaine Cunningham, and Carlos Dunlap all started for the Gators last season, and all but Stamper were selected in one of the first three rounds of the draft (he went undrafted but is trying to catch on with the Lions right now). Replacing the defensive ends will be the toughest task, but senior Justin Trattou actually started a few games ahead of Dunlap last year. Every defensive tackle on the roster is back, including 2008 starter Lawrence Marsh, who missing 2009 to injury. A.J. Jones, a full-year starter in 2009, and occasional starter Brandon Hicks will lead the young linebacking corps. As mentioned above, the secondary has a lot back too. The biggest names are gone, and the defense won't reach last year's heights. However, this is no repeat of the 2007 defense, where most everyone was either too young or starting more because of attrition than anything else.
THREE THINGS WE DON'T KNOW
1. How good a defensive coordinator Teryl Austin will be.
Florida first hired NFL vet George Edwards to run the defense in Charlie Strong's absence, but Edwards took off for the Buffalo Bills after about a month on the job. UF then turned to the NFL again for former Arizona Cardinals' defensive backs coach Teryl Austin, whose biggest selling point seemed at the time to be that he has worked with Steve Addazio. Hooray? It may end up better than expected simply because Austin plans to keep Strong's schemes in place as opposed to Edwards's plan, which had called for a switch to the 3-4. Continuity in scheme is good, and longtime Urban Meyer assistant Chuck Heater steps up as co-coordinator. Just because Austin will run a Strong-style defense doesn't mean it will work as well, because inspired defensive play calling (especially with corner blitzes) was Strong's best attribute. We just don't know how well Austin will do on game day, especially as this is his first coordinator job anywhere.
2. What to make of the receivers.
Perhaps even more than quarterback, wide receiver is the most important position in Meyer's offense. It only works well when all the guys he has has spreading the field horizontally are credible threats to get the ball. Thinness at the receiver spot last year helped to lead to a 17.3 PPG drop (!) in SEC play versus 2008. Deonte Thompson has gotten all the votes of confidence that a top receiver gets from Meyer and his coaches, so he's set at the top. After that, it gets less certain. Carl Moore played almost all of 2008 hurt and missed 2009 to injury. Also missing '09 to injury was redshirt freshman Andre Debose. Omarius Hines, TJ Lawrence, and Justin Williams rarely played meaningful downs last year, Aaron Hernandez was the only tight end to play last year, and Frankie Hammond DUI'd himself far into Meyer's doghouse. UF signed some VHTs at receiver, but so far, only Percy Harvin has gotten any serious playing time at receiver as a true freshman under Meyer. There's plenty of talent, but none of it is proven.
3. What happens if John Brantley goes down.
John Brantley has yet to play anything but garbage time, so there is some concern there. However, he's a redshirt junior who didn't play much because he was sitting behind a Heisman winner. You're never sure what you're getting from a quarterback until you see him, but overall, Brantley is not that big a risk. The situation behind him is pretty desperate though. Thanks to freshman Jordan Reed's switch to tight end midway through last year, it's entirely possible that the guy with the most practice snaps at quarterback besides Brantley is punter/extreme emergency quarterback Chas Henry. Reed has been practicing some Wildcat-style sets this year, but that's hardly the full offense. True freshman Trey Burton has been getting reps as a full-on quarterback, but Meyer's offense is tough for rookies to fully grasp. But hey, there's also two-star true freshman Tyler Murphy! Needless to say, Florida's season goes way up into the air if Brantley finds himself too injured to play.
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Offense should be improved
Last year’s offense was predictable and stagnant. Partly due to having a new OC and partly trying to make the best use of Tebow. But every defense was prepared for the Tebow attack and the predictability didn’t help him much.
This year’s inexperienced but talented set of QB and receivers, and the threat of a good running game should let Addazio open things up and be more creative. I just hopes he makes the best of the opportunity.
draw plays
not sure if the draws were called by Addazio, or it was Tebow deciding to put his head down and grab a few yards. Probably a little bit of both guys quickly (too quickly?) going to their comfort zone.
by DonnerPartyof1 on Aug 4, 2010 3:34 PM EDT up reply actions
All those draws Cardsfan25 is talking about were the running-back-up-the-middle plays that Gary Danielson kept calling “the dive play.” They mostly came on zone read option plays, and they didn’t get incessantly annoying until the LSU game.
Now, the zone read option is a bread and butter play for Florida’s offense. Running it a lot is not a big deal. However after Tebow’s concussion (the game before LSU), either the coaches wanted to protect Tebow by having him hand off nearly every time or he was protecting himself by handing off nearly every time. Under normal circumstances he’d have pulled the ball back and taken it himself more often, but two weeks after being concussed, he wasn’t up for taking many hits.
So there’s the question: why did Addazio keep calling so many zone read option plays when it was transparently obvious that Tebow wasn’t going to be taking it himself too often? It doesn’t make much sense unless A) the goal was to protect Tebow at all costs by going hyper-conservative on offense and letting the defense win games, or B) Addazio is an idiot. I don’t think option B is true because Urban Meyer trusts him greatly, so it’s likely it was mostly just A.
The wild card third option is the theory that Orson at EDSBS has repeated a few times: that the offense they made for last year was to be very basic for the veterans so they could be in their comfort zone while Addazio and Scot Loeffler built the John Brantley offense in the background with the second teamers. If you believe in that, you could interpret all those dive plays as a result of having a limited playbook for the vets. Addazio simply was calling what he had.
The fact that the offensive scheme was wildly different and heavily pass-oriented in the Sugar Bowl would also lend some credence to that theory, if you’re trying to back it up with evidence. They might have been test driving the Brantley offense against a bad Cincy defense having given the veterans a month to pick it up in December.
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SBNation's SEC Blog
With Brantley behind center....
..if guys like Andre Debose and Deonte Thompson are on their game, we’ll see a strong passing attack as well as a strong ground game from probably one of the best RB corps in the SEC.
Good point you made about our offense being a little too predictable at times with Tim Tebow, Dave. This was especially the case back in 2007, when at times he seemed too fixated on Percy Harvin as his go-to guy and wasn’t spreading the ball around as he should have. Opposing defenses read that like a book and shut it down.
Unlike post-2006, the impact from attrition caused by graduation and early-NFL entry hasn’t affected us as hard this post-season and IMO should be reflected in our on-field performance this year. Thanks to some awesome recruiting by Coach Meyer and his staff, we’ve arrived at a point where we’re not forced to rebuild, but instead reload year after year.
Had Cam Newton not done something stupid that forced his dismissal from UF, we would have had another strong QB tandem to follow the Tebow-Brantley set and had a reliable backup. Trey Burton had some good reviews following spring practice; I like his positive attitude and enthusiasm about being a Gator, but there are expectations on him that he needs to fulfill and a lot of ground he needs to cover. I do like what I’m hearing about our incoming QB in the Class of 2011 (Jeff Driskel) so far, though.
Check out my "Talk of the Town" blog at www.gatorenvy.com
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