Bits & Pieces: Florida vs. South Florida

[Frozen Gator]

I would like to see an old fashioned bootleg with a pass option.

Why did our DB's play so far off the opponents receivers? Third and six-eight is not much of a problem when the secondary lines up twelve yards off the receiver.

I should have said NAKED bootleg

 

[Detroitgator]

I should have said NAKED bootleg

I don't think anyone is falling for that "banana in the tailpipe" trick ever again with AR taking the snap.

 

[Frozen Gator]

I don't think anyone is falling for that "banana in the tailpipe" trick ever again with AR taking the snap.

If the blocking scheme is correct it will. Besides, it hasn't been used in two games.

 

[jdh5484]

Looks like our clandestine operation of sending out ex-Gators to dismantle programs from within is working. Who do we have working the Georgia operation?

Muschamp... give it a little time.

 

[Saulgoodman]

Still trying to process things but I'm going to need more time. Not quite sure I've ever seen anything like this at the QB position. The closest and most recent examples that come to mind are Felipe Franks, Adrian Martinez, and Bo Nix. Those three could make an amazing throw/scramble one play and then the next play would make the most boneheaded play you have seen in your life. AR made the statement that he is a QB and his job is to pass the ball (or something to that effect). A QB's job is to win the game, plain and simple. Setting out to prove BS media types that have stereotyped him wrong is a lost cause. Rumors were floating around that he didn't use his legs against Kentucky because he got injured in the first quarter. I didn't believe them but gave him the benefit of the doubt. Now it has been two weeks straight where he hasn't used his legs except for a couple of last resort scrambles.

To be honest, I didn't think we would see him run that much at the beginning of the season due to Miller being hurt. Expectations were so so, this is a learning/developmental year, so I was under the belief that Napier would probably limit AR in the running game. Then the Utah game happens and that gave me the impression that Napier's outlook is "PHUCK IT, WE'LL DO IT LIVE!". Now here we are a couple of days after the USF game and we don't have a clue what we will be getting this upcoming Saturday in Knoxville.

This issue has to be one of the four things or a mixture of all.

1. AR really is hurt. Maybe this is true but understandably, neither him or Napier is going to make that public knowledge for our opponents to know.

2. Game plan/Scheme. Maybe Napier has tried to keep the offense very vanilla until the Tennessee game. Napier possibly got overconfident himself after Utah and didn't think we needed to do to much against an average Kentucky team to win. If so, that still doesn't excuse the USF game. Our offense hasn't looked the same pre-snap since Utah.

3. AR is a mentally fragile person. It pains me to even type that about the QB/Leader of our football team. If this is the case, if he turns it over one time in Knoxville you might as well stick a fork in us. Just by watching his body language during the game and listening to his post game press conferences leads me to believe this is at least some of the issue.

4. Individual coaching. AR has been compared to the likes of Cam Newton and Vince Young. Years ago I seen a video where Mack Brown was talking about Vince's struggles early on as a QB. Brown said he pulled Young into his office one day and asked him why he had changed the way he played. Why had Vince stopped utilizing his legs and relied only on his passing? Brown told him to be that exciting player that he recruited in high school and to go out and have fun. As we all know, things turned out pretty well for Young. Hearing about how meticulous and in depth a coach as Napier is, it's hard for me to believe he hasn't pulled AR to the side during the game or in private to tell him that we are going to have to have him use his legs to be the best offense and team that we can be.

In my opinion we are not even in the position to win the game at the end against Utah if AR isn't our QB. He played awful against Kentucky and we where in it till about 4 mins to go against Kentucky. He played even worse against USF and we were lucky to escape with a win. We go as AR goes. This kid could provide us some big wins and exciting television to watch for the rest of the year or he could provide us with the most head scratching up and down rollercoaster of a season maybe we've ever seen. Buckle up folks.

 

[Double Gator Dad]

"To make matters worse, we reverted to tackling poorly." This IMHO is what made the game competitive, The tackling was horrendous and fundamentally unsound. Trey Dean was the epitome of this last night but he wasn't alone.

What drives me nuts is watching Dean miss tackles and take bad angles all night before eventually coming up to make one tackle. Then I have to watch him flex for the camera and strut around like he made the play of the game.

I was hoping that we would lose some of the false bravado this season but I guess it’s indigenous to sports today.

 

[oxrageous]

Then the Utah game happens and that gave me the impression that Napier's outlook is "PHUCK IT, WE'LL DO IT LIVE!"

 

[gatormandan]

Maybe Napier has tried to keep the offense very vanilla until the Tennessee game.

I know you raised this as a possibility, but I say B.S. We are what we are.

 

[Saulgoodman]

What drives me nuts is watching Dean miss tackles and take bad angles all night before eventually coming up to make one tackle. Then I have to watch him flex for the camera and strut around like he made the play of the game.

I was hoping that we would lose some of the false bravado this season but I guess it’s indigenous to sports today.

Nothing like showing how much of a bad a$$ you are after tackling a guy that run by you or over you for a first down. Just look at me, without me that would have been a touchdown. Now you all will have to wait 12 plays and 10 minutes later until you get that touchdown!

 

[Saulgoodman]

I know you raised this as a possibility, but I say B.S. We are what we are.

This weekend will tell all. My gut is agreeing with you.

 

[Bernardo de la Paz]

I don't think anyone is falling for that "banana in the tailpipe" trick ever again with AR taking the snap.

 

[Double Gator Dad]

The whole won't back down shcit is gay and very awkward. Definitely needs to be scrapped

The Won’t Back Down thing would have worked when we actually had a football program with some pride and an attitude say maybe anywhere from 1991 until 2010.

Now it makes look stupid. We declare that we won’t back down while our defense is playing on roller skates. Technically I guess we don’t back down instead we simply skate out of the way.

It’s embarrassing.

 

[Spurdog98]

Looks like our clandestine operation of sending out ex-Gators to dismantle programs from within is working. Who do we have working the Georgia operation?

Second only to Saban's clandestine operation of sending out former asst. coaches to dismantle ours.

 

[Detroitgator]

Nothing like showing how much of a bad a$$ you are after tackling a guy that run by you or over you for a first down. Just look at me, without me that would have been a touchdown. Now you all will have to wait 12 plays and 10 minutes later until you get that touchdown!

I actually yelled at my inanimate TV on that play...

 

[Detroitgator]

The Won’t Back Down thing would have worked when we actually had a football program with some pride and an attitude say maybe anywhere from 1991 until 2010.

Now it makes look stupid. We declare that we won’t back down while our defense is playing on roller skates. Technically I guess we don’t back down instead we simply skate out of the way.

It’s embarrassing.

Switch it up to Free Fallin'

 

[Bernardo de la Paz]

We declare that we won’t back down while our defense is playing on roller skates.

Fake it till you make it

 

[Back Alley Gator]

Switch it up to Free Fallin'

Last Dance with Mary Jane?

 

[Altitude Gator]

That play and the one where right tackle Barber absolutely flattened USF's edge rusher then pounded him a second time for good measure when he attempted to get off the turf.

Barber was mauling his guy most of the night. He has a couple bad reads, but when he got on a guy, he was nasty. I think he will be a great one here.

 

[NOLAGATOR]

After a shaky, last minute victory that required two key blunders by the upstart Bulls, the questions are still swirling about the Gator’s offense, particularly the passing game, and the play of would-be phenom QB Anthony Richardson. To further compound matters, the defense, which had trouble dissecting and stopping the shifting and overloading USFL offense, appeared to regress. Coach Napier, who was effusive with his post-game praise of the Bulls and Coach Jeff Scott, offered little in the way of answers other than the need to execute better. For this year, he’s right, but given the perceived regressions since a really nice opening victory over Utah, the average fan has the feeling there’s more to this than one fix.

Personally, I find myself feeling more and more that Richardson might be more Sablehouse than Tebow. After a solid first game, he has alternately looked both lost and sad, been unable to throw with consistent accuracy, thrown multiple interceptions against no TD passes, and lost the ability to run effectively. Mention has been made that Napier needs a QB coach to help untangle these myriad of issues AR is experiencing. That’s looking to be truer each week, but the problem is where are you going to get one at this stage of the season? It feels like we’re at the mercy of Napier and current offensive company tinkering until they find some way to help him not nut up in games and be more of an offensive detriment than a dynamic game changer. And for the record, in southern football talk “nutting up” is the first step toward choking! It is not complimentary as Urban Meyer would use it.

The play of the defense was disappointing, if not surprising, given their steady play to start the season. We struggled all night to adjust to the constant shifts employed by the Bulls and were very frequently outnumbered at the point of attack and our LBs were cut off in their scrapes and flow to the ball. Ventrell Miller is sorely missed, as he’s the on-field commander of the D and that leadership was noticeably lacking. To make matters worse, we reverted to tackling poorly. All this led to 286 rushing yds allowed with 3 TDs. Another issue that came into focus was that our inability to contain the rush at and around the LOS gave the Bull’s runners plenty of space with the depth of drop/alignment by our DBs.

The bright spot, obviously, was the OL, which has been coached into not only a group of reliable blockers who are technically better than we’ve seen in a while (I hope everyone is noticing how they climb the field after chips and continue blocking in the secondary level) and have a degree of toughness, a mean streak, that is refreshing and a vital part of an effective OL. And certainly the backs are hitting the holes and able to elude or outrun tacklers. Johnson and Etienne are the real deals and even Wright has been pretty steady. These units deserve a lot of praise, as they have been the most functional part of the O thus far.

* There could be an entire series of articles written that delve into Richardson’s problems and what’s to be done to straighten them out. There’s terrible mechanics (flat-footed in the pocket and on throws, though I did notice a bounce on a couple of occasions), getting lost in his reads that lead to a poor choice of throws or too long in the pocket, and inconsistent to bad decision-making (e.g. the pick in the red zone, an audible). Right now, as an old coaching colleague might say, Richardson couldn’t scratch his a$$ with a handful of fish hooks and I’m wondering at this point if he’ll ever snap out of this funk and become much more functional, much less the dynamic playmaker that is expected. I personally hate feeling this way, but it sometimes happens.

* Our old friend and sometime counter-pointer slash administrative antagonist @FireFoley asked the question of whether we’d be better off running the single wing? While I liked it as a high school offense and could see some use as a package for short yardage situations, we’d see a crowded box that would eventually nullify its effectiveness. There’s just no getting around the need to be able to pass vertically, which we aren’t very good at currently.

* As bad as Richardson has been, and there remains anticipation that he will become that epitome dual threat QB, the fact is that our receivers are mostly possession types that can also block. They are limited in big play ability that includes stretching the field. They can improve their routes, but not their speed. Only better recruiting in the future can do that. I will say Shorter and maybe Wittemore showed a glimpse last night, but overall the group is not a big play threat.

* The book on defending AR is becoming pretty clear. Keep him in the pocket and make him beat you with his arm. He can’t do that right now and USFL‘s DEs and OLBs squatted to make sure he was contained. The opposition knows that reading route progression and making sound decisions is too slow to non-existent. I’m afraid Napier’s got his work cut out for him.

* Cox, Watson, and the D front, though they had their struggles, made some key plays when it counted and helped thwart what looked to be a sure-fire comeback to win or tie. Cox looked aggressive, but not as undisciplined toward the latter stages of the game. Watson’s a space-eater and can both hold his gap and move to the ball as needed. Pretty remarkable for a guy that’s 400+ and as wide as he is tall.

* The takeaways were timely and played a huge part in our ability to come out on top. For all the praise that the announcers heaped on the Bull’s QB and he was pretty slippery running the ball, I think it was clear why he wasn’t the starter at Baylor. Good on us!

Napier is probably not as universally “trusted” as he was to start the season and that can’t be unexpected with the QB and passing game issues that are at the forefront. Taking a strictly realistic look at things, the questions of why doesn’t he call more long, intermediate, roll out, etc. passes for AR are redundant at this point. The kid simply can’t execute what is called and it’s all pretty basic. There’s no logical reason to think that he’s going to be able to execute the stretch routes, combos, etc. without making mistakes, some critical. So what’s left is to try somebody else (Miller’s hurt, Kitna’s likely not nor may never be ready) or keep trying to find the switch to turn on your current guy. You’ve got painful and more painful and the bad part is that there remains the possibility that AR may not snap out of it and live up to his lofty expectations. That’s not what anybody wants, but if it does the game becomes more about management than aggressively planning for our opponents.

And if where we find ourselves after three games wasn’t enough, up next are the cursed Vols, on an uptick nonetheless and on the road to boot. I doubt we’ll be favored heading into Neyland. I believe we’ll have a chance. Our D is capable, but has to resume better tackling and our LB play has to improve and offensively I’d like to see us roll the pocket with AR and give him an option to pass with limited reads or run with a head of steam. The announcer last night suggested this and it’s something many have likely questioned. “We’ll see,” the answer my granddaddy used to give when he wasn’t quite certain, yet expectant, is where I am. Lot to work on and improve. Still waiting on that improvement from game one. I’m optimistic by nature, but more cautious than ever. Still waiting for Billy to pull a rabbit out of his hat where QB play is concerned. We’ll see. Go Gators!

 

[NOLAGATOR]

Spot on cover 2.

As stated, there is AR and then there is????

On the QB coach, what about SOS or Shane?

I know I'm all O&B glasses but I still believe this is on Cousin Eddie.

We have no burner WRs.

Napier likes TEs and we don't have any.

Oh and we have no SEC LBs and DL is limited.

We have an OL. We have RBs. We have a QB who has wheels.

Run, run, run, and play RPO

But I'm still on the Sling Train.

Again, I was at UF when Pell was first here. It WILL get better. Just not this week.