Truth Takes: From a Birmingham Hotel

GatorTruth133

Alethea
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As I sit here in Birmingham thinking about the game I witnessed a few hours ago, I can't help but think we have seem overreactions and underreactions. Our beloved Florida Gators won, by multiple scores, on the road, in a stadium we have struggled in our last few visits, against a team that I now believe will make some noise in the SEC West. After an incomplete Week One as I write this, I would not be surprised if the Egg Bowl is for number 3 in the West instead of number 5. With that said, the Gators went into Oxford and took care of business. It was both phenomenal and poor, exhilarating and frustrating. We cheered, we celebrated, we called for heads. In the end, it was the result we wanted and perhaps, one we desperately needed.

It was a nice fall day in the 70's, mostly overcast. I was happy to see a good number of Gators, not just the players' family and friends, made the trip to Oxford. It was definitely interesting not even having a small contingent of the Pride of the Sunshine in the stadium. A lot of the Ole Miss crowd was quiet for most of the game. It was not due to numbers, because after the "controversial" roughing the passer call, they were plenty loud with their boos. Before the game there was a fun little incident. A Mississippi officer working the game told my mom to have her mask on (whatever, its the rules), but we pointed to the Event Staff member next to us who hadn't been wearing a mask at all the whole time we had been their and kept yelling to another worker in the next section about another party "talking sh*t" and other similar phrases. Officer approaches said worker who then argues with him that "it ain't staying on, d*mn." Got to love Mississippi.

One of my favorite moments? After the last TD by Pitts the Ole Miss P.A. people played Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down". Naturally, all the Gators in Vaught-Hemingway got down. I pondered on the twitter machine about why you would play a song the away team rallies around. With no Pride of the Sunshine, many Gators were left in their socially distanced groups to do their own "We Are The Boys" out of sync with anyone else.

Offense
As predicted, Mullen started the game trying to force the run and I believe called a run on each first down of that first drive. We were bailed out by the pass interference flag. We also saw Grimes drop a back shoulder throw that he would later score on a similar throw and catch. We saw a few drops today, but most, like the Grimes play came with good plays by the defender as well. Another example of what I am referencing is the deep throw to Copeland where a well time hit by the safety separated the ball from him.

With that said, we set a UF record for yards in an SEC game. We threw for over 400 yards, Trask for 416 and six TD's. We ended up with 6.8 yards per rush. That's really good. There isn't much to complain about. This offense will only get better as they get more in gel and more experienced with each other. Eleven players caught passes, six players carried the ball. When the offense needed to answer momentum starting to go towards Ole Miss, it did.

I don't agree with the decision to put Emory in on the second drive and was not a fan of putting him back in immediately after the pick. However, I understand that not putting him back in after that could hurt his confidence and it was good to see him drive the ball down the field after that. With that said, Trask showed today that unless you are placating Jones, there is no reason to put him in unless the game is out of reach.

Kyle to Kyle will be fun to watch this year. As good as Trask was today, Pitts was even better. His play of the day was definitely that last TD catch where he went up, grabbed it out of the air, and maintained possession as the defender tried taking the ball away from him as he fell to the ground. Second place was when he did the stiff arm like the Ancient One did to Dr. Strange that slowed down the defender (no comic pun intended, but if you know, you know) allowing him to break away for a 71-yard TD. Kyle Pitts, if he keeps it up, should win at least the Mackey. If he does not, it will be the most ridiculous theft of an award since Jethro Tull won that Grammy over Metallica.

Great offensive game.

Defense
Speaking of offensive, this defense. But before I get into the negative, I want to look at the positive. Cox and Dexter look to be up to the billing. What I saw of Dean in safety looked good. He did miss a few tackles that would have been for loss, but he did do enough to slow the players down for either tackles for loss or short gains. Including one to stop a player short on third down. One last thing before we go down the negative rabbit hole, we held Ole Miss to one less yard than LSU did last year and Lane Kiffin is much better with offense than Rich Rod in my opinion. Just trying to add perspective regarding the yards they put on a lot of people, including the eventual National Champions last season.

With that said, this defensive performance was overall atrocious and unacceptable. The amount of yards we gave up on 3rd down is ridiculous. I thought we honestly did make an adjustment in the second quarter to allow for 3rd and short since we are better with that than 3rd and long.

Losing Shaw Davis hurt because we had to see more of Donovan Stiner on the field. I know there has been discussion of worst safeties in Florida history and I don't know how he hasn't taken the top spot after today. Does he need to allow 4 TD's in a game (maybe he did, I've not re-watched the game)? I mean McWilliams got crucified (rightly so) for UGA '18, but Stiner has been consistently bad, but does have the dumb luck to have balls thrown right into his statue-esque during the play movement (see Auburn 2019). On one of the last TD's (not the last), my brother and I saw homie was lined up in man to man with a receiver and called the TD pre-snap. Corral saw the same thing and touchdown.

The DE's actually did pretty good with the exception of going too far up the field opening the holes the Corral took advantage of for runs throughout the day. There were a few times were they did look to be held as well (the first Ole Miss TD I swear the DE was tackled by the LT or that's how it looked from my angle). Linebackers need to fill those gaps though.

We know this was bad, but again, for some perspective, lots of missed tackles to start the season last year and it improved. Plus, bring back Davis and Stewart and this may get better. Also, I'm not sure after what I've seen today that we will face another offense this good during the regular season. If you do, please tell me who. Ole Miss was #3 in the SEC last year in offense and the only team on our schedule ahead of them is LSU, who is definitely not where they were. So, again, today was atrocious and unacceptable, but there are some silver linings while we work to fix it.

Quick Hits
  • I admit, I was wrong about Kentucky over Auburn, though if they score at the end of the first half, it may be a different game.
  • I will celebrate, like I celebrate my Trask pick from 2018, my #FailState over LSU pick.
  • I hate Miami so much that the 28-3 score when I decided to take it off my last button on the remote wasn't as much fun to see FSU lose. I mean it's fine, but my blood also boils.
  • Franks is still helping UGA win games.
  • To reference an in-game tweet from myself, Trask has more yards at halftime than the entire offense would have had in a game under Muschamp.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the K-State win over Oklahoma. My grandfather, from Kansas and even got me K-State gear when I was in elementary school passed away a few weeks ago, right before they blew the lead against Arky State. Felt good to see the win after walking out of the stadium.

Next week, we will be able to work on the defense against the Fighting Muschamps. As of this writing they are down 14-7 to Tennessee and the Vols are driving. The good news, is we seem to have the offense to come to a gun fight. Get your tickets now.

Go Gators!
 

Swamp Donkey

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As predicted, Mullen started the game trying to force the run
Leopard. Spots?

Kyle to Kyle will be fun to watch this year. As good as Trask was today, Pitts was even better.
Trash was PRETTY accurate, and the OL held. Not sure if you could tell from the stadium but even 4-5 of the drops hit the receivers in the hands
The amount of yards we gave up on 3rd down is ridiculous.
....
Losing Shaw Davis hurt because we had to see more of Donovan Stiner on the field. I know there...

Plus, bring back Davis and Stewart and this may get better.
Do you REALLY think Stiner leaves the field? Why hasnt he the last two years?

The Linebackers need to fill those gaps though.
Uh huh.... how do you think this will change? Short of David Reese, when have we seen even slightly capable LB play under Robinson and Grantham?

Im not optimistic that there is any changes coming in LB and safety play.

Oh yeah..... sure this opponent is much better than predicted/ranked whatever. it seems like we say that 6-8 times a year every year.
 
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GatorJB

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I said this in another thread, but I think this defense will improve from atrocious to adequate. They'll even look really good against the teams with horrible offenses (i.e., Vandy, Mizzou, and Arkansas). The other teams on our schedule have their share of weaknesses, so if the offense keeps it up, we could be undefeated when heading to Atlanta.

But before you jump all over me for saying something positive, I agree that this defense will likely cost us championships unless Davis and Stewart are better than expected and Stiner is abandoned in the middle of nowhere on the way back to Gainesville. I know, poor LBs, but we can win some shootouts with this O.
 

gatorfan81

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This offense has a way of sucking the souls out of opposing teams which will help. I'm going to mark this down to first game jitters with all the arm tackling and a opposing qb who was pretty damn accurate himself all day
 

deuce

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Corral would be a cancer in our QB room!
 

GatorTruth133

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Leopard. Spots?

Trash was PRETTY accurate, and the OL held. Not sure if you could tell from the stadium but even 4-5 of the drops hit the receivers in the hands
Do you REALLY think Stiner leaves the field? Why hasnt he the last two years?

Uh huh.... how do you think this will change? Short of David Reese, when have we seen even slightly capable LB play under Robinson and Grantham?

Im not optimistic that there is any changes coming in LB and safety play.

Oh yeah..... sure this opponent is much better than predicted/ranked whatever. it seems like we say that 6-8 times a year every year.

Oh, I could tell about those drops. The one to Copeland was a f-ing Dime. Good safety play to jar the ball loose, but we have to make those catches at some point. Though that final Pitts TD was a catch we don’t make last year.

Do I think Stiner leaves? No. Hope? Yes. Especially with Dean added to the safety rotation with Torrence. Stiner also somehow as a major contributor (number of plays) the last few years had his worst game yesterday.

Miller played pretty well. I do think for the main issue I was talking about, it is partially schematic. One, the DE’s going a little too deep in the backfield. Two, dropping a QB spy (which maybe we did and just were so poor I didn’t recognize it in Stadium). Outside of that? I dunno. Week One, see how it goes going forward.

And many times it’s right. Again, defensive failure for sure. However, it doesn’t negate that they did the exact same thing to last years National Champions, Bama, and others. Along with adding a better offensive coach, we weren’t about to hold them to 200 offensive yards. We should have done much better with a lot of thing a though. One point I meant to include is that our players need to stop leaving their feet. On the double pass and then on a later play, if the defender just lowers the boom instead of jumping in the air the plays are more effected by the defenders. The second play would definitely have been a sack of Carter didn’t jump. Corral then made a play afterward.

Bonus: Glad to see that McPherson continues his march to being UF’s all-time leading scorer and that 55-yarder was a beauty.

Bonus 2: Speaking of Malibu’s Most Wanted, don’t be hatin.
 

FlyingGator

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He's a douchebag.

Clint agrees...

tenor.gif
 

BMF

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Good write up Truth. I watched bits and pieces of every SEC team yesterday and the only team that looked great was Miss State - for being Miss State. Their D shut down LSU when they had to and played w/ a lot of fire. Leach obviously did what he does. I agree that Ole Miss was going to get their yards and make some plays - but it was just painful watching 600+ yards being put on us.

We won't see an offense anywhere near as complex as this all year. Missouri's O is interesting, and they played w/ heart vs. Alabama. UT & SC are typical grind it out offenses, but they do throw it a bit (surprisingly). Will UGA's O get it figured out by the time they play us? Probably, they have a pretty tough schedule before they play us. LSU looks like a shell of their 2019 team. UGA seems to be the biggest roadblock,
 

Ancient Reptile

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Corral: 22/31 for 395 yds, 3 TDs, and 1 INT. Credited with 51 yds on 13 rushes. Discount the sacks, and he scrambled for 81 yds on 9 rushes.
EJ: 1/3 for 30 yds and 1 INT. Rushed 4 times for 37 yds.

Tough choice.
 

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