- Oct 5, 2017
- 2,303
- 6,263
Better late than never, it's been a busy day, my apologies, but better than last Sunday when the air conditioning went out.
There's no better way of saying this other than this performance by most of the team was unacceptable. This is not a good USF team, it was a team that struggled with Howard. I will give them this, and this is something I spoke about in the offseason, they have a power 5 champion QB. Again, the performance was unacceptable. You cannot give up almost 300 yards rushing to any team, much less this USF team. I can accept a Utah team who returns 8 starters and is a power 5 champion whose identity is that run in the first game in the scheme. I don't like it, but I can see that and understand it. I can be happy with turning a defensive game around at the 11 minute mark in the 2nd quarter against Kentucky. What I cannot accept or understand is letting a team with an offense ranked in the 90's put up over 400 yards.
Believe it or not, there were some good things, but there were plenty of bad. Let's start by taking a look at the highlights, which I know are few, but worth looking at what was good. Starting on offense, in the first half we scored on each full drive. I'm not counting the "drive" where we took a knee to go to the half. One of those drives lasted all of three plays because Montrell Johnson took it 62 yards to the house. All the running backs played well and finished with over 5 yards per carry. Whittemore, Shorter, and Zip all had big catches. AR began 8/10 and one of those incompletions was a good throwaway after Zanders whiffed on a block allowing a defender in his face pretty quickly. Big Dez also played well and continues to come along. Our CB's continue to play well over all w/ Kimber leading the way this week with a pick six after allowing the big TD pass last week.
Now for the rough parts and lets begin with the offense. Let's start with AR. He started 8/10, but finished 2/8 with 2 INT's of the 6 incompletions. The first INT he failed to recognized a LB playing a robber. Then he checked into a goal line pass that he threw poorly potentially giving the game away at that moment. Officially, he had 7 runs for 24 yards. However, in reviewing the film and play by play he only had 6 runs, but the play by play credits him for a 1 yard run that was actually a 1 yard loss by Wright. I bring that up because once again we limited the running ability of AR. His first 4 carries were scrambles. One of which he terribly ran out of bounds rather than throwing the ball away for a sack. The other two were a run that didn't go for much and a read option that did little as well. I counted maybe 2 other read options. Either AR is hurt or we are coaching scared. His run game helps build confidence and it also causes defenses to have to worry about something else. Not running him shouldn't be an option. The second half was pretty bad. Just like Kentucky, without the two INT's we probably win comfortably...well defense was more of an issue this week.
I can't comment on the RB rotation issue because when three guys are going over 5 ypc it is hard to say anyone shouldn't be playing. I do think Wright should slide down in priority though. Johnson didn't get more than 3 carries (4 if you count one cancelled by an offsides penalty) before the 4th quarter, but that was simply the victim of the first INT and lack of drives due to the defense not getting off of the field. Outside of the 62-yard TD, he averaged over 8 ypc. Etienne averaged 7 ypc, but kind of weighed down by the 3-yard TD run. Something I found interesting in my re-watch was Richie Leonard coming in for White on the first two drives of the second half. Outside of a long scramble by Richardson, we didn't run well with him and he had a false start that hurt the second drive he was in. If we score on that first drive after the half and go up 31-13 it would've been a different game. Just like the Kentucky game, we are not capitalizing on key drives that would force the opposing offense's hand.
On defense, I'm not sure whether it's personnel, scheme, a combination thereof, etc. Our 3 man DL, which included some play by Big Dez at end, overall did well. However, the second level was not as good. One example is USF's big 4th down conversion early in the game. Battie for USF ran for 51 yards on 4th and 1 by getting a pitch to the outside. On the play OLB/Buck/Jack Ryland-Powell crashed down instead of holding the edge and Battie got outside of him. Trey Dean III was on the outside as well originally, but pre-snap moved to the inside as if he was designed to show blitz at the last minute. Either that or he went into business for himself and it should be addressed. Some of the ILB issues come down to the loss of Ventrell Miller and his leadership and communication. In his stead Amari Burney had to try to be the leader and I'm not sure that is a role he is comfortable with. With the absence of Miller true freshman Shemar James and RS freshman Scooby Williams both got plenty of reps. Unfortunately, at times the young players would fall victim to misdirection and over pursuing. James had a great first drive, but in other drives took himself out of the play and the same could be said for Williams. If there is a silver lining here, it is that these guys are getting valuable reps that will help them out as they develop into the linebackers of the future.
Speaking of Burney, he can both do great things and be incredibly frustrating. He had a great tipped pass, but also was part of a linebacking unit that allowed almost 300 yards rushing to a bad USF team. Tre'vez Johnson also was a mixed bag. He had a major interception late in the game to assist the Gators in taking the lead, but on a big 3rd and long late in the game played terrible coverage that allowed a 20-yard gain. His pick reminded me of Donovan Stiner's pick against Auburn in 2019, where the ball happened to go where he was standing, but he did make a nice enough play to get the pick.
With all of this said, coaching decisions do need to be looked at. One would be playing soft coverage, especially late. We had shown earlier in the game that if we played tight Bohanon would have a hard time completing passes. Several times late we played 10ish yards off at the corner and they ran quick and smart routes to take advantage. Also, last week, we saw adjustments that shut down the pass by 11:00 left in the 2nd quarter. We never seemed to successfully adjust to the run at all against USF. Something has to give. Maybe it is playing more 4 down lineman. Maybe it is playing more Big Dez and McClellan at DT together. We have to try something.
Offensively, why we do jet sweeps (2) and other outside plays to the short side of the field I have no idea. We did hand the ball off to the long side on an outside run once, a TD to Wright. As I have harped on for years, you do 5, 6, 7 plays to the short side (literally over 10% of the 48 plays) doesn't give you space and gives the defense the 12th defender known as the sideline. Speaking of jet sweeps, why they go to Hendo and not the speedy Pearsall is beyond me. I know I'm not saying anything revolutionary there. I am also confused why it didn't seem like we ran a lot of flood passing concepts like we did against Utah, where we were successful. And again, not running AR more (if he is healthy) is just simplifying the defenses job.
I also want to talk timeouts for a minute. I have no patience for poor timeout usage. We remember Mac doing it in 2017 against UT and how the Heave to Cleve only saved him from an extra boatload of critique. When the other team has a bad snap with 34 seconds left and now has to rush to 3rd and 20 with only 1 timeout left, make them use the timeout. Or make them run the play while they are still mentally recovering from the bad snap and trying to get everything organized in a rush because the clock is ticking. Or wait until they are about to snap and have had another 10+ seconds bleed off the clock if you really believe there's a reason to. Then when you tackle them in bounds, either make them use their last timeout or rush their kicker onto the field and rush the kick due to the clock winding down. We can't hope for the low percentage miss or the lower percentage holder dropping the ball play to save us.
For those who might argue we were trying to save the last 20 seconds for if we got the ball back, why would we lean on the passing game with how the last quarter had gone and hope for a field goal range drive in 23 seconds (at most) with no timeouts. Maybe I'm off base, maybe there is something I'm missing. I don't know.
The visit from USF might be the biggest total failure we have seen so far and I hope that it is the last one we see. This is a team that beat a great Utah team only to give away the Kentucky game and almost give away this game. We are a handful of plays from 0-3 and a handful of plays from 3-0. We are living on a razor's edge. I am curious about this UT game that I have been nervous about since the summer. We've seen UT confident before while we have looked mediocre only for us to win. 2018 comes to mind. Does that mean we will win this year? I don't know. In many ways it makes this season intriguing and many ways it makes it frustrating. Either way, seeing a ton of youth playing and building for the future is some encouragement even if it doesn't pay immediately.
Go Gators!
There's no better way of saying this other than this performance by most of the team was unacceptable. This is not a good USF team, it was a team that struggled with Howard. I will give them this, and this is something I spoke about in the offseason, they have a power 5 champion QB. Again, the performance was unacceptable. You cannot give up almost 300 yards rushing to any team, much less this USF team. I can accept a Utah team who returns 8 starters and is a power 5 champion whose identity is that run in the first game in the scheme. I don't like it, but I can see that and understand it. I can be happy with turning a defensive game around at the 11 minute mark in the 2nd quarter against Kentucky. What I cannot accept or understand is letting a team with an offense ranked in the 90's put up over 400 yards.
Believe it or not, there were some good things, but there were plenty of bad. Let's start by taking a look at the highlights, which I know are few, but worth looking at what was good. Starting on offense, in the first half we scored on each full drive. I'm not counting the "drive" where we took a knee to go to the half. One of those drives lasted all of three plays because Montrell Johnson took it 62 yards to the house. All the running backs played well and finished with over 5 yards per carry. Whittemore, Shorter, and Zip all had big catches. AR began 8/10 and one of those incompletions was a good throwaway after Zanders whiffed on a block allowing a defender in his face pretty quickly. Big Dez also played well and continues to come along. Our CB's continue to play well over all w/ Kimber leading the way this week with a pick six after allowing the big TD pass last week.
Now for the rough parts and lets begin with the offense. Let's start with AR. He started 8/10, but finished 2/8 with 2 INT's of the 6 incompletions. The first INT he failed to recognized a LB playing a robber. Then he checked into a goal line pass that he threw poorly potentially giving the game away at that moment. Officially, he had 7 runs for 24 yards. However, in reviewing the film and play by play he only had 6 runs, but the play by play credits him for a 1 yard run that was actually a 1 yard loss by Wright. I bring that up because once again we limited the running ability of AR. His first 4 carries were scrambles. One of which he terribly ran out of bounds rather than throwing the ball away for a sack. The other two were a run that didn't go for much and a read option that did little as well. I counted maybe 2 other read options. Either AR is hurt or we are coaching scared. His run game helps build confidence and it also causes defenses to have to worry about something else. Not running him shouldn't be an option. The second half was pretty bad. Just like Kentucky, without the two INT's we probably win comfortably...well defense was more of an issue this week.
I can't comment on the RB rotation issue because when three guys are going over 5 ypc it is hard to say anyone shouldn't be playing. I do think Wright should slide down in priority though. Johnson didn't get more than 3 carries (4 if you count one cancelled by an offsides penalty) before the 4th quarter, but that was simply the victim of the first INT and lack of drives due to the defense not getting off of the field. Outside of the 62-yard TD, he averaged over 8 ypc. Etienne averaged 7 ypc, but kind of weighed down by the 3-yard TD run. Something I found interesting in my re-watch was Richie Leonard coming in for White on the first two drives of the second half. Outside of a long scramble by Richardson, we didn't run well with him and he had a false start that hurt the second drive he was in. If we score on that first drive after the half and go up 31-13 it would've been a different game. Just like the Kentucky game, we are not capitalizing on key drives that would force the opposing offense's hand.
On defense, I'm not sure whether it's personnel, scheme, a combination thereof, etc. Our 3 man DL, which included some play by Big Dez at end, overall did well. However, the second level was not as good. One example is USF's big 4th down conversion early in the game. Battie for USF ran for 51 yards on 4th and 1 by getting a pitch to the outside. On the play OLB/Buck/Jack Ryland-Powell crashed down instead of holding the edge and Battie got outside of him. Trey Dean III was on the outside as well originally, but pre-snap moved to the inside as if he was designed to show blitz at the last minute. Either that or he went into business for himself and it should be addressed. Some of the ILB issues come down to the loss of Ventrell Miller and his leadership and communication. In his stead Amari Burney had to try to be the leader and I'm not sure that is a role he is comfortable with. With the absence of Miller true freshman Shemar James and RS freshman Scooby Williams both got plenty of reps. Unfortunately, at times the young players would fall victim to misdirection and over pursuing. James had a great first drive, but in other drives took himself out of the play and the same could be said for Williams. If there is a silver lining here, it is that these guys are getting valuable reps that will help them out as they develop into the linebackers of the future.
Speaking of Burney, he can both do great things and be incredibly frustrating. He had a great tipped pass, but also was part of a linebacking unit that allowed almost 300 yards rushing to a bad USF team. Tre'vez Johnson also was a mixed bag. He had a major interception late in the game to assist the Gators in taking the lead, but on a big 3rd and long late in the game played terrible coverage that allowed a 20-yard gain. His pick reminded me of Donovan Stiner's pick against Auburn in 2019, where the ball happened to go where he was standing, but he did make a nice enough play to get the pick.
With all of this said, coaching decisions do need to be looked at. One would be playing soft coverage, especially late. We had shown earlier in the game that if we played tight Bohanon would have a hard time completing passes. Several times late we played 10ish yards off at the corner and they ran quick and smart routes to take advantage. Also, last week, we saw adjustments that shut down the pass by 11:00 left in the 2nd quarter. We never seemed to successfully adjust to the run at all against USF. Something has to give. Maybe it is playing more 4 down lineman. Maybe it is playing more Big Dez and McClellan at DT together. We have to try something.
Offensively, why we do jet sweeps (2) and other outside plays to the short side of the field I have no idea. We did hand the ball off to the long side on an outside run once, a TD to Wright. As I have harped on for years, you do 5, 6, 7 plays to the short side (literally over 10% of the 48 plays) doesn't give you space and gives the defense the 12th defender known as the sideline. Speaking of jet sweeps, why they go to Hendo and not the speedy Pearsall is beyond me. I know I'm not saying anything revolutionary there. I am also confused why it didn't seem like we ran a lot of flood passing concepts like we did against Utah, where we were successful. And again, not running AR more (if he is healthy) is just simplifying the defenses job.
I also want to talk timeouts for a minute. I have no patience for poor timeout usage. We remember Mac doing it in 2017 against UT and how the Heave to Cleve only saved him from an extra boatload of critique. When the other team has a bad snap with 34 seconds left and now has to rush to 3rd and 20 with only 1 timeout left, make them use the timeout. Or make them run the play while they are still mentally recovering from the bad snap and trying to get everything organized in a rush because the clock is ticking. Or wait until they are about to snap and have had another 10+ seconds bleed off the clock if you really believe there's a reason to. Then when you tackle them in bounds, either make them use their last timeout or rush their kicker onto the field and rush the kick due to the clock winding down. We can't hope for the low percentage miss or the lower percentage holder dropping the ball play to save us.
For those who might argue we were trying to save the last 20 seconds for if we got the ball back, why would we lean on the passing game with how the last quarter had gone and hope for a field goal range drive in 23 seconds (at most) with no timeouts. Maybe I'm off base, maybe there is something I'm missing. I don't know.
The visit from USF might be the biggest total failure we have seen so far and I hope that it is the last one we see. This is a team that beat a great Utah team only to give away the Kentucky game and almost give away this game. We are a handful of plays from 0-3 and a handful of plays from 3-0. We are living on a razor's edge. I am curious about this UT game that I have been nervous about since the summer. We've seen UT confident before while we have looked mediocre only for us to win. 2018 comes to mind. Does that mean we will win this year? I don't know. In many ways it makes this season intriguing and many ways it makes it frustrating. Either way, seeing a ton of youth playing and building for the future is some encouragement even if it doesn't pay immediately.
Go Gators!