This should be a doozy. We start off fairly functional. It does not last. Cox starts fast and puts a good individual film together. He has clearly changed since the beginning of the year regarding assignments and concepts. Very first 3rd down is the ludicrous safety drop we’ve seen all year. LSU doesn’t even hit the first two open windows. Hits the THIRD window all the way across the field, then both safeties miss tackles. Next 3rd down had James repeating “SIGNIFICANT” while describing the cushions. The first WR has about 12 yards (it’s 3rd and 6.) Instead of passing they run a pitch that is also wide open because all defenders are so far downfield. But one WR whiffs on a block, S has a shot, makes a grazing tackle, first down. LSU “reading Florida’s mail” all day, anticipating cover 3/6 and M2M amd running appropriate beaters. A safety gets twisted in knots for second time of the day and a wobbler is good for 3&14. Florida has a good D called on GL, S comes in hot taking neither RB nor QB but some sort of mad charge between the two, Daniels outruns Ventrell for TD. LSU runs Shemar out of coverage and Ventrell into it with motion that causes a handoff, receiver runs simple in-route for 20. Kimber gets hit with a pretty nasty stop and go, still recovers and is in position but WR goes up strong and pulls in TD. But this one was at least earned, not just given. Another nasty route against Hill this time, stop-go-stop. JH was targeted 8 times for 7 completions, 140 yards and 2 TD’s. They appeared to be running multiple direction-change routes, possibly challenging the knee injury sitch. LSU baits an offside, then Daniels scans to find the 1v1 deep, throws it up, TD. JH again, although coverage is tight and there is a def push-off. But 1) going right at JH, 2) JH needs to plead his case for later calls, and 3) why LSU doesn’t have their OL freeze and goes ahead and runs a bomb is clearly bad football (sarcasm) FOUR missed tackles on a run Dexter had blown up behind the LOS = monster run. LSU runs QB draw right at spy, it is wide open for TD except Daniels makes wrong choice and bounces outside, where he also scores basically untouched. Kamari in, also playing the absurd cushion. 3 yard route goes for 15. Cox beats zone read by himself. Reroutes T, then squats on mesh, then tackles Daniels on the keep. Daniels’ shoe comes off, Cox does NOT throw it. LSU gets Boutte on Kamari via alignment alone, and he beats Kamari for 6 but the ball is not great, incomplete. Next play Daniels throws the cruel perfect pass before the WR even breaks. Point being, it is 35-21 and they are so comfy that they are now feeling magical and making insane plays like this. Helm actually made some plays, best of the DB’s today. Greg McElroy circles the spot of the catch before the ball is snapped. Because even Bama QB’s can see these cushions. Princely is dropping to that zone but he’s too tight and leaves the window open. Details are still not being honored. On the one 3rd down stop three guys were open, including their one scary guy, Boutte, who roamed all day. The INT was actually a gash but luckily Gervon blows it up. It was 4 verts versus cover 3, perfect beater. James does not like the roughing call or the trend in general across all of football with roughing. Last D play Dexter holds the middle when LSU tries to sneak Daniels out after clearing the middle, a habit we’ve been trying to break for the year. Ugh, not much to add here. It was bad. James mentions that BN said the film will make you sick, and that is an accurate appraisal. Cox may as well be on a different team. Dexter had some moments. Helm showed up. Everyone else was in some area between bad and unspeakable. I honestly think this is what bottoming out looks like. It can always be worse, but if so I don’t know what I’d even say about it. On to Cincinnati! (OK, bye week)
I watched the first 10 minutes. It was tough. By the result I expected it to be bad, but I had no idea. We had some bright spots, but breakdowns in the secondary, poor coaching, poor scheming, and poor decisions by personnel made LSU continually look better than they actually are. It should be said that defense is an 11 man orchestra, so to speak. 10 guys could be right on cue, but if the 11th is off, it all breaks down and goes to pot.
To me, either James has some kind of tunnel vision, or he HAS to put on a minimum of content and it is relatively low hanging fruit, but to me he has WAY too much "wash, rinse, and repeat". To me, I tune into for about 10-15 minutes to see whether it changes any, but he seems to go into the typical Crazy-haired Greek Ancient Alien dude, "I am not saying it is ______, but it is _______" There has to be more than that to parse. Maybe that is why some are internet wonders and others are national commentariats.
The issue is our defense is making similar mistakes to those that have been made in previous games. It seems that certain players have not learned at all from previous mistakes. The holes in our defensive scheme/personnel are being consistently exploited by our opponents, so it seems like Groundhog Day when breaking down defensive plays. We play soft in the secondary, and I am sure that James gets tired of pointing out that if we were a little more aggressive in coverage that a play could have been made. The scheme we are playing with 10 yard cushions played right into LSU’s hands. They like to run a quick passing game, and playing with that large a cushion while backpedaling at the snap gave their QB a quick and easy read to make, while negating any pressure our pass rush could generate.
Dean was highlighted quite a few times during this breakdown. He needs to sit and let someone who will be here next season get some experience because he is not improving. I did like the props given to Cox and how he has been improving under this staff.
This defense we are running the first 7 games is now completely totaled. The scheme used AND players implementing it both need to be completely gutted and overhauled during this bye week. Will things improve? Maybe. Will we get worse and give up 95 points a game and 950 yards of offense to Vanderbilt? Maybe. The bottom line is things need to change cause what we are doing up to this point is broken. I believe in our future and Billy Napier. I love The University of Florida, and I am so grateful and fortunate to be A Florida Gator.
I understand, the point I was making was he could easily say "if you want to know what happened in this game, just re-watch my last video, or two, or three", but he doesn't. It keeps his fans kind of stuck in neutral, like the product he is reviewing. Personally (although it may be untenable), I would prefer a segment or two, detailing why Plan B (or C) isn't being used enough. It at least attempts to add context to the frustration we are enduring.
I don’t care how big a mess Mullen and Grantham left, UF has the talent and resources in place NOT to be 131/131 in 3rd down defense in the country. I refuse to believe with every fiber of my being that we can be the worst at anything in Division 1. I could see worst in SEC, and in an absolute extreme worst in P5, but never ever ever 131/131 in Division 1. Obviously the defensive coaches didn’t study last season’s tape in order to not repeat the same mistakes. Obviously the players are making the same mistakes. This is 100% coaching. It may be 7 games in but coordinators are fair game at any point. Change is needed on defense.
Trey Dean always out of position, frequently turns the wrong way or does the wrong thing. Major liability. Jaydon Hill was picked on frequently and was unable to effectively defend anything. Possible lingering effects from knee injury. Ventrell Miller not good in pass coverage. Cox has improved with each game. Is not making the same mistakes as in previous games. Had lots of great plays. A major asset to the team. Defense is frequently confused with what they're supposed to be doing. Late getting lined up, etc. Guys playing soft coverage, giving up lots of cushion to LSU receivers. Resulted in easy conversions for the LSU offense. Questionable play calling by Patrick Toney.
It seems the temperature on this forum is like the tide; it feels like it is going out, but give it a bit of time and it rolls right back on in. Bitching isn't doing anything but making loud noise. Repeat after me (if you choose): Game 7 of Year 1, with Dumbo's players and philosophies. It isn't pretty, but it IS real.
I'm big on patience, big on letting the coaches re-build in their own image. Also the worst thing the admin can do is overreact. But see TJ's post 2 above yours. There's no excuse for what we are seeing.
Other key is we do a poor job in disguising coverage. It allows other teams to run pretty straight forward beaters on our coverage. Combine that with playing soft initially and remaining soft... you get major problems.
These may be Mullen’s and Grantham’s players but why are their philosophies still around? If the players we have cannot undo previous behaviors, then play someone else. Again this is 100% coaching. You eliminate previous bad behaviors by going back to fundamentals. Are these coaches getting the most out of these poorly talented bunch? If not, the finger is pointed at coaching not at the players. Yes it is only game 7. I don’t expect the players to have mastered the new system. But not making last year’s mistakes is step 1. If they are not even at step 1 by now, this rebuilding process will take far too long for Napier to see it through. We wanna be patient, but we can’t be that patient.
If by 100% coaching, you mean they should sit players that aren't performing then yes, I agree. If you watched the review, I am positive no coach taught Dean to try and tag both the RB and Qb with one hand each. Nobody coached him to run the wrong way when someone comes into his zone. Some of these guys have not unlearned what former staff taught and it's carrying forward to this season. It's like when you try and change a golf swing and you are doing it perfectly on the range but when you get on the course and are playing against others the bad habits come right back. I think that's happening here. I believe it's a combination of lack of skill, bad prior coaching, new system, conservative scheme because they know what they have talent wise. There is enough blame to go around.
“We’re all disappointed, right? … No one cares more than we do, more than our players do, more than our staff does,” Napier added. “… Patrick, I’ve been around a number of years, and he’s absolutely one of the best coaches I’ve ever been on staff with. … He’s extremely bright, evaluating things objectively, technically and making the necessary adjustments.” Billy Napier evaluates Florida’s defense heading into off week
