UF coach Jim McElwain at the podium Monday on the opening round of 2016 SEC Media Days.
UF Flying Under SEC Radar Again
Monday, July 11, 2016 | Football, Chris Harry
Questions still loom about the Florida offense, which finished 111th in the nation last season.
HOOVER, Ala. — The masses at 2016 SEC Media Days (an estimated 1,100) won't be asked to fill out their preseason ballots until Thursday and when the votes are tallied, look for the Florida Gators to check in third in the Southeastern Conference East Division, behind Tennessee and Georgia.
That's the way the long-range projections have been trending this summer.
"Yeah, we see it," UF senior safety Marcus Maye said Monday. "We laugh at it."
Maybe that's because the Gators have beaten Tennessee 11 straight seasons and knocked off Georgia each of the previous two years.
"I don't know," Coach Jim McElwain said. "I'll have a meeting with our guys and see if they want to play those games — or forfeit them. I guess we're not very good, is what that's telling me."
Whether that's the case, obviously, will be disclosed as the season plays out and what happens Sept. 26 in Knoxville and Oct. 31 in Jacksonville will represent just a fraction of the Gators' success. It's probably worth noting that UF was picked to finish fifth this time last year and merely went on to claim the SEC East Division title and win 10 games. Yet here we are in Alabama again and the perception of this Florida team is that something is missing.
An offense.
On Sept. 3, when the Gators open the season against Massachusetts, the space inside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium officially will be renamed Steve Spurrier-Florida Field. With that new name comes some offensive responsibility that even McElwain joked was absent his first season.
"Based on last year, they didn't have to redo any light bulbs on the scoreboard," he said.
Good one, yet quite a self-effacing remark from McElwain, considering he was lured away from Colorado State because of his offensive acumen. But facts are facts and stats are stats. UF finished 12th among the league's 14 teams in total offense last year (just 334.0 yards per game), which translated to 111th out of the nation's 128 FBS programs. Only Missouri was worse in the conference at running the ball (129.9 yards per game) and the passing game spiraled downward (eighth in the league at 207.1 per game) after starting quarterback Will Grier was suspended for the season after the team started 6-0.
The inability to execute a simple forward pass under the direction of quarterback Treon Harris was a big reason the Gators limped to a 4-4 finish, including three straight lopsided, offensively challenged losses to end the year, capped by that 41-7 eyesore defeat against Michigan in the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl.
So what are McElwain's offensive expectations for 2016?
"We've got to be better," he said. "I mean, [the] expectations are to figure out how to go win the game. Hopefully, play with an efficient mindset and play with a little confidence, and yet the only way to do that is going out and doing it."
First of all, they have to be better, right?
There's no doubt some roles on the offensive side have yet to be defined, starting with the quarterback position and what receivers will become go-to guys (especially with the status of big-play wideout Antonio Callaway still up in the air). Redshirt sophomore Luke Del Rio, who sat out last season after transferring from Oregon State, looked very much the part of a starting quarterback in going 10-for-11 for 176 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions in the spring game. Del Rio clearly outplayed graduate transfer Austin Appleby, by way of Purdue, and true freshmen enrollees Kyle Trask and Feleipe Franks that night, but McElwain since his post-spring post-game news conference has been consistent with his message that the quarterback race will be open when UF begins practice Aug. 4.
"We'll see how it goes through camp," he said. "If somebody truly proves they're the guy based on how they affected the people around them, how the team moves up and down the field, things like that … I don't know."
Whoever it is will line up behind an offensive line that returns four starters, yet surrendered a school-record 45 sacks last season. If that number seems alarming, keep it mind the limitations of Harris (his size, arm strength, his struggles with accuracy) and how the Gators were so often in down-and-distance dilemmas after his first inclination under duress was to dash for the sidelines.
This season, the Gators have four quarterbacks with skills to work from the pocket. That in itself should not only make for a better passing game — certainly better than the 43 percent completion UF hit collectively in those three final losses — but a better base from which to operate the running game. Florida will have options at the tailback spot, with junior-college transfer Mark Thompson a guy who has impressed the coaches in offseason workouts, and returning sophomores Jordan Cronkrite and Jordan Scarlett.
Defensively, the Gators must replace some outstanding players, but they're used to do so on that side of the ball.
What UF needs to start getting used to is going up and down the field on offense.
"We've talked about it a lot," said junior left tackle David Sharpe, the lone offensive lineman who started every game last season. "Last year was very disappointing, but we're using it as motivation."
The entire team is using last year as motivation. To a man, each player remembers the disappointment of reaching the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta — the goal of every league team, every year— only to be denied by an Alabama bunch that went on to claim (yet another) national championship.
"When you get that close to something, you have to take full advantage of the opportunity," said linebacker Jarrad Davis, who was haunted by that loss to the point of forgoing the lure of an early jump to the NFL to return for his senior season. "I don't think it would have been a good situation for me to walk away from the University of Florida wanting more."
Now, the new season brings a chance to get more. To do so, the Gators will need more.
On offense.
That's the way the long-range projections have been trending this summer.
"Yeah, we see it," UF senior safety Marcus Maye said Monday. "We laugh at it."
Maybe that's because the Gators have beaten Tennessee 11 straight seasons and knocked off Georgia each of the previous two years.
"I don't know," Coach Jim McElwain said. "I'll have a meeting with our guys and see if they want to play those games — or forfeit them. I guess we're not very good, is what that's telling me."
Whether that's the case, obviously, will be disclosed as the season plays out and what happens Sept. 26 in Knoxville and Oct. 31 in Jacksonville will represent just a fraction of the Gators' success. It's probably worth noting that UF was picked to finish fifth this time last year and merely went on to claim the SEC East Division title and win 10 games. Yet here we are in Alabama again and the perception of this Florida team is that something is missing.
An offense.
On Sept. 3, when the Gators open the season against Massachusetts, the space inside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium officially will be renamed Steve Spurrier-Florida Field. With that new name comes some offensive responsibility that even McElwain joked was absent his first season.
"Based on last year, they didn't have to redo any light bulbs on the scoreboard," he said.
Good one, yet quite a self-effacing remark from McElwain, considering he was lured away from Colorado State because of his offensive acumen. But facts are facts and stats are stats. UF finished 12th among the league's 14 teams in total offense last year (just 334.0 yards per game), which translated to 111th out of the nation's 128 FBS programs. Only Missouri was worse in the conference at running the ball (129.9 yards per game) and the passing game spiraled downward (eighth in the league at 207.1 per game) after starting quarterback Will Grier was suspended for the season after the team started 6-0.
The inability to execute a simple forward pass under the direction of quarterback Treon Harris was a big reason the Gators limped to a 4-4 finish, including three straight lopsided, offensively challenged losses to end the year, capped by that 41-7 eyesore defeat against Michigan in the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl.
So what are McElwain's offensive expectations for 2016?
"We've got to be better," he said. "I mean, [the] expectations are to figure out how to go win the game. Hopefully, play with an efficient mindset and play with a little confidence, and yet the only way to do that is going out and doing it."
First of all, they have to be better, right?
There's no doubt some roles on the offensive side have yet to be defined, starting with the quarterback position and what receivers will become go-to guys (especially with the status of big-play wideout Antonio Callaway still up in the air). Redshirt sophomore Luke Del Rio, who sat out last season after transferring from Oregon State, looked very much the part of a starting quarterback in going 10-for-11 for 176 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions in the spring game. Del Rio clearly outplayed graduate transfer Austin Appleby, by way of Purdue, and true freshmen enrollees Kyle Trask and Feleipe Franks that night, but McElwain since his post-spring post-game news conference has been consistent with his message that the quarterback race will be open when UF begins practice Aug. 4.
"We'll see how it goes through camp," he said. "If somebody truly proves they're the guy based on how they affected the people around them, how the team moves up and down the field, things like that … I don't know."
Whoever it is will line up behind an offensive line that returns four starters, yet surrendered a school-record 45 sacks last season. If that number seems alarming, keep it mind the limitations of Harris (his size, arm strength, his struggles with accuracy) and how the Gators were so often in down-and-distance dilemmas after his first inclination under duress was to dash for the sidelines.
This season, the Gators have four quarterbacks with skills to work from the pocket. That in itself should not only make for a better passing game — certainly better than the 43 percent completion UF hit collectively in those three final losses — but a better base from which to operate the running game. Florida will have options at the tailback spot, with junior-college transfer Mark Thompson a guy who has impressed the coaches in offseason workouts, and returning sophomores Jordan Cronkrite and Jordan Scarlett.
Defensively, the Gators must replace some outstanding players, but they're used to do so on that side of the ball.
What UF needs to start getting used to is going up and down the field on offense.
"We've talked about it a lot," said junior left tackle David Sharpe, the lone offensive lineman who started every game last season. "Last year was very disappointing, but we're using it as motivation."
The entire team is using last year as motivation. To a man, each player remembers the disappointment of reaching the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta — the goal of every league team, every year— only to be denied by an Alabama bunch that went on to claim (yet another) national championship.
"When you get that close to something, you have to take full advantage of the opportunity," said linebacker Jarrad Davis, who was haunted by that loss to the point of forgoing the lure of an early jump to the NFL to return for his senior season. "I don't think it would have been a good situation for me to walk away from the University of Florida wanting more."
Now, the new season brings a chance to get more. To do so, the Gators will need more.
On offense.
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