Muschamp, Gators Look to Tidy Things Up for Tide
Monday, September 15, 2014 | Football, Chris Harry
The heart-pounding victory over Kentucky Saturday night was fraught with mistakes and missed opportunities. Florida coach Will Muschamp said as much afterward, and did so again Monday.
But, Muschamp also reiterated an important offshoot -- besides the fact that the Gators won the game -- regarding the flaws that showed in UF's 36-30 triple-overtime win over the Wildcats at The Swamp.
“They're all correctable,” he said.
That, of course, is a very good thing for the Gators (2-0, 1-0), who will spend the week doing some clean-up work as they prepare for Saturday's nationally-televised showdown against third-ranked Alabama (3-0, 0-0) at Bryant-Denny Stadium and look to build on explosive back-to-back performances by an offense that is averaging 593.5 yards per game under new coordinator Kurt Roper.
It's what the offense has shown Muschamp, with its ability to create explosive plays down the field, which makes him so encouraged about the prospect of the Gators as they move into the meat of their Southeastern Conference schedule. Simply put, the coaches and players did not have that belief -- or confidence -- in the unit last year.
Muschamp said as much following Saturday's sigh-of-relief win, adding that was never an easy thing for a coach to admit. But, it was true. And, to a man, everyone on the team knew it then.
Just like everyone on the team knows this version of the Gators is different.
“Like we've been saying, it's a new year, a new season,” said quarterback Jeff Driskel, who has completed 64 percent of his passes for 543 yards, four touchdowns and one interception, and has developed quite the working relationship with sophomore wideout Demarcus Robinson (21 catches, 339 yards, 3 TDs). “It's just nice to know that this unit can do it.”
Doing it against Alabama, which has given up just one touchdown in three games, will be an altogether different challenge.
In a perfect world, the Gators would like nothing better than to maintain a ground game averaging 248 yards per outing, but that's not realistic against a Bama defense surrendering just 47 rushing yards a game. UF also needs to shore up its pass protection, which got leaky at times against Kentucky and forced Driskel to hurry throws.
Junior offensive tackle D.J. Humphries will miss his second straight game with an ankle injury. The spotlight will be on the guys up front protecting Driskel, most notably senior Chaz Green (who moved from the right to left side to replace Humphries) and redshirt freshman Rod Johnson, and edge protections against a Bama pass rush led by guys like linemen Davlin Tomlinson and Jonathan Allen, plus linebackers Xzavier Dickson and Trey DePriest.
“They'll give us some different looks and we'll have to adjust to those situations,” Muschamp said.
Such will be the case on the defensive side, as well.
Muschamp and his staff went into the 2014 season knowing the UF secondary was loaded with players long on talent, though short on game repetitions. Some of that lack of experience reared itself as Kentucky rolled up 450 yards of offense, including a troublesome six plays alone that totaled 173 yards.
Blown assignments led to tentative play on the back end. Plus, the pressure from the front seven could have been better.
Sophomore cornerback Vernon Hargreaves III on the former: “Everybody gets beat. It was miscommunication. We all got to be on the same page, got to practice better. We all got to understand what needs to be done. They understand that. They know. And we'll get better. We'll get better as the season goes on.”
Muschamp on the same subject: “You look at it from a positive standpoint [in that] a young player goes through a very tough deal in front of 90,000 people and obviously everybody knows he's probably somewhat responsible for what happened. ... And, then he rebounds himself and comes back and plays well in the game, and really settles down from there and plays extremely well. ... You're not looking at it going, 'Wow, we couldn't cover this guy.' That wasn't the case.”
To ask the likes of Keanu Neal, Alex McCalister, true freshman Jalen Tabor and the handful of others with limited real-time reps not only to correct their miscues but play far more soundly against a Crimson Tide offense averaging 568.3 yards per game -- against a wide receiver in Amari Cooper (33 catches, 454 yards, 2 TDs) who might be the best in the country -- may seem like a tall order, but similar breaches in scheme will prove fatal in one of the nation's toughest venues. In other words, they'll have to. Period.
That's what the Gators are facing this weekend.
Makes you wonder how a young team will react.
“They'll be fine,” Muschamp said.
Excited, too.
“We haven't been on the road yet and that's a good way to start,” Driskel said. “I bet some of the guys will be a little wide-eyed at first, but at the end of the day it's playing football and that's what we're going to have to. If some young guys are called upon, they're going to be expected to play well.”
