This time you can't blame the offense

In his post game remarks following Florida’s 38-33 loss to 11th-ranked Tennessee Saturday at Neyland Stadium, Billy Napier said, “I think when we go back and watch film, there’s going to be 12-to-15 plays where Florida beats Florida tonight.”

Take nothing away from Tennessee. The Vols made the plays, whether they were because of well-designed calls where the ball got in the hands of the right player at just the right moment or blown coverages or missed tackles by the Gators. Tennessee did what it needed to do to win the football game.

Florida did not.

A handful of those plays where Florida beat Florida were on offense and special teams. A majority were on the defense, which had all sorts of problems keeping Hendon Hooker contained when the pocket broke down. When the Gators couldn’t get pressure, Hooker threw darts. He finished the game with 13 carries for 112 yards on the ground, good for one touchdown. He completed 22-28 passes for 349 yards and two touchdowns. When the weekly Heisman candidate lists come out Sunday and Monday, Hooker’s numbers should have him prominent among the leaders.

Of the 576 yards the Florida defense gave up, 429 came on 17 plays: 10 pass plays of 15 or more yards that were good for 279 yards and seven running plays of 10 or more yards that were good for 150. It’s rare you win football games when your defense not only finds it impossible to get critical stops but allows receivers to run free into the secondary unchecked.

Every Tennessee touchdown was aided by at least one big play that could have and should have been stopped, either cold or for a minimal gain.

Tennessee’s first touchdown came on a three-play drive that covered 75 yards after Florida had taken a 7-3 lead in the second quarter. On first down, Hooker found an uncovered Bru McCoy running all alone. The play covered an easy 70 yards to the UF five before Rashad Torrence II caught up with him to run him out of bounds. Two plays later, Hooker scored on a four-yard run.

Of Hooker’s 112 rushing yards, 100 of them came on five carries, one of which was a 10-yard dagger late in the first half that helped shift the momentum of the game from Florida to Tennessee. The Vols had third-and-10 at their own 12 when the Florida pass rush seemed to have him cornered. He escaped the rush, found Princeton Fant open in the middle of the field and threw a 10-yard dart to move the chains.

“It is third-and-10 and we’re trying to get it back on a short field and we have the guy dead to rights,” Napier said. “We had a great call and the guy escapes and makes a great play on the perimeter.”

Instead of a punt that could have led to the Gators extending their 14-10 lead, the Vols had a fresh set of downs and 1:33 on the clock to work with. On the very next play, Ramel Keyton got behind the UF secondary and laid out for a 43-yard catch on a nicely thrown ball from Hooker. There were 46 seconds remaining in the half, an eternity the way the Vols run their offense. Five plays later Hooker threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to McCoy that put the Vols up 17-14 at the half.

On their first drive of the third quarter Jabari Small exploded through a hole wide enough to drive a truck through for 39 yards before he was run out of bounds at the Florida 28. A couple of plays later, it was third-and-7 at the Florida 25 when the ball was snapped over Hooker’s head for what would have been a 15-yard loss that would have taken the Vols out of field goal range. However, Princely Umanmielen was offsides on the play, nullifying the loss and moving the ball to the UF 20. On third-and-2 Small got the first down. He would catch a 16-yard TD against non-existent coverage from Hooker to finish out the drive with 12:08 left in the quarter.

Two explosive plays and one penalty put the Gators down 24-14.

When the Gators countered with a touchdown drive of their own to reduce the deficit to 24-21, the Vols came right back with a 34-yard kickoff return from Jimmy Holiday followed by a 44-yard first down scramble by Hooker who was run down by Ventrell Miller at the UF 18. On the next play, Hooker connected once again with Princeton Fant for 16 yards to the UF two. Small put the Vols up 31-21 a couple plays later.

On the first play of what proved to be the game-winning touchdown drive, Hooker had an easy toss and catch that covered 45 yards to tight end Jacob Warren, who was completely uncovered. If it had been one of the UT wide receivers, it would have gone down as an 87-yard touchdown pass. No matter, the Vols scored eight plays later to go ahead 38-21 with 7:55 left in the game.

That Florida came back in the final 7:55 to actually have a shot at winning the game says a lot about the character of this team. They never gave up and that is commendable The fact that the Gators could gain 594 yards, put 33 points on the scoreboard and lose is not commendable. It tells us that Billy Napier has plenty of holes that will have to be plugged.

Nobody knows that more than Billy Napier, who warned before the Gators made the trip to Knoxville that they had to keep Hooker contained so he couldn’t tuck and run to turn potential disaster plays into positive yardage. Yet, for the fourth straight game, the Gators failed to set the edge and once again, they paid a severe price.

Still, Florida couldn’t mount a consistent enough pass rush. Far too often Hooker had a clean pocket from which he threw accurate passes to receivers so wide open they must have thought this was nothing more than skeleton drills in practice. It was concerning how few times the Florida secondary had decent coverage. UF has some very talented players in the secondary, but whether it was scheme, communication or just a bad day at the office, there were only a handful of plays made because they had the receiver blanketed.

In his post game remarks when he brought attention to the 12-to-15 plays that he said Florida beat Florida, Napier said, “When you think about that, you think about coaching, right? That’s my responsibility.”

The buck does stop with Billy Napier. It is a team game but ultimately, the finger of blame always points to the man in charge who is responsible to get the team improved and ready to play. Players have to get better but it all starts with the head coach, then trickles down to the assistants and the rest of the football staff to get the players ready for the next game.

For the last two weeks, the fickle finger of Florida’s fate has been pointed at an anemic offense. It was the offense that was the culprit in a loss to Kentucky that quite frankly, should have been a Florida win if not for the giveaways and bad plays. A week ago there was a great escape against South Florida. The Gators got a win in a game that would have been a loss except for two bizarre bad snaps in three plays when it seemed the Bulls were about to walk out of The Swamp with a win no one would have predicted. Saturday in Knoxville, the offense came out of its shell and provided the Gators with a winning performance. The problem was the defense chose this night to go AWOL.

The good news on the horizon. The next three games will be in Gainesville starting with next Saturday’s close encounter with D1AA Eastern Washington (1-2). Eastern Washington should be akin to a glorified scrimmage so Napier and his staff have, for all practical purposes, two weeks to re-evaluate what they’re doing with the defense and plug as many holes as possible before their next SEC game against Missouri on October 8 followed by LSU on October 15. Georgia looms in Jacksonville on October 29, so the Gators have a long way to go and only a short time to get there.

UF is 0-2 in the SEC, which means any faint hopes they had of somehow winning the East Division are dead and gone. Napier tried his best to put a positive spin on SEC loss No. 2, another game the Gators will have to come to grips with as a game they gave away.

“Well, I think when we evaluate the tape … there’s going to be things we can do better in all three areas of our team,” Napier said. “Players, coaches, in-game decision-making, fundamentals, communication, and that’s where we’re at. That’s exactly where we’re at as a football team. So, we need more repetitions, and we need to stay the course. And I’m confident in our process and I’m confident in this group and their attitude towards the work, and I know they’ll respond the right way.”

It turns out that this Florida football team is every bit the work in progress that Napier said it was and would continue to be in the post game remarks of the three previous games. The Gators are 2-2 overall, 0-2 in the Southeastern Conference, yet they could just as easily be 4-0 with a perfect SEC mark. The Gators could also be 0-4 and in desperate need of their first win. If the Gators were a boat, we’d say the SS Gators were constantly springing leaks that Billy Napier has to plug. Just when he wads up enough bubble gum to plug one hole, water spurts through another.

Until Napier can get all the leaks plugged up this season, to use that worn out cliché, will be a roller coaster ride, so buckle your seat belts because the adventure doesn’t end for another two months.