Transcript: Todd Grantham on Florida Gators Inconsistent Defense and the "Fight" With Dan Mullen
Florida Gators Defensive Coordinator Todd Grantham met with local media on Tuesday night. He discussed the win over the Kentucky Wildcats, what it will take to put together a complete game on defense and the "fight" between he and Head Coach Dan Mullen caught on camera during the Kentucky game.
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THE SIDELINE FIRE BETWEEN YOU AND MULLEN...? YOUR TAKE ON THAT, SOMETHING PAR FOR THE COURSE BETWEEN COACHES?
"Well like a lot of guys, my wife, Mrs. Paige, she enjoys the holidays and Christmas, and she wants the lights up, so don't kill the middle man. I'm just doing what I'm told to do and everything. Nah, it's a competitive deal. We're all in it for one goal: to go win. We've had a lot of success, and we have a lot of respect for each other and what we do. And because of that respect we're allowed to express our opinions on things and do what's best for the team, and that's what we've done the last four years and we'll continue (INAUDIBLE). We've been able to have a lot of success with our ability to be together."
NOT THE FIRST TIME, WON'T BE THE LAST?
"I would say it's not the first, won't be the last. It's probably a part of a lot of staffs across the country. So the great thing about us is we get to be in front of a camera working for like three and a half, four hours. Nowadays with all the great media we have, everything you do gets looked at. So it's just part of it. You live with it and you move on."
SECOND HALF WAS BEST HALF YET, WHAT DID YOU SEE AND HOW DO YOU CONTINUE THAT LEVEL OF PLAY?
"Well I mean to hold someone to six straight three-and-outs was pretty impressive. No. 1, we always talk to our guys about, 'You have to work the game.' So what that means is while the offense is on the field we're going over there, we sit in our groups and we are discussing, one, plays that just came up, complementary plays relative to what you just saw to be ready to play, any adjustments we need to make relative to the calls we have and 'here are the calls we have moving forward.' So we're going to kind of work the game and do all that. I think in this game you've got to give Kentucky a little bit of credit because if you go back and study them, they have a tendency to start pretty fast against teams. I mean if you go back to the 'Bama game in the first quarter they were pretty impressive moving the ball there. I think that they have a very good offensive line. They have a very good system for running the ball, and you've got to work the game to figure out exactly the style in which they're going to play. So I think our players did a great job of working the game, understanding this is the package we're going to see and being able to play those plays. That’s part of it; there’s no perfect game, there’s no perfect player. You’ve just got to continue to work the game to be successful and to be hard to score on and to get stops as you move throughout the game. I think it’s a product of us working the game and handling the adjustments that we needed to, but honestly, we had the same calls in the first quarter as we did in the third quarter. We just had a good feel for what we needed to do.”
Defensive front more stout?
“Yeah, I think those guys have done a good job of understanding their fits. I thought in this game, to be honest, we kind of jumped out of our gaps a couple times where we could have played a little cleaner. When you face good runners, good runners run where you’re not. If you have a gap, you’ve got to secure your gap. Even though we’re going to be a gap and a half team, we’re going to secure our gap, but as our gap no longer gets threatened, we’re going to shed and get to the next half gap based upon where the ball is. You can’t void your gap too soon because, if you do that, like I said, good runners will run where you’re not. We’ve addressed that and worked on that. As far as the guys up front, I’ve always said when Kyree came back, he gave us some flexibility and size does matter and the ability to have a bigger guy in there gives us a little more stoutness and allowed us to play people probably in a little more comfortable position.”
Challenges of facing Vols?
“No. 1, I think they are a very physical O-line. I think if you look at the games over the last four weeks, they’ve been very physical. They get movement at the point of attack. I think they’re O-line is coached really well. I think their O-line is physical. I think their running back is dynamic. He’s a guy that can make you miss. He can hit a hole and they got skill guys outside. So the combination of the ability to run the ball and to take vertical shots down the field is something that you’ve got to honor and have an appreciation for. If not, they can hit those. We understand that we’re going to have to play a physical and match their physicality because they have played physical in my opinion. You watch the Auburn game and they were really getting after those guys. And I don’t expect anything less getting ready to play us. Their ability to run the ball, their physicality and their skill outside is things you’ve got to understand and address.”
Missed all the fun?
“Hey, that’s what happens when you’re late.”
Figured you’d be late?
“I’m never late.”
You and Dan thumb wrestle it out?
“Yeah, we’re good. We’re great, I mean, like I said, I think because the respect we have for each other, the ability to have our opinions, it has allowed us to grow as coaches and our program to grow. We’ve won a lot of game together and look forward to winning many more.”
Is that fire a good thing?
“I’ve always believe, I learned this from Bill Cowher is, if you coach with passion and play with passion and have that kind of drive it can feed into your players. If you’re kind of not very passionate or kind of ho-hum, I think that can breed to your team, too. So I’ve always been a guy that wanted the player to know I had their back, that I was going to coach my tail off to get them in position to make plays and we’re going to find a way to do this together, and I think that’s the way you got to coach in practice and I think that’s the way you got to coach in games because I think it does breed into your unit.”
What do you guys need to do the next two weeks?
“I would really like to see us play a consistent game all the way through. Cause if you go back through it they’re really good times and all the sudden they’ll an explosive play. That’s a credit to the team we’re playing, because the teams we’re playing have players, they’re well coached and they have guys that can make plays. But as we move forward there’s opportunities for us to make plays out there. For example, in the second half there we had three picks in that game, opportunities. Those opportunities have been there throughout the course of the year. It’s a matter of making those plays. We always talk about finishing plays. So our ability to be consistent in our play and finish those drives off in a consecutive is something that would allow us to continue to reach our goals.”
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