Will the Gators see an improved defense against UCF Saturday?

Back when he was coaching Florida’s basketball team, winning 467 games, six Southeastern Conference and two NCAA championships over a 19-year stretch, Billy Donovan used to say, “Does a year older make you a year better?”

Florida’s football team, a disappointing 2-2 through the month of September, was expected to be better than the 5-7 record of 2023, but one-third of the way through the 2024 schedule the only thing we can say is the Gators are a year older. The Gators have beaten the two teams they’re supposed to – D1AA Samford and Mississippi State – and they’ve been dominated by Miami and Texas A&M.

Coming off a bye week in which head coach Billy Napier says produced three days of very intense practices, the Gators will take on intra-state rival UCF (3-1) Saturday (7:30 p.m., SEC Network) at The Swamp. It’s a critical game for the Gators who need the momentum a win can give them heading into a six-game stretch that might be the most difficult any team in the country will face this season.

Throw in Napier’s job security, which seems to be hanging by the flimsiest of proverbial threads, and the game takes on added importance. Thanks to the bye week, the Gators are a week older. Are they a week better?

Edge rusher Jack Pyburn would tell you yes, the Gators are better.

“It was probably the best bye week that I participated in as a player, even in high school,” Pyburn said Wednesday evening. “I mean, we were competing every single day. Everything was a competition. Every single run mattered. Every single matchup mattered. And I think we really got better as a team.”

Pyburn’s thoughts were echoed by linebacker Grayson Howard, who said, “We got better over the bye week. We’re tired of hitting each other. I can tell you that. We’re looking forward to being able to hit somebody else Saturday.”

In their last outing, the Gators earned a 42-28 win over Mississippi State in Starkville, breaking an 8-game losing streak to Division I opponents. Getting the win was a relief that reverberated throughout the locker room, creating a team-wide desire to get to work during the bye week.

“I think it felt great to win,” Mertz said. “I know that guys in the locker room were fired up, ready to get into the bye week. I think it actually fueled our bye week, too. We had three really competitive, really good days of practice. We got better as a team coming off of that.”

In beating Mississippi State, the Gators racked up 503 yards of offense – 226 on the ground and 277 through the air. Mertz had a sensational game, completing 19-21 passes for 201 yards and three touchdowns without throwing an interception.

Offense wasn’t the problem against Mississippi State. Defense was and it’s been the same way all season, and for the most part, nearly every one of the 29 games the Gators have played since Napier became the head coach. Through four games this season the Gators are dead last in the SEC in total defense, giving up 425.5 yards per game – 188.8 per game on the ground and 236.8 through the air.

Mississippi State ran for 240 yards and passed for 240, not the kind of numbers a halfway decent defense expects to give up against the worst team in the league. The Mississippi State game and the season in general have been confounding to Pyburn.

“The hardest part for me is I know how good we can be,” Pyburn said. “I've seen it day in and day out. We have elite players on defense, but we just have to play as one. And I think that we are really now starting to take those right steps in the right direction to play as one and believe in one another. Because we know our coaches believe in us. We believe in ourselves. So we just have to trust and believe in one another. I'm telling you, I think there will be a different mentality when this defense especially steps on the field on Saturday.”

The Gators will have to play with a different mentality against UCF. UCF ranks second nationally in rushing at 326 yards per game. They have an elite running back in R.J. Harvey, who has run for 525 yards and eight touchdowns while averaging 7.0 per carry. A year ago, Harvey ran for 1,416 yards and 16 touchdowns.

As good as Harvey is, the Knights come at you in waves. Backup Peny Boone gained 1,400 yards at Toledo last season and behind him is Myles Montgomery, the heir apparent to Harvey.

And then there is quarterback K.J. Jefferson, who led Arkansas to a 39-36 win over the Gators in The Swamp a year ago when he threw for 255 yards and two touchdowns while running for 91 and another TD. The Gators are all too familiar with how Jefferson can take off running when the pocket breaks down or else he can’t find anyone open to throw to. The Gators struggled to contain him when he tucked and ran a year ago.

Napier has made keeping Jefferson contained the focal point of the defense in practice.

“It's a big part of the game,” Napier said. “We've actually done some specific drills to that. We've used some bigger skill players. We did some things and we've made cut-ups of some of those plays in terms of what that's going to take.

“You know, even going through his library of experience at Arkansas and certainly what he's done so far this year, it's a critical piece of the puzzle not only when he's a passer and he scrambles but just down-in, down-out all the read elements to their run game. When he's a vertical runner, he's a 260-pound skill player so I think there's an element there to how you tackle him, how you finish on him and that's been a part of the work this week.”

A 260-pound quarterback with a reasonable amount of speed is like a freight train when he gets a full head of steam and gets into the secondary where he might outweigh the tacklers by more than 60 or 70 pounds. No matter the size of the ball carrier, the Gators have had difficulty getting people to the ground all season long. 

Napier said the tackling issues don’t stem from a lack of hitting in practice.

“Ultimately, what we uncovered during the open date was our issues alignment, assignment, technique, and fundamentals,” Napier said. “You know, I think we've been in position and not made plays. We've been out of position and not made plays. So I think ultimately that's what our research would say. Very simple things done well consistently ultimately lead to good performances and we have to do those simple things better.”

Napier on the pass rush – or lack of: The Gators have eight sacks in four games, which ranks 11th in the SEC and is tied for 80th nationally. Pass rush has been a serious problem in Napier’s two previous seasons as well. The Gators had 23 sacks in 2022, only 22 last season. In the four seasons prior to Napier’s arrival, the Gators never had a season in which they sacked the quarterback fewer than 35 times.

“Well, I think that ultimately we haven't been able to generate the pass rush that we would like,” Napier said. “That's, you know, that's about as blunt as I can be.”

Napier said some of the issues with pass rush have to do with the Gators putting opponents in passing downs. Winning on first and second down leads to long third down situations.

“Look, you got to create passing downs, you know,” Napier said. “You have to create scenarios where there's a favorable D and D (down and distance) and you can predict percentages and go get the guy, you know. I think one of our issues is, how many third-and-long, second-and-longs, get a lead. Sacks come from being ahead, where the opponent has to pass consistently, so I don't necessarily think we've been in that position often, so. Ultimately, if you can win on first and second down, or even first down and get into second, third-and-longs, it gives you a better chance, more advantageous situations to rush the passer and get pressure and sacks.”

Napier on issues with NIL and the transfer portal: With so few guardrails for NIL and a transfer portal that creates instant free agency, coaches essentially have to re-recruit their own players during the season.

“Well, I think there's always an element to that,” Napier said. “We live in a world where any player on any team in the country two times a year can just knock on your door and say, 'I'm going somewhere else.' At this level of elite competition, I would say it's unlike anything else. I think it goes back to the original recruitment. I think there's so much to be said for that recruiting process, how you were selling your product, the decision-making, what was the decision made about, selling the big picture in terms of all the things that we had to offer at the University of Florida and really pitching finish the race, complete the process here at UF.”

Reality says that a certain number of players are going to leave and that is something every coach has to deal with.

“We're always going to have some attrition,” Napier said. “You're going to have 15-20 percent attrition probably. I just think that's a product of the current dynamic until we have some format where there's obligation or contractual things in place. We got a great place here, and I think ultimately we're hopeful that they choose to come here for the entire experience."

Tre Wilson could play: Because it’s a non-conference opponent, Napier isn’t required to give an injury report ahead of the Saturday game. He did offer some hope that wide receiver Tre Wilson could play. Prior to his injury in the Samford game, Wilson had caught 13 passes for 191 yards and a TD.

Napier said Wilson has “done some things in practice [this week]” and “he took reps today.”