Details from Sunday Emerge

The Orlando Sentinel’s Jeremy Fowler gives a rundown of what went on in Sunday night’s 90 minute practice session. At least, what Urban Meyer was willing to discuss publicly.

Basically, he said it was closure for Saturday. Apparently, some players had “some things to get off their chest” in addition to the practicing that went on. He wouldn’t elaborate of course, but it’s good to know the players can speak frankly with the coaches.

Fowler also mentions that Emmanuel Moody may not play against Arkansas. That’s fine with me; Arkansas is basically FAU this year, and he needs to be ready for LSU in two weeks.

The Gainesville Sun has even more quotes if you want them.

SEC Power Poll Ballot, Week 5

I have not yet switched over to a strict resume system; I probably won’t until the teams have played at least three quarters of their games. So much can change from week to week on the won/loss front that sometimes you get bizarre results you simply have to look past. The important thing this early in the season is not to overreact to one game.

1. Alabama

So far, no one has done more and looked better doing it than Alabama.

2. LSU

Steady she goes. The injuries in that win over Mississippi State are far more troubling than anything related to the score.

3. Georgia

I am officially worried about this team. The bad loss to ‘Bama (41-17 with 3:01 to go) wasn’t due to mental lapses but fundamental deficiencies that can’t be corrected merely by practicing more.

4. Florida

Three things went wrong: coming out flat, turnovers, and calling slow-developing pass plays from an empty set against the blitz. All three can be fixed by the time LSU comes to town.

5. Auburn

They’ve looked about as bad as possible, but they’ve lost only to LSU so far. The defense is for real still, and as long as that holds true, they’re in the top half of the conference.

6. Vanderbilt

The best of the second tier of the conference so far.

7. Ole Miss

They pulled off the big win in Gainesville with a lot of help from their hosts. Given more breaks, they easily could have pulled out the Vandy and Wake games too.

8. Kentucky

Still haven’t played anyone, but the 41-3 win over Western Kentucky got my attention.

9. South Carolina

They’re about out of “the game was not as close as the score indicates” passes by now.

10. Tennessee

This team might be the doormat of the SEC East and now the quarterback job is up for grabs. How could they fall this far in just one year?

11. Mississippi State

They gave LSU a lot more trouble than I thought they would.

12. Arkansas

Functionally a Sun Belt Conference team this year.

Tartt’s Status Uncertain

Jim Tartt is one of the best offensive linemen on the team. Unfortunately, he is also the most injury-prone thanks to a shoulder ailment that has bothered him since high school.

It appears he may not be able to play a full game the rest of the season. With Marcus Gilbert also hurting, it may be time for Carl Johnson to finally step up and get his turn to prove whether he deserves to be so well known among Gator fans or not.

The Offense in General

There’s not going to be a whole lot of original content today; real life hit me with a real doozy yesterday and everything that gets posted here is written a day in advance thanks to me having a full time day job.

Anyway, Orange and Blue Hue had an interesting take on the offense yesterday, and it’s well worth your time.

Tebow Apologizes for Loss

First, the quote:

“To the fans and everybody, I’m sorry. I’m extremely sorry. We were hoping for an undefeated season. That was my goal, something Florida’s never done here. But I promise you one thing: a lot of good will come out of this. You have never seen any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of this season and you’ll never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of this season and you’ll never see a team play harder than we will the rest of this season. God bless.”

I don’t doubt his intention; I’d imagine both he and Urban Meyer will make this one of the most intense weeks of practice they’ve had.

My concern is that he’ll start pressing. His accuracy has been spotty so far. Many of his throws were low against Miami and Tennessee and he overthrew every long ball against Ole Miss. Playing harder might also mean running more, which works until he goes and gets his shoulder hurt again.

I hope he more focuses on the “push[ing] the rest of the team” part. He obviously is the team’s leader already, but there was not a whole lot of emotion on the Gators’ side last Friday. Even Sideline Dave from Raycom noticed and reported that during the fourth quarter.

Maybe I was wrong last week when I said having an even keel is the best way to go. Perhaps a little fire is what they need to make it through the season.

An Analysis of Florida’s Offense Against Ole Miss

Urban Meyer likes to say that games are won and lost in the five minutes before and the five minutes after halftime. Florida’s game against Ole Miss was decided in large part thanks to the five minutes after halftime, proving his maxim true.

I went through all of UF’s 71 plays to find out more about the offense’s performance in their first loss of the year and to see what should have been done differently.

First Half

Florida had the game mostly under control. The Gators enjoyed a 17-7 lead and had all the momentum. Ole Miss head coach Houston Nutt was even visibly frustrated when he came out after halftime. The storyline for the game was following along the same way it had for the previous three games: Florida’s defense was holding its opponent down and the offense was doing enough to get by.

Before the break, 17 of the 33 plays were runs, and Florida scored on three of its six drives. Even Aaron Hernandez’s lost fumble was on a play that was on its way to gaining more than ten yards (before, of course, being called back for illegal formation).

Even so, the offense was not fully clicking. It only had more than two effective plays in a row on the sixth and final drive, when all five of its plays were effective. Prior to that, the Gators could only muster back-to-back effective plays at most before bad execution or a good play by the Rebel defense prevented a play from doing well.

Second Half

Florida passed a lot more in the second half because the sense of urgency grew. Six of the first eight plays after the break were runs, but only two were effective and two others produced lost fumbles. Most importantly, the fumbles allowed Ole Miss to tie up the game and it gave them a lot of confidence.

From that point on, the Gators ran the ball just seven more times. Five of them were on a touchdown drive (one of which was a scramble on a pass play) and two more were their final two plays of the game.

UF actually had eight distinct and meaningful drives in the second half, a remarkable stat considering that they had only six meaningful drives the whole game against Tennessee. The first two ended due to lost fumbles. The third was torpedoed by a third down penalty and a missed block on the same guy by both Phil Trautwein and Marcus Gilbert.

The fourth drive was done in by a first down sack that was followed by a catch out of bounds and Tebow being hit as he threw. The fifth drive was when the offense finally found a rhythm, making six effective plays in a row despite the linebackers dropping into coverage only once in that span. It ended in a touchdown. The first play of the sixth drive was also effective, but a sack the second play could not be overcome thanks in part to a drop by Carl Moore.

Five of the six plays on the seventh drive were effective, with the other one being an overthrow on a 20-yard fade route. It ended in a touchdown. The final drive of the second half as we know ended because of a failed Tebow smash play, but two more overthrows on first and second down were counter productive.

A Word on the Rebel Defense

Houston Nutt may seem a little crazy from time to time, but he is not stupid. He took a look at Florida’s three games so far. He probably tossed out the Hawai’i game because of the talent differential, and stuck with the Miami and Tennessee games.

Miami blitzed most of the game and held the Florida offense to just a touchdown in the first three quarters. Tennessee dropped its linebackers into coverage most of the game and allowed UF to score on five of its six meaningful drives. You can probably imagine which approach Nutt took.

Ole Miss blitzed much of the game, and most of the rest of the plays the linebackers stayed up close to add pressure. All but one of the times Ole Miss brought a Gator down behind the line of scrimmage came on a blitz.

The Rebels dropped the linebackers into coverage just 17 times. Only one of those times did they get genuine pressure on Tim Tebow. Only four other plays were not effective, and two of those were drops, one was a pass that was caught out of bounds, and the other was a dump off pass on third-and-17. When the linebackers dropped back and gave Tebow plenty of time to throw, Florida moved the ball with ease.

Following the lead of LSU and others, Ole Miss almost universally blitzed the Gators when they went with an empty set, except on third and a mile and late in the fourth quarter. All three of the Rebels’ sacks came against an empty set, and twice a linebacker came through untouched.

Florida’s Play Calling

On the Gator message boards, the people are ready to run offensive coordinator Dan Mullen out of town. To be fair they’ve wanted to do that almost since he arrived 2005, even during the 2006 national championship run and during 2007’s campaign that led the SEC in scoring. Was it as bad as they say?

As I said, the first half scheme matched what had been going on before. No surprises there. Over the three previous weeks some wondered whether the Gators had used the whole playbook, and if when the pressure was on if they could execute when that time came.

Only three of the eight second half drives ended in punts solely because of poor execution. The first two were turnovers of course, and one was bad execution and one was a good play by the defense. That bad execution fumble was on a read option play, however, something Tebow has run thousands of times in games and in practice. It was not related to that extended playbook.

The plays that Florida ran in this game that it didn’t in the previous ones mainly were intermediate to long pass plays. The ones that were quick worked fine. The ones that were not quick ended in sacks or scrambles. It also did not help that Tebow overthrew every pass that had to travel in the air more than about 12 yards beyond the line of scrimmage.

Florida actually did pretty well beating the blitz with quick passes over the middle and option plays. Only three throws over the middle didn’t work; two were drops and the third was a low throw. The other 15 short or medium throws over the middle were effective. The read option plays in the center of the line didn’t work very well, but the standard option left or option right plays did a great job at beating the blitz.

The killers were slow developing pass plays from an empty set. All three sacks came on such a scenario, and most of the hurries did too. Thanks to Ole Miss blitzing on nearly all of them, the numbers just didn’t allow that kind of play to do what it was supposed to do.

That’s where I am upset with the play calling. I understand that there’s a need for variety to keep the defense guessing, but there was no reason at all that supported anything other than fast passes from a five-wide set. Ole Miss made its intentions to blitz very clear from the beginning, so those plays should have been scrapped instead of appearing in the second half.

Florida was getting everything it needed on medium-length quick hitters and options. The Rebels couldn’t do a thing to stop Percy Harvin running or catching. Tebow was overthrowing all of his longer passes anyway. Slow developing pass plays from the empty set have been failing against the blitz since the LSU game in 2005. Why they keep getting sent down from the booth in 2008 is beyond me.

The final set of downs was not a failure of play calling, by the way. There were short routes by the sideline that were open on first and second down; Tebow chose to throw to the lone long route both times.

I was fine with the throw to Murphy since it was first down and there was a lot of separation there. The throw to Harvin on second down was not a good decision in any way. The option on third down nearly worked, and on fourth down Florida’s offensive line simply got dominated. The Tebow smash had worked all three other times they used it, so there wasn’t a whole lot of reason to think it wouldn’t the fourth time.

Injuries

Florida missed Jim Tartt, who went out after the first drive. He is a fifth-year senior and a mauler on the line. Even so, Ole Miss’ front four rarely got much pressure when they weren’t assisted by a blitzer.

The bigger loss was probably Emmanuel Moody, who had three very hard and productive runs before going out. All three of his plays were effective, and he also picked up Florida’s only third down conversion.

The Takeaway

Ole Miss didn’t have to make many plays to win. It gained over half of its offensive yards on four plays (two of which were touchdowns) and its three sacks put the Gators in second-and-20, second-and-17, and second-and-19 (all three of which led to punts).

My final diagnosis is that the two turnovers to start the second half did the Gators in. For as flat as they played and for all the big plays that went against them, those turnovers ended up the deciding factor.

They gave the Rebels 10 quick points to tie up the game, and the two teams were basically even from there on out. They were not even in the first half, however, showing that those giveaways by Florida reversed momentum and gave Ole Miss some actual confidence.

Even if Florida punts on those drives instead of fumbling, the Rebels would not have gotten 10 points that fast or probably at all given how the teams were playing at that point. Minus the shot of adrenaline to the Ole Miss sideline, Florida probably would have ground out another nondescript win.

Ultimately, this game leaves plenty to think about and work on for both players and coaches. We’ll find out how much they got from it when LSU comes to Gainesville in two weeks.

Gators Hold Sunday Night Practice

Florida doesn’t usually practice on Sundays. The Gators don’t usually fumble five times, drop four passes, and allow 86-yard touchdown passes either.

Urban Meyer called practice for an hour and a half last night, apparently to make a point about ball security. That time will have to come out of another day’s usual practice because of NCAA rules.

Meyer is a big advocate of not fumbling, as most coaches are, and he usually benches guys for putting it on the ground. The only problem with that was that three fumbles came from Percy Harvin, one from Aaron Hernandez, and another on a (possibly fake) handoff between Tim Tebow and Brandon James. Those aren’t really benchable guys.

It makes sense because Arkansas has been so bad this season, all the Gators really have to do is play a fundamentally sound game and the talent disparity will overwhelm them. The sloppy play has to stop.

Gators Go Through Looking Glass in Loss to Ole Miss

Nearly everything about Florida’s game against Ole Miss was the polar opposite of what happened through the first three games of the year. I have not gone through my recording for a full analysis; ideally that will come tomorrow. For now though, just consider these things.

Third Downs

Florida entered the game first in the SEC in third down conversions, at 53.85 percent. Against Ole Miss, they were just 1-11 on third downs.

Turnovers

Florida came into the game +9 in turnover margin and had yet to turn the ball over. While Tim Tebow’s school record streak of pass attempts without an interception is still alive, the Gators fumbled five times, losing three, and finished -2 in turnover margin against the Rebels.

Preventing Big Plays

You can question the competencies of the offenses UF had faced so far, but the Gator D had been doing well in preventing big plays. The longest pass play allowed to Hawai’i, Miami, and Tennessee was 26 yards, and the longest run play was 16 yards.

Ole Miss gained 169 of its 325 yards on four plays. One of those four plays was a 40-yard touchdown run by Dexter McCluster and another was Jevan Snead’s 86-yard touchdown pass to Shay Hodge. Both of those plays came within 16 minutes of the end of the game.

On the Rebels’ 59 other plays, they managed just 156 yards, or 2.64 yards per play.

Tebow’s Production

Coming into the game, Tim Tebow had played a relatively limited role in the offense compared to 2007. His 311 total yards against Miami were by far his highest, and 256 of those were passing. He had yet to score a rushing touchdown.

Against Ole Miss he had 319 yards of passing alone, and he had two rushing touchdowns.

Harvin’s Production

Partially due to injuries, Percy Harvin had played a very limited role in the first three games of the year. His largest involvement was against Tennessee, where he had eight touches for 80 yards.

Against Ole Miss, he surpassed that mark in both rushing and receiving. He had 10 rushes for 82 yards, and 13 catches for 186 yards. He was far and away the best player on the field.

Taking a Lead

Florida had not trailed in a game yet this season. Ole Miss scored first, ending that streak with 3:12 to go in the first quarter. UF would take the lead back with 12:26 to go in the first half, but the Gators would lose the lead for good with 10:32 to go in the third quarter when Ole Miss tied the game 17-17.

Special Teams

Brandon James was largely held in check thanks to some occasionally suspect blocking by Florida but mainly good kick and punt coverage by Ole Miss. Saturday’s game was also the first game of the year in which the Gators’ special teams did not score.

The final margin of the game was made possible by Ole Miss’ special teams, who blocked Florida’s final extra point attempt.

Overall

“We didn’t play Florida football.”

Those words from Urban Meyer in his postgame press conference basically sum up the game. I am still going to do the analysis pieces, but the whole game can be summed up in that phrase.

It was like a combination of some of the worst parts of 2006 with some of the worst parts of 2007.

They had a third quarter meltdown, an infamous recurring nightmare of 2006’s run. They also had the offense making mistakes and hoping the defense could bail them out, a storyline taken directly from the script of two seasons ago.

They also had critical breakdowns, like Snead’s 86-yard pass, and some bad tackling, like on McCluster’s 40-yard run. The offense basically ended up the Tebow and Harvin show as well. Those bits are vintage 2007 Gators.

The critical thing from here on out is figuring out this team’s identity. The identity it had tried to forge in the first three games was completely reversed. Bad habits from the past couple seasons reemerged.

All is not lost since it’s still September and because Georgia was administered a beatdown by Alabama. Arkansas, Florida’s next opponent, has looked so positively putrid this season that they present a great opportunity to get the house back in order.

Florida came out flat, didn’t do a thing that brought them success in the three games prior, and they only lost by one point (a freak margin at that, considering how few PATs ever get blocked). It was also to a rapidly improving Ole Miss team, whose new coach Houston Nutt always pulls off an upset or two every season.

There are worse ways to take your first loss, and there was enough good in it to build on that the Gators can still accomplish every goal they have for the season.

At Least We’re Not Alone

No. 1 USC lost to unranked Oregon State on Thursday

No. 3 Georgia lost to No. 8 Alabama; it was 41-17 until UGA added some garbage TDs with under 3:00 to go

No. 9 Wisconsin lost to unranked Michigan

No. 14 Auburn came thisclose to losing to unranked Tennessee, who is awful

No. 16 Wake Forest lost to unranked Navy (!)

No. 20 Clemson lost to unranked Maryland

No. 23 East Carolina got smacked around by unranked Houston

No. 25 Fresno State nearly lost to unranked UCLA, who is awful

It was just one of those weekends, and we got caught in it. The good news is that it was by one point on a blocked PAT, and that it’s still just September. If you’re going to lose, and Florida has made it through exactly one regular season undefeated ever, now’s the time to do it.

Quote of the Night

“This is an old fashioned butt-kicking, and Georgia is supplying the butt.”

-Mike Patrick, before kickoff after Alabama went up 31-0 on Georgia