Here is the deal with the D versus Tebow and Florida... when the offense lines up 5 wide it becomes 11 on 10 with most pocket passing QB's... what I mean by that is you can blitz one person and if it is not picked up the sack is automatic... but with Tebow you get 11 on 11 because he can do just what he did sat night... pick up the blitz and run right by him... There is a containment issue when you blitz Tebow and he took advantage of it... but hey it didn't matter because the score was 28-24 with LSU on top and THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS NOW!!! GEAUX TIGERS!!!!
The spread offense obviously gave the D a lot of problems. Too much space in the short middle of the field. I don't know what the answer is, but it was easy pickings far too often. It would have made things much easier if they could have made a few plays in the backfield. Florida was never forced into long yardage situations, which is when you see a lot of blitzing. Frankly, I've been a little disappointed in the D-line's play all season. That's not to say they've played poorly, just that my expectations were a bit higher.
That's pretty much how I saw it: containment on the line and discipline assignments. When someone broke off assignment to go after Tebow, that's when the big plays ate us up. Instead. make Tebow run around the line and commit to the secondary. Pushing him out the pocket from only one side will only hurt you. Clog the middle with hands in the air and the screens/drops go away and force him to be 1 dimensional with an eye on the clock. That to me was the difference in the fourth. That and our O eating what felt like frickin 12 minutes off the clock. Brought to you by your Monday morning armchair DC :grin: . Later, Fur
First decent QB they've faced, and they got worked over pretty good. The Miss State and Tulane D-Lines looked pretty good by comparison. I did not expect that. I've generally been more impressed by the secondary.
I think the defense is taking unfair criticism. Look at the stats from the game and you'll see that UF was held far below their average. Did we dominate them? No, but NO college defense will dominate that offense. They definitely opened up the playbook against us and were very vanilla against AU, so we didn't hardly any of those plays on film. What allowed UF to control the game for the first 3 quarters was their 3rd down success. Adjustments were made and we won the game. If we see them again, we'll have a better understanding of how to defend them. Bottom line, we're still the No.1 defense in the nation. Like Red said, relax.
Look Florida brought all they had. They realized if they lost they would probably be out of the MNC hunt. Gators were focused and played nearly flawlessly in the first half. In my mind, Florida only scored 17 pts., we game them the touchdown in the second half. Kentucky's QB while a better passer than Thibeaux will not present the run threat that Thibeaux did.
I think people were surprised that Florida was able to move the ball so easily. I know I was. Thank goodness for those two turnovers, b/c Florida was picking up chunks of yardage seemingly at will. I don't think anyone expected them to have such consistent success. Two big things were very few negative plays (one sack and a late penalty) and very few long yardage situations. Here is a list of the yardage gained on all of Florida's offensive plays: 0 12 7 1 8 15 3 1 0 field goal 1 0 0 punt 6 6 2 10 -7 12 LSU penalty 3 6 1 27 0 2 (TD) 19 5 6 6 0 9 2 0 1 9 (TD) 3 13 5 17 37 (TD) 7 12 4 0 6 1 (fumble) 4 interception 6 0 0 punt 7 7 0 0 21 Florida penalty 0 Only the one sack from that goofy formation. It makes things a lot harder on the offense when they have to convert long yardage. LSU failed to put Florida in those situations, b/c they missed Tebow in the backfield a few times, Florida didn't commit penalties, and Florida was able to pick up small consistent chunks of yardage. Florida played a really efficient game. Meyer definitely got the better of Pellini, yet LSU still pulled it out. LSU allowing only a few big plays helped.
Besides being very good on offense they also played a perfect game. There were a few drives we kept them alive in with penalties. They never had 1 single pentalty to stall a drive of theirs. I think the D did all that can be asked of it. Force them to drive down the field in small chunks while eating up time. That way it limits the amount of points they can score over the game. These guys put up 55 points on Tenn. I think holding them to 24 isn't so bad. They are going to get points, just gotta keep playing hard vs them and make them earn them all.
