Ernie McCracken
Thunderdome
- Joined
- May 6, 2013
- Messages
- 976
If any Gator fan tells you they outplayed us on Saturday, tell them just like Howard Schnellenberger did: "the Florida Gators never forced Miami to play their best game. We played with the lead the whole game and it seems to me the outcome was never in doubt."
The first thing I noticed after re-watching the game is that our gameplan was clearly to get the early lead, then play it safe the rest of the way. Same gameplan we had against Notre Dame last year, only this year it worked. The first drive was wide open, and we caught them early in some bad substitutions. They seemed to think they could stop our run with their front four, which turned out badly for them. A couple drives later, they adjust. Their safeties start biting up on the run, slowing it down. Phil Dorsett bomb was his redemption in my mind for the drop vs Notre Dame. That was a play action pass, the safety bit up, and Dorsett got behind him.
If we would have kept playing that wide open, we would have turned over the ball, and that's exactly how teams like UF beat you. They suffocate you until you beat yourself. It's pretty clear our plan was to jump on them with an early lead, then play mistake-free football and not turn the ball over, offensive stats be damned.... forcing Jeff Driskel to beat us. And we all know how that went. As Will Muschamp said in his post-game..."We gave Miami what they needed to beat us early." He's right.... except they didn't give us ****.... we took it.
To those who criticize the O-Line: I disagree with you. I think two things... first, Easley is a beast and a playmaker. Playmakers are going to make plays every now and then, no shame in that. Second, UF sold out to stop Duke Johnson. Third, we quit running Duke between the tackles after we took the lead.
Go back and watch the game again. When we ran Duke behind Feliciano or Linder, he had a lot of success. Especially before they started loading up. Easley is a good pass rusher but not that big, and running up the middle worked on them. I think that's huge for us. I believe we quit doing it because we had the lead, and because we didn't want to get Duke injured for ACC play.
Earlier in the game, Duke was killing them around the edges too. However, they stopped this in the second half by selling out.... their CB's and safeties bit up on the short flats and you can see that they were the ones making the plays on Duke around the edges. That has nothing to do with our O-line.
One thing.... that's a **** of an adjustment by the UF defensive staff, and it goes to show their CB's are studs. UF's d-coordinator did a great job of adjusting to what we were doing throughout the game so a tip of the hat for that I guess.
James Coley adjusted to this in the following couple drives by attacking the flats with Hurns and Walford, and as you could see we were moving the ball pretty well toward the end of the game.
The point is that has nothing to do with our o-line, and everything to do with what UF was scheming to try to stop, and also what risks UM was willing to take while playing with a lead.
Final point - our guys were running around out there in a lot of single man coverage, and in most cases we would probably try to exploit that. If you're reasonably confident that you can hit crossing routes over the middle you can expose the **** out of that.... UF was putting everyone in position to stop Duke/the run. But, remember we were playing with the lead, didn't want to turn the ball over, and didn't want to give them a short field ever. The gameplan was to make Driskel beat us.
Turned out to be a pretty good gameplan.
The first thing I noticed after re-watching the game is that our gameplan was clearly to get the early lead, then play it safe the rest of the way. Same gameplan we had against Notre Dame last year, only this year it worked. The first drive was wide open, and we caught them early in some bad substitutions. They seemed to think they could stop our run with their front four, which turned out badly for them. A couple drives later, they adjust. Their safeties start biting up on the run, slowing it down. Phil Dorsett bomb was his redemption in my mind for the drop vs Notre Dame. That was a play action pass, the safety bit up, and Dorsett got behind him.
If we would have kept playing that wide open, we would have turned over the ball, and that's exactly how teams like UF beat you. They suffocate you until you beat yourself. It's pretty clear our plan was to jump on them with an early lead, then play mistake-free football and not turn the ball over, offensive stats be damned.... forcing Jeff Driskel to beat us. And we all know how that went. As Will Muschamp said in his post-game..."We gave Miami what they needed to beat us early." He's right.... except they didn't give us ****.... we took it.
To those who criticize the O-Line: I disagree with you. I think two things... first, Easley is a beast and a playmaker. Playmakers are going to make plays every now and then, no shame in that. Second, UF sold out to stop Duke Johnson. Third, we quit running Duke between the tackles after we took the lead.
Go back and watch the game again. When we ran Duke behind Feliciano or Linder, he had a lot of success. Especially before they started loading up. Easley is a good pass rusher but not that big, and running up the middle worked on them. I think that's huge for us. I believe we quit doing it because we had the lead, and because we didn't want to get Duke injured for ACC play.
Earlier in the game, Duke was killing them around the edges too. However, they stopped this in the second half by selling out.... their CB's and safeties bit up on the short flats and you can see that they were the ones making the plays on Duke around the edges. That has nothing to do with our O-line.
One thing.... that's a **** of an adjustment by the UF defensive staff, and it goes to show their CB's are studs. UF's d-coordinator did a great job of adjusting to what we were doing throughout the game so a tip of the hat for that I guess.
James Coley adjusted to this in the following couple drives by attacking the flats with Hurns and Walford, and as you could see we were moving the ball pretty well toward the end of the game.
The point is that has nothing to do with our o-line, and everything to do with what UF was scheming to try to stop, and also what risks UM was willing to take while playing with a lead.
Final point - our guys were running around out there in a lot of single man coverage, and in most cases we would probably try to exploit that. If you're reasonably confident that you can hit crossing routes over the middle you can expose the **** out of that.... UF was putting everyone in position to stop Duke/the run. But, remember we were playing with the lead, didn't want to turn the ball over, and didn't want to give them a short field ever. The gameplan was to make Driskel beat us.
Turned out to be a pretty good gameplan.
