Florida Film Room: Breaking Down The Defense

The Scheme Of The Florida Defense

I’m a glass-half-full type of guy so we’ll start off with the positive things. Patrick Toney is Florida’s new defensive coordinator. He spent the last four seasons with Bill Napier at Louisiana Lafayette. Toney now has more athletic players with SEC speed to work with.

Toney had the Florida defense playing a solid scheme all night and was very consistent in formations and pressures. For most of the game, they ran a cover 1 man defense out of a 3-4 formation with the corners giving a cushion. This is the type of defense you play when you have fast DBs and linebackers that can keep up with receivers.

Toney did mix in some nickel coverage however he was limited in how much he could do that because Utah was coming out in a lot of big heavy formations. lots of twelve personnel and even some thirteen personnel. It’s not a good idea to play nickel when the offense come out in a formation with three tight ends all attached to the line. Toney stayed away from nickel for the most part which speaks to good game planning.

The Defensive Line

The only reason they were able to sneak in any nickel at all is because of how well the defensive line played. Brenton Cox Jr. had a great game that earned him the honor of SEC defensive player of the week. He showed the ability to single-handedly blow up plays quickly and lived in the backfield.

His performance allowed The Gator’s D line to stand up to the heavy packages Utah was using without needing help. The entire line played incredibly physically and would not allow Utah to bully them. The defensive line got several tackles for losses. Though they didn’t sack Utah quarterback Cam Rising very much however they were pressuring him enough to bother him.

Defense Stepping Up In Clutch Time

Florida had several goal-line stands against the Utah offense where they seemed to lock in mentally. The best of these stands was in the third quarter when Florida stopped Utah four straight times and made them turn the ball over on downs. That is an incredibly encouraging thing to see.

On Utah’s final offensive drive of the game, Florida looked particularly good on defense. Ventrell Miller in particular. He nearly intercepted the ball twice before it was eventually intercepted by Burney in the endzone. When the game was on the line, they played their best ball. Of course, this is great but you would like to see them play like that more consistently.

The Bad And The Ugly Florida Defense

While the Florida defense does get to be the hero this week, they spent most of the game shooting themselves in the foot. Some of the things were just completely inexplicable. Outside of Ventrell Miller, the linebackers played absolutely horrid. Utah’s tight ends absolutely abused the Florida linebackers.

There are some guys that started the game and played a lot of snaps that will probably not see the field much more this season. It was that bad at times. It wasn’t the scheme itself or the defenses they were in. The coaching staff was putting the players in good positions the players were just making mental mistakes and getting out of position once the play started.

I hate to say this, but there were shades of Todd Grantham on defense in week one. On multiple plays, players were still trying to communicate and line up correctly as the ball was snapped. this resulted in some very bad gap discipline that Utah eagerly took advantage of in the run game. Outside contain was an issue multiple times. Even though Brenton Cox Jr did have a great game, he tried to do too much on several occasions and ran himself out of plays.

The weirdest thing was the way that the defensive line was lining up. They were getting into their stances a full yard off the line of scrimmage. In the coming weeks, we will see if this is a mistake by the players that will be fixed or some weird coaching quirk. I pray it is the former and not the latter because that is a bizarre and incorrect way to line up.

The Verdict From The Florida Defensive Film Room

the best way I can describe how the defense looked is “bend don’t break.” There were a lot more mental mistakes and bad execution by the players than I am willing to live with. I hope the fact that they made the play to win the game doesn’t cause them to get complacent, because overall the defense was not good. I’m glad they stepped up with the game on the line but there is a lot to be fixed.

That is the bright side though, all of the mistakes are mental things that have to do with pre-snap positioning and gap discipline. This will all be addressed in the Gator’s actual film room and fixed in practice. I know if I noticed these things, the coaching staff did as well and they will take steps to fix these issues.

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