gator
12-06-2009, 01:20 AM
The game was a great disappointmentn to me. I knew Bama could win (in fact, I didn't spend the [time and money to attend because I thought FL had a significant chance of losing), but I was just irritated by the execution , playcalling, and scheming displayed by the Gators. Florida demonstrated offensive inadequacies all year, but some part of me way down still thought Tebow and co. would pull it out when it mattered (you have to think like that for your own team, right?). In retrospect, the limp-wristed, idiotic play calling came home to roost today. I would just say that I still think FL had the athletes to get it done today (look at that 4 play drive for a TD), they just couldn't overcome the playcalling and scheming devised by their coaches. Urban and co., I hate to say, were clearly outcoached today by Saban and his crew. For instance:
1) Why, I mean why in the F*!%, does FLA ever run Rainey up the middle, much less against Mount Cody?! Why didn't Moody, our largest and toughest, RB touch the field the last 2 weeks? FL should use Moody just like Ingram, not Rainey who gets clobbered up the middle.
2) Why does FL continue to throw screen passes to Demps when he has consistently shown all year that he will drop them. Not to mention that FL is the worst screen passing team that I have ever seen - Tebow either overthrows them, underthrows them (so our receiver catches it with his knee down), or takes so long to deliver it that the defense is all over it by time it gets there. Trust me, we have not had a screen play this year that hasn't made me clinch my teeth. Based on what I saw this year, the critics are right: Tebow will not make it as a QB in the NFL. You can't deliver the ball from your knees.
3) A review of FL's past couple seasons will easily reveal how FL is most successful on offense: Demps - outside option (even pretty good on the dive play), Hernendez - across the middle and option forward pass, Rainey - screen play and quick slants where he gets into space with favorable one-on-one matchups, Cooper - deep threat, Moody - toughest RB up the middle, and Tebow - great option threat and scrambler. Yet, the offensive play calling this season has largely flown in the face of all this (especially in the redzone, which is why FL sucked there this year). Today, I saw Rainey running up the middle (as usual), Demps getting screen passes (dropped as usual), Hernendez running deep routes down the sideline (wtf?), Cooper running short routes across the middle, Tebow becoming a statue and holding the ball way too long (all year), and Moody never touching the field. Another one that pissed me off earlier in the season, was any time we handed the ball off to Brandon James inside the redzone....at least we didn't see that today. Dan Mullen was seriously missed this season.
4) Defensively: Carlos Dunlap, you are a freakin' moron. Your absence really hurt today, but you can only blame yourself. I also thought we were dropping like flies early, with both Spikes and Major Wright getting dinged. Alabama just seemed tougher. Nevertheless, none of those things beat us; it was scheming. I just ask, how can Auburn, whose defense was average this year, completely shut down Ingram last week, but the #1 defense in the land cannot? For crying out loud, don't be too proud to copy a successul gameplan. Put a damn spy on that guy, just like Auburn. Nope. Charlie, what were you thinking? Why did it also take us a quarter to start pressuring McElroy? He's a freshman! Put him in bad situations early and put the pressure on. Early on, he had all day. Later, when we brought pressure, we didn't cover his easiest outlet (Ingram), which lead to that devastating screen play before halftime.
Those are the major ways I saw FL outcoached today. You can't overcome that kind of coaching descrepancy when the teams are fairly even matched talent wise. Beyond that, Bama had all the intangibles today. Watch any football game, and you will typically see one team getting the majority of the breaks - usually all of them by inches. Bama had the mojo today. How about the 3rd down McElroy bounce down the sideline, Ingram's 70 yard screen pass right before halftime where it looked like he stepped out of bounds but the FL player's leg blocked the camera view at that exact moment, the FL pass before halftime at the goalline that hit Hernendez in the hands and was deflected to Nelson's hands (both of them failing to catch it). It also didn't help that Bama had one penalty all day (that I can remember), with FL getting penalized at every critical juncture. There was a critical hold at the beginning of that long Ingram screen play (allowing him to get to the sideline), but the refs just didn't see the jersey stretching back. Going into the half down 2 instead of 9 could have been huge.
Bama had it all today: the coaching, toughness, desire, and breaks. They deserved to win. All I can hope is that the FL players got a good long taste of that humble pie, and they will want to come back tougher and hungrier next year. I also hope that the coaching staff has a come-to-Jesus meeting because the players played plenty hard enough; they just weren't put in the position to win. FL may have lost even with a perfect gameplan, but a 3 TD whippin' was the fault of playcalling and scheming IMO.
Looking at recent history, I guess it's just hard to keep that hunger as a team (and staff), or perhaps the pressure becomes too great. Back-to-back is unbelievably difficult to accomplish. I think back to the 2002 Miami team, didn't they have 34 straight wins and 8 first round draft picks? What about the 2005 USC team? Also 34 straight wins and a heartbreaking loss to Texas. FL's team this year fell to the same types of pressures and faults.
1) Why, I mean why in the F*!%, does FLA ever run Rainey up the middle, much less against Mount Cody?! Why didn't Moody, our largest and toughest, RB touch the field the last 2 weeks? FL should use Moody just like Ingram, not Rainey who gets clobbered up the middle.
2) Why does FL continue to throw screen passes to Demps when he has consistently shown all year that he will drop them. Not to mention that FL is the worst screen passing team that I have ever seen - Tebow either overthrows them, underthrows them (so our receiver catches it with his knee down), or takes so long to deliver it that the defense is all over it by time it gets there. Trust me, we have not had a screen play this year that hasn't made me clinch my teeth. Based on what I saw this year, the critics are right: Tebow will not make it as a QB in the NFL. You can't deliver the ball from your knees.
3) A review of FL's past couple seasons will easily reveal how FL is most successful on offense: Demps - outside option (even pretty good on the dive play), Hernendez - across the middle and option forward pass, Rainey - screen play and quick slants where he gets into space with favorable one-on-one matchups, Cooper - deep threat, Moody - toughest RB up the middle, and Tebow - great option threat and scrambler. Yet, the offensive play calling this season has largely flown in the face of all this (especially in the redzone, which is why FL sucked there this year). Today, I saw Rainey running up the middle (as usual), Demps getting screen passes (dropped as usual), Hernendez running deep routes down the sideline (wtf?), Cooper running short routes across the middle, Tebow becoming a statue and holding the ball way too long (all year), and Moody never touching the field. Another one that pissed me off earlier in the season, was any time we handed the ball off to Brandon James inside the redzone....at least we didn't see that today. Dan Mullen was seriously missed this season.
4) Defensively: Carlos Dunlap, you are a freakin' moron. Your absence really hurt today, but you can only blame yourself. I also thought we were dropping like flies early, with both Spikes and Major Wright getting dinged. Alabama just seemed tougher. Nevertheless, none of those things beat us; it was scheming. I just ask, how can Auburn, whose defense was average this year, completely shut down Ingram last week, but the #1 defense in the land cannot? For crying out loud, don't be too proud to copy a successul gameplan. Put a damn spy on that guy, just like Auburn. Nope. Charlie, what were you thinking? Why did it also take us a quarter to start pressuring McElroy? He's a freshman! Put him in bad situations early and put the pressure on. Early on, he had all day. Later, when we brought pressure, we didn't cover his easiest outlet (Ingram), which lead to that devastating screen play before halftime.
Those are the major ways I saw FL outcoached today. You can't overcome that kind of coaching descrepancy when the teams are fairly even matched talent wise. Beyond that, Bama had all the intangibles today. Watch any football game, and you will typically see one team getting the majority of the breaks - usually all of them by inches. Bama had the mojo today. How about the 3rd down McElroy bounce down the sideline, Ingram's 70 yard screen pass right before halftime where it looked like he stepped out of bounds but the FL player's leg blocked the camera view at that exact moment, the FL pass before halftime at the goalline that hit Hernendez in the hands and was deflected to Nelson's hands (both of them failing to catch it). It also didn't help that Bama had one penalty all day (that I can remember), with FL getting penalized at every critical juncture. There was a critical hold at the beginning of that long Ingram screen play (allowing him to get to the sideline), but the refs just didn't see the jersey stretching back. Going into the half down 2 instead of 9 could have been huge.
Bama had it all today: the coaching, toughness, desire, and breaks. They deserved to win. All I can hope is that the FL players got a good long taste of that humble pie, and they will want to come back tougher and hungrier next year. I also hope that the coaching staff has a come-to-Jesus meeting because the players played plenty hard enough; they just weren't put in the position to win. FL may have lost even with a perfect gameplan, but a 3 TD whippin' was the fault of playcalling and scheming IMO.
Looking at recent history, I guess it's just hard to keep that hunger as a team (and staff), or perhaps the pressure becomes too great. Back-to-back is unbelievably difficult to accomplish. I think back to the 2002 Miami team, didn't they have 34 straight wins and 8 first round draft picks? What about the 2005 USC team? Also 34 straight wins and a heartbreaking loss to Texas. FL's team this year fell to the same types of pressures and faults.