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Published Aug 20, 2019
Gators not underestimating Miami's youth on offense
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Jacquie Franciulli  •  1standTenFlorida
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GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Florida football is not underestimating the Miami offense.

"They've got some skill guys outside that can make some plays," said Gators defensive coordinator Todd Grantham. "They're dangerous in space and can vertically stretch you. Their tight ends are athletic, they can create mismatches athletically with what they can do.

"Runners run hard. Will run through guys. You've got to make sure you're wrapping up and guys are running to the ball so a three-yard gain stays a three-yard gain, it's not a seven or eight-yard gain because a guy runs through a guy. And then their offensive line looks to be physical."

The Hurricanes are coming into 2019 with a very young offense that is under new management. First year head coach Manny Diaz hired Dan Enos as his new offensive coordinator, and as one can imagine there is not a lot of film available.

In order to learn more about their opponent, the Gators are looking at old Arkansas film.

"Thats mostly what we have been watching, when he was at Arkansas, especially with safeties coach [Ron] English," said safety Donovan Stiner. "Just so we can get a good feel about their offensive scheme and things like that. We also watch a little bit of Miami just so we can see a little of their personnel and see how their players are.”

However, Dan Mullen is no stranger to Enos' offense. The Gators head coach faced off against Enos when he was at Mississippi State.

"Dan Enos running their offense, I have a lot of respect for," said the Gators head coach. "He does a really good job of utilizing personnel. We kind of base out of a spread offense and he bases out of a more under center 11-12 using tight ends and personnel but he knows the system and has great play action off of it."

"It's just a matter of having good eye control in the back end, paying attention to detail and then understanding the formations and how we need to leverage them up and make sure we can set the edge of the defense," said Grantham on how the defend the offense.

The game on Saturday will also showcase a new man under center for the Hurricanes. Jarren Williams won the quarterback job this fall and is set to make his first start against the Gators.

"It's tough preparing for a guy you've never seen play," said corner Marco Wilson. "I heard he's a pretty good quarterback, but he's also young so we can try to use that to our advantage. I know as a young person it might be tough to play, and definitely at quarterback. So that's something: we're going to try to put some pressure on him."

"He hasn’t been in that fire. He hasn’t been in the heat,"said defensive tackle Adam Shuler. "He hasn’t seen a bunch of pressure coming at him. If we do our job we can rattle him.”

Although Enos is inheriting a young offensive personnel, the offensive coordinator does have a few veterans, including talented wide receiver Jeff Thomas.

The Canes junior had 35 catches for 563 yards and three touchdowns last season, while averaging 24.6 yards on nine punt returns, with one punt being returned for a touchdown.

"We feel like that is their best receiver, so we have been keeping an eye on him during film just to see what he can do and get a feel for him," said Stiner.

“He’s just an explosive guy, very fast," said Wilson. "He can make spectacular catches. I’ve seen a couple bad balls thrown to him and he still made the catch, and he did pretty well vs. LSU, and they have some decent DB’s, so he’s a very fast guy, athletic, so that’s something we need to watch out for on Saturday.”

“He’s a real good guy," said CJ Henderson. "A guy that’s gonna be playing on Sunday’s so we gonna respect him and treat him as such.”

"They have a very good system that can attack in different ways, and they have the answers to the questions that maybe get proposed during the game," said Mullen.

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