Gators defensive players express faith in Todd Grantham

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It started early, the first game of the season the Florida Gators surrendered 613 yards and 35 points but the Gators won, Kyle Trask threw six touchdowns and Florida's offense did enough to quell the seething anger from the fanbase over the defensive performance.

The offense continued to score but week three brought on a loss at Texas A&M and the ire of everyone turned on Todd Grantham.

Florida's defense was historically bad in 2020.

Their scoring defense (30.8 points per game) was the program’s worst since 1917. The run defense allowed the most yards-per-carry (4.6) since 1971. The secondary allowed 28 passing touchdowns — nine more than any other year since at least World War II. And, finally, the Gators had its worst third-down defense since at least 2009 and ranked 98th nationally on fourth down.

As a whole, the defense certainly weighed down the offense, which was operating on the totally opposite end of the spectrum — putting up record-breaking numbers – then the defense was.

As the play continued week after week the calls for Dan Mullen to relieve defensive coordinator Todd Grantham of his duties at Florida intensified. As much as you can point the finger at the coordinator of the defense for the defensive failures, the players stepped in front of their coach and shouldered the blame.

“At the end of the day, players got to make plays on the field. It's their responsibility to teach us it, but we have to make the plays. If I don't make a play out there, I can't blame Coach Grantham because I was on the field,” Mohamoud Diabate said after the Cotton Bowl. “I know Coach Grantham cares because I left something at the facility on game week. I came back at 2:00 a.m., and Coach Grantham's car is still there. Nobody's car is there. I'm not going to listen to somebody say he doesn't care. No. Coach Grantham has had a long, successful career. He's respected in this league. He's respected in the NFL. We respect him.”

Now, as the Gators reach the second half of spring camp, the questions about how the defense will improve in 2021 and the pressure surrounding Grantham is as intense as ever. Still, the players under Grantham's command stand by his side.

"I think Grantham's defense is actually really great, you know what I'm saying? Like, just understanding where he coming from with defenses and stuff, you know, guys gon' make mistakes. Every, nobody's going to make the perfect call, but like, I'm telling you right now that Grantham's like one of the coaches I can say like I've played in his defense, like his defense is actually really great to me," Andrew Chatfield said. "I love, like the playcalling he calls, I love, like, everything he does, I love the way he planned out things, you know, especially like, how he like calls certain calls for us. And, you know I guess, you know, people have problems with it, you know, people don't understand it, you not on the inside so you would never understand, like, why did certain teams score, or this and that. So, I feel like Grantham is actually a great coach, a great play-caller and everything, great."

One of the worst units last year was the secondary. As noted above, the Gators gave up more passing touchdowns than any other team since World War II and that doesn't sit right with Kaiir Elam. Florida's secondary, aside from Elam and senior Trey Dean, will be very young in 2021 but Elam likes what he's seeing out of the group after nine practices.

"I think we're making a lot of strides just with small things like communicating, everybody being on the same page," he said. "We're still young, very young, and everybody's going to make a mistake here and there, but I feel like each and every week they have definitely just stepped up. So I feel like, I hope that just keeps going. Don't get complacent with it. I like what I'm seeing."

There is something to be said about not having a spring practice. That, however, was true of almost every school in the country last year. It's also clear that, despite the outside perception of the job that he's doing, the players really like Todd Grantham and enjoy playing for him. They'll need to help him out in 2021 if they want to keep playing for him in 2022.