Gators need to clean up small details

When you're playing the No. 1 team in the country they don't need any help throughout the course of a football game.

“When you play in big games," Dan Mullen said Saturday night. "The margin for error is going to be so small."

Florida helped Alabama to the tune of 14 missed tackles, according to Pro Football Focus. Couple that with several pass interference penalties, three of which extended Alabama drives. At the end of the day, Florida fell just two points short of Alabama but there were several small issues the team could point to which make up that difference. That started Monday in practice, bringing the same level of intensity that the team had last week for Alabama to the field this week against Tennessee.

"I think the biggest thing is to understand that, moving forward, to win a championship game like that, it’s attention to detail, and how do you make that one or two more plays relative to the score of the game," Todd Grantham said Monday night. "If you go back and look, I mean, what was it last year? Six points. This year, two points. So, as we continue to close, how are we going to make those plays? So, really, it gets down to your attention to detail."

The Gators started the game and quickly had small detail-oriented issues creep up. Trey Dean was called for a pass interference penalty that helped Alabama cross the 50. A missed tackle extended the drive again on third down. It was the first of many missed tackles, something that is hard to work on during the season but an area the Gators need to improve on with nine games left.

"Tackling in space is gonna be something that one, everybody sees, but we do need to continue to address it from a leverage standpoint, but you're gonna have some of those plays, it's just a matter of making sure that we clean them up and take them to a minimum," Grantham said. "Because, really, that was the difference in the game. There were a couple of other things, but if we are able to maybe tackle a little bit cleaner we can make one of those touchdowns a field goal, and you know, it doesn't really matter."

This week brings its own challenged. Florida left it all on the field last week against Alabama and with a 2-1 Tennessee, who looks to be severely under matched in the first season with a new head coach, Florida needs to bring its own energy and needs to avoid a letdown. With Alabama in the rearview, Florida is focusing on Tennessee, a rivalry, and getting back on track.

"It definitely was a confidence-builder for us," Emory Jones said. "But I mean we fell short of the result that we wanted. We’ve got to move on from that and get ready for this week.”