GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Todd Grantham and the Florida defense has heard its fair share of criticism after the Gators' loss to Georgia over the weekend.
"We were playing so well on first down, and in the run game, it does become frustrating," Florida defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said.
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Georgia only managed 119 yards on the ground after coming into the game averaging 236 yards per game, However, stopping the run was not where this defense faltered against the Bulldogs.
"When you go look at the game, from a run defense standpoint, I thought we played the run really well against a team that can run the ball," Grantham said. "As a matter of fact, I think that’s the lowest total in a regular-season game since LSU that they’ve had. I thought we did a really good job there."
"At the end of the day, we just didn’t make enough plays," added the UF coach. "We didn’t have sacks, but even on the early downs we had him off the spot and didn’t get him on the ground. Not only third down, but at the end of the day, we just didn’t finish enough plays."
The Gators defense just could not get off the field. Georgia went 12-of-18 on third down, converting on several third-and-long situations.
“It’s pretty frustrating, I mean, first series we were on the field about seven minutes or more," defensive tackle Adam Shuler said. "It’s pretty frustrating, I mean we have to keep staying out there, keep going back out there. But, I mean, we have to build up on it.”
A team that registered 10 sacks in the opening game did not manage to record one sack in the loss; a team that led the nation in takeaways earlier this season, did not force one turnover.
"Just not executing," safety Donovan Stiner said about the third-down problems on Saturday. "I think our coaches did a good job of putting us in position so we just gotta go out and execute so going in this week, we have to clean those mistakes up and make sure it don’t happen again.”
"When you go to the third-down stuff, it really just gets down to execution," said Grantham. "Execution from the standpoint we need to have better eye control, we need to have better leverage and we probably need to play a little more physical, too."
“Just rushing the passer, rushing the passer, staying in coverage," added Shuler. "Really just getting to the quarterback though, we really couldn’t do that as best as we wanted to, that was really the problem.”
There also seemed to be a lack of communication in the secondary, which resulted in some busted coverages. In the fourth quarter, Jake Fromm managed to hit a wide open Lawrence Cager resulting in the game-sealing touchdown. The breakdown appeared to be a miscommunication between Shawn Davis and David Reese.
"I think that the lack of communication, final finishing of the play [made the busted coverage happen]," said Grantham. "It’s something that we obviously need to do better, and we addressed it, and we make sure that happens next time."
Grantham also wants his group to push themselves in becoming more physical moving forward, but the defensive coordinator does not believe physicality is a problem for this side.
"if you look at SEC games we were in possession downs, third and fourth down, we were at 68 percent for the year, which is probably like fourth in the league, which is kind of where you want it to be," said Grantham. "We are right on our goal, our goal is around 55-66 percent. So to me it was more about, in this game, being better in those areas and thats what got to work on and each week things change, you know one week it’s this issue, next week is this issue.
"As a player and competitor, you always got to compete to find ways at the end of the day win games and these are the things we have to work on this week. We have to work hard in practice this week. I like our guys attitude. We just have to be ready to compete on Saturday."
"Go out there and practice, make this week better than every previous week. Make this week our best week so far," said Shuler. "I mean we’ve got a lot ot play for, nothing’s over. Just have a bunch of energy and motivation.”
