GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Todd Grantham understands the challenge that lies ahead for the Florida defense on Saturday.
No. 10 Florida welcomes No. 7 Auburn and its impressive Tigers offense that has seen success with Gus Malzahn as it's play caller.
"We’ve had some battles," Grantham told reporters. "He is a guy that challenges you to be really good in the run defense, so we have to make sure we do that."
Grantham has met Malzahn five times, two times with the Auburn head coach as an offensive coordinator and three as a head coach, Malzahn has won the battle four times.
"Gus does a really good of getting the ball to his playmakers," Grantham said. "When you look at it, he’s going to find ways to get the ball in those guys’ hands, both as runner running the ball, but receivers whether it be rocket sweeps, balls down the field, things like that. He does a really good job of finding ways to get playmakers the ball and they make plays."
Malzhan has also earned Dan Mullen's respect.
“I’ve known Gus for a long time," added Gators head coach Dan Mullen. "One thing you look at about him, he’s not afraid to be an innovator within and offense. He has systems that he runs and he knows and he’s not afraid to create outside the box within his system, put his players in position to make plays. He has ways to get guys the ball.
"They’re very sound in what they do. He knows how to scratch where it itches, ‘If you’re going to show me this, I’m going to do this. If you’re showing that, I’m going to do this.’ I have always had a lot of respect for him as a coach and a person. I like Gus a lot.”
The Tigers are coming off an impressive win over Mississippi State - a game that saw them amass 578 yards of offense. They also rank as the nation's 14th-ranked rushing offense.
"They do a lot of stacks and motions, try to get a player out of position so they might send a motion and then another motion and you gotta read your keys," explained Trey Dean. "So a dude might be fitting like he blocking but he end up getting the ball. And sometimes they might give the ball to the tailback and the next time they might give the ball to the slot or something. Then the different things in their different formations, 1, 2 and 3 can run the screen. Usually 1 or 3’s gonna run the screen, we never see 2 run the screen. So it’s just different things they can do, they got a lot of switch motions.”
"They’re really a physical team when you look at their run game," Grantham said. "They’re a downhill running team that will continue to pound you. But they have ways to get the ball on the edge of the defense. You have to make sure you play a complete game from an assignment standpoint as far as setting the edge, your defense building a wall and communicating and executing."
"We’ve got to stay in our gaps," said defensive lineman Kyree Campbell. "What I see from film is they position block, so it’s not really a mauling-type thing. We just got to stay in our gaps, come off the ball, we got to play our defense.”
In the win over the Bulldogs, Auburn had five running backs split 30 carries. So far this season, JaTarvious Whitlow leads the way on the ground with 463 yards and seven scores on 92 carries.
It's not just the running backs, however. Box Nix is a dual threat quarterback that was the team's leading rusher against MSU, while wide receivers Eli Stone and Anthony Schwartz have also seen a number of carries.
Schwartz is a particularly big threat on the ground.
"He’s got really good speed, and then take that with Gus’s ability to find ways to get him the ball, whether it’s sweeps, shots, screens, things like that," said Grantham about Schwartz. "Then all of the sudden the guy’s touches double to triple relative to if it was just a regular drop-back game. That’s what they do a good job of.”
"Definitely a very fast guy," Marco Wilson said of his former teammate, Schwartz. "I played with him in high school, he's a playmaker, so we're going to have to look out for that guy, make sure we don't allow him to get those plays that he's been getting against other teams."
Florida statistically has one of the best defenses in the country - UF's 13 takeaways is good enough for second in the nation. However, they still need to improve on getting off the field on third down.
The Gators rank 70th on third down defense.
"In the last game we started 0-for-4, but we really finished 6-of-9 the next little bit," Grantham said. "So from a percentage standpoint we’re probably working to be better executing. But when you go back and look at the last two games, for example, in the last game, two of our three turnovers came on third down. And you go and look back at Tennessee and we had two interceptions on third down. Those are really big plays."
"I get on our guys all the time. What matters is do we have 11 guys playing as hard as they can every single snap? If we do that we'll be OK," added Mullen. "We won't get worn down. People aren't going to wear us down over the course of the game. We've got the opportunity to continue to play for four quarters. Just go hard every snap."
With Auburn in town, the Gators will need to need to sure up on the little things - like tackling.
"Beginning of the year you haven't really tackled that much because we can't go down in practice," said Donovan Stiner. "But as the year goes on you should be getting better at it with more game reps and more experience."
Those details should help the Gators defense get off the field on third down.
"The guys have done a good job of being resilient, executing the plan, continue to play," he said. "Sometimes it’s not as clean as we like, but guys continue to play and find ways to make plays. And play decent situationally and get off the field. They’ve done a good job with that."
