How Miami's Defense Was Able to Slow Florida's Offense

I was a very frustrated Gator Saturday night, watching the vaunted Florida offense struggle against an inexperienced Miami defense. What we all were reminded of is that “inexperienced” doesn’t necessarily mean “bad,” and it certainly appears that Randy Shannon and his staff have stockpiled some good players on the defensive side of the ball.

This was a game where both teams’ defensive staffs outcoached their counterparts on the other sideline. Because Florida was supposed to be a lot better, I am first going to breakdown how Miami was able to have so much success on defense.

I watched all of Florida’s possessions twice—some individual plays many more times than that—in order to write this piece.

Miami’s Game Plan

Three words: attack, attack, attack.

Miami played a textbook 4-3 blitzing scheme, where the defensive linemen ate up blocks and the linebackers went shooting through the gaps. They threw a few tricks in there, but it didn’t get too complex.

They definitely decided to trust the secondary, which according to Athlon has six upperclassmen in the two-deep on the depth chart, and go all out in stopping the run and harassing the quarterback. That is what Georgia did last season and what LSU has done against UF in the past too.

Shannon and defensive coordinator Bill Young definitely did their homework.

Florida’s Game Plan

I’m not really sure what the game plan was. I’m guessing that the plan was to use the passing game to pick apart the Hurricanes, under the assumption that the Gator offensive line could handle Miami’s inexperienced front line.

One thing is for sure, Florida didn’t seem interested in establishing much of a run game. Tim Tebow passed 35 times, a new career high, and his pass attempts exceeded the team’s rushing attempts for just the third time during his tenure as starter. Tebow had 13 rushes, three or four of which were scrambles on pass plays or sacks, Percy Harvin had five carries, and no one else had more than three.

Emmanuel Moody being out due to injury probably didn’t help, but the running backs combined for nine carries total. After last week’s running back showcase, that’s a puzzling stat.

A few folks have put forth the idea that Florida was keeping things basic so as not to give away anything, but I don’t believe it. The coaches before and after the game spoke very highly of Miami, and it did not appear like they were taking it easy in my game review.

They were taking it easy on the still-healing Percy Harvin, but that’s about it.

What Miami Did Right

For the most part, Miami stuck to its game plan of sending a linebacker or two on every play. This tactic was especially effective when the Gators went with five receivers, because sometimes that meant one guy went untouched.

I can’t say enough about the Hurricane linebackers. They played an excellent game overall, and senior Glenn Cook was outstanding. He was all over the field, shedding blocks and making plays.

Freshman Shawn Spence also looks like he could be a special player not too long from now.

The secondary was adequate, but it didn’t really stand out. They covered Florida’s receivers long enough for the pass rushers to get to the quarterback, and they made some nice tackles on a few bubble screens. However, when Tebow had time to throw, more often than not they got beat.

Miami did not get too complicated up front, as I said earlier, but what tricks they threw in were effective. Sometimes they would drop a defensive end into coverage against the tight end and rush a linebacker, confusing the linemen. Other times, the lineman would engage a block and then come off it, occupying a lineman long enough for a linebacker to go right on by.

What Florida Did Wrong

The offensive linemen took turns getting beat, for one. Only Mike Pouncey never stood out to me for missing a block. Jason Watkins was probably the second-best, with Maurkice Pouncey not too far behind.

The left side of the line was a bit lacking though. Phil Trautwein did not have his best game in a Gator uniform, and Marcus Gilbert had some trouble filling in for the injured Jim Tartt. Gilbert especially had difficulty with the tricks I mentioned above, which is to be expected since he’s young and hasn’t played much.

As a unit, they did not finish blocks as well as they needed to. A lot of the pressure that Tebow felt was the result of second efforts by defenders who either had shed their blocks or kept trying for longer than their counterparts did.

We finally got to see what kind of two tight end formations the coaching staff came up with. The main one they used had one lined up on the line and another lined up behind the line as an H-back. Both would go out to catch a pass.

It didn’t work very well because Miami would line up a defensive end opposite them. Since neither tight end was blocking, the unblocked defender would get to Tebow before he had a chance to make a good read, set his feet, and throw. I hope Dan Mullen revisits this set before using it again.

The most glaring problem was a general refusal to commit to blitz-busting tactics. Every now and then Florida would use the kinds of screens, quick passes, and extra protection sets that are needed to make aggressive defenses pay. However, they didn’t do them enough to get the Miami linebackers to back off consistently. They kept the pressure on nearly the whole game.

That pressure did wear on Tebow. He started off fine, but gradually lost his composure as the first half went on. By the end of it, he had happy feet in the pocket and began throwing everything too hard and too low. He came out fine in the second half and got better as the game went on.

What Turned the Tide

The thing that turned the tide in the Gators favor and allowed them to score so much at the end was finally deciding to do things to counter the blitz consistently. They used more quick passes to get the ball out of Tebow’s hands faster, and on the plays that were slower to develop, they had Kestahn Moore in the backfield to pick up the blitzing linebackers.

As a result, Miami stopped sending the heat so much and instead had the linebackers drop into coverage more. That gave Tebow plenty of time to shop for receivers, and the Gator wideouts consistently won their battles. When the Hurricanes did have extra guys come in, Moore was there to buy Tebow enough time to make good decisions.

Tebow had his issues in the second quarter, but many of the Florida offense’s struggles had to do with scheme and play calling. For whatever reason, Mullen didn’t react much to what the defense was doing until late in the third quarter. That is probably the best example I can give for Shannon and Young outcoaching Mullen.

In an interview during ESPN’s College Football Final, the GameDay guys interviewed Tebow and asked him what the difference in the second half was. He said Miami did a good job game planning, and the key for the Gators was “settling down, regrouping, picking up protections, and then just throwing and catching.”

Kirk Herbstreit said his takeaway from the game is that being aggressive and attacking the Florida offense is the best way to defend it. Tebow said that the way around that is to “throw hot [and] throw quick,” and to “start that a little earlier.”

Sounds like I was not the only one frustrated with Mullen being slow to adjust to the blitz.

Final Remarks

We learned a couple things in this game.

First, Miami has a great defense when it is fully motivated. If those guys can play with that kind of fire all season, the Hurricanes will be a legitimate threat to win their conference. The offensively anemic ACC will have some real issues scoring points against them. The trick is getting those guys to be like that all season and not have any more 48-0 debacles like they had against Virginia last season.

Second, attacking Florida’s offense head-on still works. It worked for a few teams last season and it worked in this game. If Miami had any kind of competent offense at all, it would have been a lot closer at the end.

Gator coaching staff needs to expect teams to do this the rest of the year and adjust quickly to it because not a lot of SEC defenses will give up 17 in the fourth quarter as Miami did.

Tebow said this was a good game to have going into the bye week. They get some confidence from winning, but it also exposed a lot of things they need to work on. I couldn’t agree more, as these Gators are far from a finished product.

I take my hat off to Miami’s defense though. It played an excellent game for most of it, exceeding all of my expectations.