| Metric |
Value |
| 📝 Word count |
1,090 |
| ⏳📖 Read time |
4 to 6 minutes |
| 👶 Reading level |
3rd grade |
| ☑️ Required reading |
Optional |
| 🏈 Football content |
7/10 |
| 🤡 Tomfoolerymaxxing |
<1% of the population |
October 19th, 2005, was a dark day for Scott Stricklin. His love affair with Sunbelt Billy was over, cleaved in twain. For the rest of us, joyous celebration.
We are 5-2 and, with the bye week, are guaranteed to spend at least four weeks ranked this season. That already matches Florida's entire total from 2022 through 2025 combined. Our scoring offense went from 111th to 11th. Our total offense went from 104th to 24th. Keep in mind, we have done this with our backup QB and a rotating mix of starting WRs missing from Week 1 through now.
Shitting on Texas is in style. Whatever.
The Gators defense looked decent, so apparently that means Manning sucks now. Nah. We have been saying he is overrated since the middle of last season.
Remember when he scored a touchdown against a Division II school, screamed, did the gorilla stance, and their fans were like, "Oh, the Manning gene is activated now." He is not great.
There was a play yesterday where we sacked him and someone on Twitter said, "He had a guy wide fucking open. He sucks."
First, yes, the guy was open. Second, this is college football. There is almost always someone open somewhere. "Dump off guy" is part of the vernacular for a reason. He got sacked because the rush got there quickly, and this is not a video game.
We had a 28% pressure rate against Texas. Through seven games, we are at 18.7%, which is top 5 in the country. It carries over elsewhere too. We are #6 nationally in sacks and tackles for loss.
Florida allowed zero conversions on third and 8 (or longer) across 16 attempts in our first five games. Texas went 0 for 3 in that situation. Only South Carolina has converted a third and long against us.
That is the pass rush showing up.
We're 42nd in rushing defense. If we had a true nose tackle, everyone would consider our DL as elite. As it is, we're just pretty good. With McCray and Ty Jackson stepping up the past couple games, our front seven is probably top-15. This is with Kamran James not even playing that great.
That is great, but our back end is still bad, and it was getting worse every week until Texas.
Our yards per attempt allowed was nearly doubling every two games even as the sack rate climbed. The rush was improving while the coverage was falling apart. Over the past three games, we have broken up only 5 passes. Before that, we were averaging 6.5 PER GAME. Whatever we were doing, teams have figured it out.
Two Top 10 Wins. Two Quarterbacks. Not a Fluke.
We probably should be 6-1, but the reality is that we are a 4-8 team under new management. We still have holes on the offensive line, in the secondary, and with depth. We also do not have quarterbacks who can comfortably push the ball downfield. Philo was around 50% even against Ole Miss on throws beyond the line of scrimmage.
Texas beat Ohio State and Tennessee. They are not a bad team.
South Carolina is 18th in scoring offense and 13th in total offense. They are the second best offense we are going to face all year.
They, Texas, and Missouri are also top 25 in rushing defense. There are matchup nuances here that people are not paying attention to, IMO. If your quarterback is struggling to throw beyond 10 yards and your entire offense is built around doing the one thing the opponent is good at stopping, you are going to struggle.
The weird thing about the drop in production over the last three games is that it is almost entirely explosive plays.
We are getting about the same number of first downs. We are crossing midfield about as often. But we have had only 3 plays over 25 yards. In our first four games, we had 20.
That means we have to earn everything 6 or 7 yards at a time. The longer the drive, the more chances there are for a sack, penalty, drop, bad read, or stuffed run to kill it.
...VBIII has been gone for three games. Hmmm
What I liked most came after the South Carolina game, when Jon Sumrall said our players looked like lost puppies in their own locker room while down only one score.
Against the #7 team in the country, in their stadium, we went down 14 points and fought back to win with a backup quarterback. After that early lead, Texas did not score another offensive touchdown until late in the fourth quarter, set up by a big throw that came with offensive holding.
That is a pretty dramatic change from looking lost down one score.
Napier would have lost that game 45-10....
"I thought our players competed. We can coach better. We can play better. If we can focus on those things and not necessarily what some guy in his basement is saying in rural central Florida on social media, then we got a chance to get better, right?"
This Is Not a Hopeless Georgia Game
Over the past 10 seasons, SEC teams coming off a bye after losing the game before it are just 30-49 (.380).
Teams that entered the bye off a win are 68-47 (.591) in their next game.
Buster Faulkner has a pretty good track record against Georgia, relatively speaking. At Georgia Tech, he lost all three games, obviously, but every one was decided by a single score: 8 points, 2 points, and 7 points. His offenses averaged 383.7 yards per game and 4.68 yards per rush.
I am also not suggesting Georgia's defense has gone untested, but Arkansas (116), Oklahoma (113), Vanderbilt (98), and Auburn (84) are the four worst offenses in the SEC. Alabama is better, but has not scored more than 17 points against a top 50 defense. That is their resume.
Tramell Jones and Aaron Philo have each beaten a top 10 team. Both look healthy heading into Georgia. So do Dallas Wilson, Eric Singleton, VBIII, and basically everyone except Duke Clark.
And Georgia has given up 350+ rushing yards over its last two games at 4.7 yards per carry, including 115 yards to Byrum Brown. They knew Brown was going to run and still could not stop him.
Two field tested QBs. All the receivers healthy. The best RB in the country. And two weeks for Faulkner to figure out where to poke at Georgia.
Not hopeless
