Big Orange Hotline (09/16/19) recap with Bob Kesling, Pat Ryan, and Jeff Francis. For anyone who may be too young to know, Pat and Jeff were two of Johnny Majors’ QBs. Today was Pat’s birthday so the set on the patio of Dead End BBQ had balloons and cakes and the works.
Jeff opened up by saying that he is still convinced this is a better football team than last year. Pat said this past Saturday that JG is apparently loosening up a bit and he needs to stay on that track.
Both Pat and Jeff said Florida beat Kentucky because "Kentucky".
Pat said Florida’s secondary will probably be in man coverage so Jennings and Callaway will need to play physical this week. He said Florida’s defense is fast up front and will probably surprise us a few times this week.
Jeff said Florida can be beat.
Pat said Florida’s offensive line is not good with the run but they will nonetheless try so our guys in our front seven are going to have to step up.
Some caller calls in to ask if we’re under-coached. Pat said today is a lot different than the days in which he and Jeff played. There’s a lot more emphasis on film study and stuff like that. He implied practices today are rather tame compared to what it was like 30 or 40 years ago, something Pruitt has also seemed to imply at times. Both Jeff and Pat agreed the team this year has so far underachieved.
Jeff said while we’re playing a lot of freshmen and second-years (Pruitt’s guys), the teams that are competing for championships are playing a lot of juniors and seniors. The implication seemed to be that we’re a couple years away.
Both agreed we have to be able to run the football in order to stay in the game with Florida on Saturday.
Jeff said he thought we’d see a lot of 3-man routes because we’ll probably need to be in 7-man protection for much of the game. It will be up to Jennings and Callaway and Co. to beat the Florida secondary.
Jeff Cardozo, from the Gator network, joined the show to talk about the Gators. He said Kentucky was stacking the box which allowed Trask to have some success in the passing game. He repeated what others have said, their offensive line and running game continues to be their biggest concern. He said Franks was the more athletically talented QB but he thinks Trask is the smarter, better decision-maker, of the two. (edit to add: Cardozo said Delance had struggled at RT for Florida through the first 3 games so at one point in the Kentucky game they moved their LT to the right side and brought in a RSFr for the LT position but the depth chart for our game shows the original starting 5 with Delance back at RT).
After Cardozo dropped off Pat said he agreed Trask was smarter and Franks had a lot of talent but he thought Franks was a mistake waiting to happen. Both he and Jeff said they had preferred to face Franks.
Some grandma calls in to bitch about the offensive line shuffling and rotation. All three agreed that it’s been a problem but Bob said he thinks they’ve settled on their 5 guys now. Pat said you can’t have “5 like 1” unless you let those 5 play together. He said in the NFL their 5 offensive linemen play almost every snap in the game. The only way you get good at playing together is to stick with those 5 guys as much as possible. They said we haven’t had 5 guys in 5 years.
Bob had interviews with JG and Daniel Bituli. JG said a big part of the focus this past week was playing more relaxed and focusing on the details. Daniel said his knee felt good Saturday and he could have played the whole game. He said one of the things they learned this past week is that they can be a good team if they don’t beat themselves.
