Florida better than expected?

If you watched carefully you could easily see that Florida was the more athletic team. Florida straight up had more talent than Utah. They have recruited better than Utah over the last 4 years, even with all their coaching change issues. That's what got Florida over the hump in this one.

If Utah had won and made it to the playoff they would have gotten absolutely steam rolled in the first round because they don't have the horses.
 
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I said Napier was a good hire. His family
Is from my small town. If he manages to get to 9 or 10 wins this year, the East could be in trouble.
I never thought Florida was going to be an easy game or that they would be bad, but let's keep things in perspective here. The team with the 12th most talented roster in CFB (Florida) in their home stadium beat the 33rd most talented team (Utah). On paper Missouri has more talent than Utah.

2022 College Football Team Talent Composite
 
Or, maybe Utah isn’t as good as people thought🤷🏻‍♂️

Utah overrated: Yes, Florida underrated: Yes
Coach Napier is getting a lot more out of his talent than Cousin Eddy did last season. I thought losing 34 players from last year's team would slow them down more.
Still Opportunities are there: FL gave up about 500yds and if Utah hadn't of squandered a goal-line possession, they would have won.
 
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If you watched carefully you could easily see that Florida was the more athletic team. Florida straight up had more talent than Utah. They have recruited better than Utah over the last 4 years, even with all their coaching change issues. That's what got Florida over the hump in this one.

If Utah had won and made it to the playoff they would have gotten absolutely steam rolled in the first round because they don't have the horses.

Spot on! My thoughts exactly.
 
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My eyes tell me Pitt is better on both LOS and UF fielded a team with some athletes...especially at QB so that automatically gives them the advantage and an almost certain win over us until UT stops crapping the bed in that game. I've stated elsewhere that our OL hasn't impressed in the running game which makes me question how well we can run against teams like UF and Pitt when we need to? Maybe it's the old man in me but I don't like our "physicality" or at least what I've seen of it so far. At Pitt and anywhere vs UF...I don't like our prospects against either.
this is so typical fan reaction, do you all not realize the players don’t think about any of that stuff they don’t think three or four years ago most of the guys weren’t even here they don’t have the same mindset and attitude the fans do!
 
Florida is talented and played well. Their depth is a concern. Anthony Richardson should be a concern for us. On the other hand their DL doesn’t seem to be as talented as past teams and Utah had a lot of open WRs and just missed some plays.

In other words, they have talent on offense. Their QB can be scary and their defense doesn’t seem as good as past teams.
 
How is it that no matter what Tenn loses to barely good teams on stupid things like ref calls (Pitt last year) and Florida magically wins big games with brand new coaches lol. Tenn isn't beating them. Whatever curse Tenn has had, Florida has the opposite affect.
I also think it shows somewhat of a talent gap when it comes to the bare min. Florida keeps firing their coaches too, and somehow beats top 10 teams and backs into back to back East titles. They complained about Mullens recruiting. Unless napier is a HOFer then the talent left behind wasn't bad at all.
Meanwhile, Butch and Pruitt and especially Heupel gets left with a bad hand comparably.
If memory serves me correctly, they were in the SEC championship 2 yrs ago, played respectfully and gave Bama fits last year. Their demise last yr was not a lack of talent.
 
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If memory serves me correctly, they were in the SEC championship 2 yrs ago, played respectfully and gave Bama fits last year. Their demise last yr was not a lack of talent.

You are correct and they had a great chance to beat bama in the swamp but blew it. Then the team quit on Cousin Eddy.

But they did lose 34 players from last season to NFL, graduation, transfer portal, etc.
 
Floridas lines ( both of them) looked dominant whereas ours ( neither of them) looked particularly powerful. This to me is why I fear we are still not ready to take that step as a major threat in the east
 
Floridas lines ( both of them) looked dominant whereas ours ( neither of them) looked particularly powerful. This to me is why I fear we are still not ready to take that step as a major threat in the east

Disagree on the Florida DL, it wasn't very good, especially up the middle.
 
Let's face reality. Ball State has a composite ranking of #119 out of #130 teams. Gators just knocked off a #7. Focus needs to be on Pittsburgh at all costs right now!
 
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I know it's what we as football fans do, but people overreact way too much.

The problem seems to be that some thought the Florida game was a lay-up. It's not and never was.

So, sure there are things that Florida has and can do that could lead to Florida winning the ball game. But, the same can be said for Tennessee. It's way too early to determine how what anyone saw translates to another an opponent or the entire season.
 
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Go back and watch the game. We got pressure pretty much all night on ball state. No, we didn’t get a sack but I don’t think most people understand how quick their qb was getting the ball out. I tried to watch the game last night and solely focus on defensive line. We had 4 down linemen most of the night and didn’t blitz hardly any with maybe a couple stunts all night long. There was pressure all night just not the results everyone was wanting to see. That’ll change this week.

Wish I had a clue what our gameplan will be this week. With fundamentally no blitzes, going 4 on 5 and a few 5 on 5 we did not press the receivers. Will that change this week with more pressure being the plan and manning up on the receivers instead of playing zone and/or playing off the receivers? TBD. I don't KNOW that we made it a point to not give Pitt good film to work or not, but it is a real possibility.

Will our personnel and scheme be better on the Richardson type QB play this year? Can our outside guys better contain than the Utah guys did against FL? The biggest question for me is how will we tackle in space. I am hoping that our high tempo practices and the addition of some good young edge guys will have our defensive in better shape late game than most. Speculation will soon give way to the real world facts.
 
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Go back and watch the game. We got pressure pretty much all night on ball state. No, we didn’t get a sack but I don’t think most people understand how quick their qb was getting the ball out. I tried to watch the game last night and solely focus on defensive line. We had 4 down linemen most of the night and didn’t blitz hardly any with maybe a couple stunts all night long. There was pressure all night just not the results everyone was wanting to see. That’ll change this week.
Ball state threw a lot of chop blocks as well. Combine that with quick passes and our DBs playing off the ball, your not gonna get many sacks. Some people really do need to re-watch the game.
 
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Wish I had a clue what our gameplan will be this week. With fundamentally no blitzes, going 4 on 5 and a few 5 on 5 we did not press the receivers. Will that change this week with more pressure being the plan and manning up on the receivers instead of playing zone and/or playing off the receivers? TBD. I don't KNOW that we made it a point to not give Pitt good film to work or not, but it is a real possibility.

Will our personnel and scheme be better on the Richardson type QB play this year? Can our outside guys better contain than the Utah guys did against FL? The biggest question for me is how will we tackle in space. I am hoping that our high tempo practices and the addition of some good young edge guys will have our defensive in better shape late game than most. Speculation will soon give way to the real world facts.
Good observation. I think if you look at it just on paper, we are still not a deep team, but we have much better depth than we did last year. I think that means a ton. Other than Burrell, I thought our coverage was for the most part good. Hadden is the real deal. That being said, if Burrell is really our best option, can we scheme to give him a little help and see what the other guys can do to hold their own? Guess we will see. I’m looking forward to it.
 
Ball state threw a lot of chop blocks as well. Combine that with quick passes and our DBs playing off the ball, your not gonna get many sacks. Some people really do need to re-watch the game.
EXACTLY! Louder for the ones in the back
 
I hate gators,. But their offense will have a feast on our defense. All the idiots saying we are a lot better than them don't know football!
 
My eyes tell me Pitt is better on both LOS and UF fielded a team with some athletes...especially at QB so that automatically gives them the advantage and an almost certain win over us until UT stops crapping the bed in that game. I've stated elsewhere that our OL hasn't impressed in the running game which makes me question how well we can run against teams like UF and Pitt when we need to? Maybe it's the old man in me but I don't like our "physicality" or at least what I've seen of it so far. At Pitt and anywhere vs UF...I don't like our prospects against either.
You echoed my thoughts and worries completely about our team.
 
Let's face reality. Ball State has a composite ranking of #119 out of #130 teams. Gators just knocked off a #7. Focus needs to be on Pittsburgh at all costs right now!
I agree. If Vols beat Pitt and UF loses to KY, then this is a lot of handwringing over nothing.
 
We will lose to Pitt and Florida because we are too soft on the LOS it was easy to see in the game the other night. We couldn’t muster not one sack against Ball St. and left the middle of the field wide open for slants. And does anybody have faith in Tim Banks stopping any offense?
 
Do y’all wanna win because we are good or just because other teams are down…. Sit back and enjoy this season… it’s gonna happen regardless if any of us agonize over wins and loses
 

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