In the interview from Wednesday that people are talking about Pruitt said we’re still a young team (which as I’ve posted earlier, we are – just not as young as last year, particularly on offense where we were 19 years old last year). He went on to say that we only have 10 seniors this year compared to our 9 last year. We actually have 13 seniors this year including Lovingood so even if we don’t count the long snapper that means he could be saying don’t expect much from the other 2.
So I’m looking at our list of seniors and wondering who those 2 might be. I think we’re counting on Callaway, Jennings, Wood-Anderson, Gooden, Bituli, D. Taylor, and Warrior so that leaves Fils-Aime, Byrd, Kennedy, Brandon Johnson, and Buchanan. Fils-Aime had a procedure done on his leg and Pruitt said in early April that he would be back ready to go in July and be better than ever (bionics installed I think, maybe - jk). Buchanan played a lot last year and Kennedy is expected back from his ACL injury. Pruitt said at the time BK was actually ready to play this spring but then he didn’t because they’re bringing him along slow. Kennedy seems to have had durability issues his entire college career. Both Byrd and Johnson have seemingly faded into the shadows of the receiving corps but both have made plays for us in the past.
Another thing Pruitt said in the interview was that what we can do on defense is limited by our cornerbacks. He said that had an impact on play-calling on that side of the ball last year because we had 2 true freshmen at the corners. He thinks this year that’s not an issue and both of those guys have the potential to be really good players. I think it’s inevitable that we will score more points on offense this year but if we win more games it will be because our defense does a better job of keeping the other team off of the scoreboard. Last year against conference teams, Florida scored 5.8 points per game more than we did and won 5 conference games. Kentucky score on average 2.0 points less per game than we did against conference opponnets and also went on to win 5 conference games.
Obviously who you play has a lot to do with the scoreboard but on average Florida gave up 10.2 points per game less than we did to conference competition. Kentucky gave up 19.6 points per game less to their conference opponents than we did with ours. Neither of those teams faced Alabama last year but Florida had LSU and Kentucky had Texas A&M and both played Mississippi State. While most people will likely agree there’s a lot of game strategy between the offensive and defensive units of a successful football team in the end its the defense that wins games. jmo.
Here is the full 12 minute interview from Wednesday: