Florida Gators' Keys to Victory vs. the Alabama Crimson Tide

How can the Florida Gators unseat Alabama as SEC Champions?

Up until Halloween of this season, Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide were likened to the Evil Empire in Star Wars, destroying budding SEC and college football programs, tightening their grip as the rulers of the college football galaxy.

Then, Dan Mullen showed up to his post-game press conference after Florida’s win over Missouri dressed as Darth Vader. Later in the week, the Gators social media team posted an edit of Mullen and his players as Vader and stormtroopers.

As funny as it was to joke about “Darth Gator”, Florida is far from being the sports Galactic Empire. That title still belongs to Alabama. This makes Florida the Rebel Alliance, and Kyle Trask is probably Luke Skywalker.

With that being said, what will it take for Florida to slow down the Tide, who average 49.5 points per game? What will it take for the Gators to move the ball against Alabama, who allows only 16.8 points per game?

Florida currently is a 17 point underdog, so what will it take for the Gators to pull the upset, and drop proton torpedoes into the Crimson Tide Death Star (if you’re a Star Wars fan you’ll get it, if not, I’m sorry for nerding out).

Containing, to a degree, WR DeVonta Smith

Arkansas actually did this last week. Smith was held to only three catches and 22 yards, although he did return a punt for a touchdown, and didn’t see the field much on offense. It appeared that Arkansas was rotating a safety over top of him at all times, and playing a zone coverage underneath.

The scheme worked somewhat, as Mac Jones had to wait in the pocket longer to find receivers coming open in the holes of the zone. Had Arkansas owned a better pass rush, the strategy would have been a good one, as Jones only had 208 passing yards on 29 attempts.

Will Florida employ a similar strategy? Given the 4-2-5 man coverage style of defense that defensive coordinator Todd Grantham tends to play, I doubt it.

What Florida should do is have Kaiir Elam follow Smith around the field. It doesn’t matter if he’s on the field side, boundary side or in the slot, Elam is the only player on Florida’s roster that can remotely hang with Smith. On top of that, there has to be a safety rotated over top of Smith at all times, albeit, staying in their deep zones has not been the strength of Florida’s safeties this season.

Georgia elected to play press-man coverage against Alabama, and it was relatively successful in the first half of the game. Smith won his share of battles with Georgia’s top corner Tyson Campbell, who, if you remember, was torched by Kyle Pitts and Trevon Grimes when Florida beat Georgia.

Basically for Florida, don’t let Smith be the one that beats you. He’s the nation's best receiver, is in the race for the Heisman Trophy, has 1,372 receiving yards, 83 catches, and has 16 total touchdowns.

“The combination of his speed, his competitive nature, his intelligence to understand stems and stacks and how to play those things and his releases,” Grantham said. “Combine all of that with being able to get an active ball, No. 1, from an elite quarterback and his ability to go catch balls in tight windows and come back to the ball. That's why he's an elite player."

Make it be John Metchie III, or Slade Bolden, or literally any other wide receiver, just don’t let it be Smith, as challenging as that may be.

Slowing down Najee Harris

Again, much like they did with Smith, Arkansas did a solid job of containing Harris. Harris rushed for a season-low of 46 yards on 14 carries, but he did have two short-yardage touchdowns.

The key was gang tackling and penetration from the defensive line that forced Harris to bounce runs outside into awaiting tacklers.

“He’s a great player," defensive end Khris Bogle said. “He can run where you’re not, so we just gotta fill our gaps and play physical like the Florida Gator standard.”

Florida has a respectable run defense, allowing 142.4 rushing yards per game, good for 45th in the nation. Despite LSU rushing for 179 yards in last Saturday’s loss, the Gators only allowed 3.6 yards per carry. Florida has also held its last four opponents to less than four yards per carry in each game. They’ll need to limit Harris to a similar yards-per-touch to have a chance, particularly because Alabama won’t run the ball 50 times like LSU did.

The biggest key to stopping Harris will be the play of the defensive line. The Gators were pushed around and manhandled by LSU’s depleted offensive line, and it allowed the Tigers backs to pick up chunk yardage. There were also a lot of missed tackles by the likes of Zach Carter and T.J. Slaton when they did get through, which is unusual given that they’ve been sound all season.

Gap discipline and preventing the Alabama offensive line from reaching the second level will be paramount, because if Harris gets five yards downfield without having to make someone miss, it’ll be a long night for the Gator defense.

Kyle Pitts vs... well, however Alabama decides to cover him

Having Pitts back is going to help Florida tremendously, particularly in the red-zone. Without Pitts versus LSU, Florida scored on half their red-zone trips, well below the Gators season average of getting into the end-zone 70% of the time when they made it inside their opponent's 20-yard-line.

Pitts will likely solve this issue, as he’s proven to be an incredible target in the end-zone with his long frame, crisp routes, and ability to high-point balls. On top of that, even Alabama’s best corners, Patrick Surtain and Jordan Battle, lack the size to compete with Pitts one-on-one.

“Any time you have him [Pitts] it's a huge plus and a huge addition to our offense,” offensive coordinator Brian Johnson said. “Looking forward to getting a chance to get him back out there. I know he's excited as well."

However, don’t expect Saban to leave Pitts one-on-one if he can help it. Expect Pitts to be bracketed the whole game, and, what I think Bama should do, is play aggressive, bump-and-run coverage on him with a robber always floating underneath to take away the slant pattern Kyle Trask loves to throw to him.

In theory, this will allow single coverage to be on the rest of Florida’s pass catchers with a single high safety, and Trask must take advantage of that. One thing that was nice about ESPN going to the sky-cam when the fog became too thick last Saturday, is it allowed us to see a flaw in Trask’s game: He can sometimes get stuck on his first read, especially in short-yardage situations.

With Pitts, that can be understandable, he’s open even when he isn’t simply because of how freakish an athlete he is. However, Trask needs to fix this issue. It’s why he threw the pick-six against LSU. Had Trask waited for half a second longer and saw that Elias Ricks was playing as a robber, he would have then noticed Trevon Grimes open on a post downfield.

With Pitts on the field, it’ll be tougher for Alabama to play this style of defense, but it may be the best way to stop the rest of the Florida offense.

Avoiding slow starts

Through Florida’s first six games of the season, the team was averaging over 28 points in the first half alone. Over the last four games, that number is below 17 points.

Meanwhile, Alabama has consistently averaged 29 points in the first half of games this season. The Gators cannot afford to fall behind two scores against the Crimson Tide, otherwise, this game will be over by halftime.

There have been various issues that prevented Florida from scoring more in the first half in the last four games. Some of it had to do with the inability to run the ball on early downs, being put into third-and-long situations, and making it more difficult to move the sticks. Some of it had to do with the defense giving up long, sustained drives that kept the offense on the sideline (Kentucky game), and some of it had to do with turning the ball over and failing to score touchdowns in the red-zone (LSU).

“When you leave 22 points in red zone opportunities and you turn the ball over three times, that's not a recipe for success,” Johnson said. "We've got a great opportunity this week to come out on the stage in primetime and play the No. 1 team in America and put on a show."

Johnson has said numerous times that the offense has yet to play a perfect game, and it’s been trending in the opposite direction since they dropped 38 and 35 points, respectively, on Georgia and Arkansas in the first halves of those games.

So, what will get the Gators back on track? First off, quality offensive line play will help tremendously. Florida allowed more pressure than it had all season a week ago against LSU, and Alabama boasts the conference’s second-best pass rush, behind only UF.

“We weren’t really worried about anything they (LSU) were doing, but you know everybody has that game where they don’t play up their ability that day,” offensive lineman Stewart Reese said. “I think it’s just a bad game for us. There was some miscommunication on the field.”

Those miscommunications can’t happen again. Alabama had eight sacks against Arkansas’ offensive line. The pass-rushing unit of the Crimson Tide, led by Christian Barmore’s team-high six sacks, has improved greatly throughout the season, and has paced what has become one of the country's best defenses. Give Trask time to throw, and he’ll pick anyone apart, even the Alabama secondary.