Grantham: 'Doing Your Job' Vital for Florida Gators To Stop Explosive Plays

Big gains have given the Gators troubles this season. How does defensive coordinator Todd Grantham believe those issues could be fixed?

There is no doubt that Florida's defense has improved over the last three games, compared to the first three of the 2020 season. Florida gave up an average of 495 yards and 33.3 points per game in the Ole Miss/South Carolina/Texas A&M stretch, compared to nearly 328 yards and 26.7 points per game on average against Missouri/Georgia/Arkansas.

Florida also leads the SEC in sacks, with 19, and tackles for loss, with 41. The Gators are creating plays in the backfield, albeit against less than stellar offenses, and making up for lackluster play to begin the season.

However, issues remain with giving up explosive plays. Florida allowed six rushes of 10+ yards, for a total of 144 yards and three touchdowns, against Arkansas last Saturday. Four passes of 15+ yards went for a total of 169 yards and two touchdowns. Three scores went for gains of 83, 82, and 47 yards.

How can the Gators prevent that moving forward? Defensive coordinator Todd Grantham stresses one tactic for his players to follow: Do your job.

Grantham gave credit to UF's defense for five successful three-and-out, and two first-down-and-out, drives of Arkansas' 12 total - ten, really, when you consider an unsuccessful two-play drive to end the first half and a fumble return touchdown by Zachary Carter on a three-play, fourth-quarter drive. 

Those bright spots can be overlooked by the Razorbacks' big scores, though. Grantham believes that those explosive plays can be contained, however, by having all 11 guys in their spots on every play.

"The issue is when you give up an explosive play, what it does is it shows you the value of everybody doing their job," Grantham said on Tuesday. "Meaning, you need all 11 guys to be on the same page or in the right gap or doing their job, because if you have 10 guys going one way and another guy going another way you can create a seam... whether it’s in the run fit, whether it’s in the coverage as far as leverage, whether it’s my responsibility and who I was supposed to take."

Grantham acknowledged that adjustments were made during the game and that Arkansas tried repeating similarly explosive plays to no avail. Instead, he added, those plays ended in no gain or a negative result later on. 

He didn't provide a specific example, but on Trelon Smith's 83-yard touchdown run in the second quarter, nose tackle Marlon Dunlap Jr. over-slanted and lost gap control, opening up a huge hole on the left side of the offensive line that Smith took advantage of. Linebacker Ventrell Miller took a less-than-ideal outside angle against a lead-block while Arkansas' left tackle crossed the formation to remove Mohamoud Diabate at the second level, and Smith was gone for six points.

Florida did not allow a rush of over 13 yards for the rest of the game, a positive takeaway.

"Therefore, it's something that is obviously correctable, it gets down to consistency and making sure you do it right all the time," said Grantham. "So the biggest thing with me is continue to play. Understand the importance of being exact in what you do. You've always got to play with effort and energy and you've just got to be consistent in your performance."

LSU, a 2-3 team in limbo amid a COVID-19 outbreak within the football program, is the last team on Florida's schedule with an explosive, threatening offense, and we'll see just how the schedule even ends up shaking out for the Tigers after postponing an SEC West contest against Alabama. 

Whether it's preparing for LSU, or Alabama in the SEC Championship game should UF make it, the Gators will need to have guys in their spots defensively, doing their jobs, at all times. The Crimson Tide rank second in the conference with the No. 2 team offense, while LSU falls just behind Florida at No. 4.

Grantham doesn't want his players thinking about the future, rather, he wants them to focus on the weekly task at hand. With that, Grantham believes everything will come together for those potential future matchups.

"It’s really about playing the next game," said Grantham. "As you go through the game and the season it’s about getting better each week, at this time of year. And it’s about your ability to improve on the things that fundamentally you weren’t good at the week before so that you can continue to be the kind of defense that we need to be to get where we want to go.”