Game Prep: Inconsistent Florida Defense

The Florida Gators' defense could allow South Carolina to sustain long drives but will try to stop them when it counts the most.

South Carolina's defense has struggled the past several weeks allowing their opponents to extend drives and create opportunities to score continuously. Ironically, they will face a Florida defense whose errors lead to them being in situations similar to the Gamecocks' defense.

With the Gators' defense, one can quickly decipher what leads to them allowing long possessions and where they try to make up for their deficiencies.

Lack Of Fundamentals

When watching back the Gators' contest against the LSU Tigers from earlier in the season, multiple factors stuck out regarding how the Gators defensive front handled LSU's ground game.

Few players consistently got their hands on the opposition on the defensive line first. They followed this up with minimal movement, allowing the Tigers' offensive line to create significant push in enough areas to let their backs run freely and see the field.

The other issue for Florida is their inside linebackers' lack of size, with an average weight of 225 pounds. While weight is not a clear indicator of sheer strength, it can make a difference if linemen come off combo blocks and overwhelm them throughout a 60-minute football game.

Let Athletes Make Plays

The Gators try to make up for what they lack in rush defense with their unique formation alignments and stunts. Florida runs a 3-3-5 formation primarily, with 2-4-5 and 3-2-6 formations utilized as secondary looks.

The Gators will try to get their opponents third and long situations. At that point, they'll employ overloaded sets that sometimes show as many as four defenders against just half of the opposing offensive line unit. 

In these looks, Florida defensive coordinator Patrick Tooney will call for different stunts and twists that can involve linebackers moving over as many as three gaps or simply crashing into a gap that the original down defender initially vacates, all meant to confuse the opposing offensive line and quarterback.

To take advantage of Florida's weak fundamentals, South Carolina will need to utilize more gap run and duo blocking schemes this week, which means more one-on-one and combo blocking while challenging the offensive line to give maximum effort.

To counter their unique twists and stunts, Marcus Satterfield should call more play-action rollouts out of the shotgun formation, putting Rattler on the move and utilizing his best traits.

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