GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we recap the Florida Gators loss to Texas A&M on Saturday at Kyle Field.
Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre breakdown what’s wrong with the Gators defense and what went wrong on Saturday.
Andrew and Nick also take a look back at how the offense looked and what the Gators have to do going forward.
TRANSCRIPT:
Andrew:​What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, what is going on in defensive football in the SEC? In particular with Florida, but even Alabama looked bad. When is the last time, Nick, you have seen a team line up and just run straight at Alabama for 260-some yards?
Nick:​I don’t know. I don’t know when the last time. Shoot, probably Saban’s first year, maybe, or back in the Schula years. I don’t know.
Andrew:​Maybe the first year of Saban, but I don’t know if it’s been any past years with Saban. It just doesn’t happen.
Nick:​That’s where we are. Florida fans, if anything, you can just take comfort in the fact that even Alabama is giving up 600 yards.
Andrew:​Here’s the difference, Nick, for me. When it was time to make a stop, Bama made the stop. The running game was there. That was pretty easy for Ole Miss at times, but Ole Miss was still having to go to 3rd down at different times. At one point in the game they were 3 of 7 on 3rd down. I hate to say that it’s easy, but A&M made it just look easy. There was no point in that game where I thought A&M’s offense, outside of the one three and out, did I ever think Ole Miss’s offense was out of rhythm or was struggling to move the ball.
Nick:​Yeah. I guess, getting back to your question, we’re obviously talking about Alabama, but you’re seeing it all across the SEC.
Andrew:​Right. All across the country, in general.
Nick:​All across the country. We keep saying it. We keep saying it’s like pitchers and catchers reporting early, and the defense has to catch up. When LSU comes to Florida, we’re a month in.
Andrew:​Yeah.
Nick:​Time to catch up. Or maybe this is just what it is.
Andrew:​Let me ask you this. I hate to interrupt you, but this question was posed to me on Friday doing a radio segment. Is the SEC offense just getting so much better that the defense hasn’t caught up with that yet, or what is it? Here’s a little bit that I say, Nick, and you can tell me if you agree or not. I think that the SEC is recruiting different style of athletes for different style of offense, and what we’re accustomed to seeing in the SEC on defense just isn’t working. 240-pound linebackers, 230-pound linebackers, aren’t needed anymore in the SEC for the most part.
Nick:​Yeah. Everything starts at the high school level, right? That’s kind of where the spread offenses came from, because you would get high schools, and we don’t have a quarterback that can drop back and sling it 40 times a game, but we’ve got this kid who’s really face, and let’s run some option stuff. Cool.Then that’s what they start running in high school, and it moves up. Then you start seeing it work its way from high school to college to the NFL. You saw Steve Spurrier change the way offenses, and then in turn defenses, had to play in the SEC back in the ‘90s. You saw Urban Meyer and Dan Mullen do it again in the mid to late 2000s. Maybe the defenses need to adjust again. I don’t know. I’m not sure if this is just a product of Covid.
Andrew:​It’s not. No.
Nick:​I’m not ready to say this is what it’s going to be forever, because I don’t think there’s the same rules. When you look at the NFL, the NFL has changed the rules completely. You can’t touch a wide receiver, and you can’t touch a quarterback. That’s why you’re getting so much crazy passing in the NFL. They’ve changed the rules. They literally changed the game, because they want offense, and they want offense in order to be able to have exciting games,