The areas where Florida needs to improve most following Miami loss
A lot went wrong for Florida in their 24-point loss to Miami to open this season. However, as for one main issue that they have to fix, it was what they were in the trenches according to GatorOnline’s Nick de la Torre.
De la Torre spoke with Kaiden Smith on the ‘On3 Roundtable’ on Wednesday about the 41-17 loss to the Hurricanes in The Swamp. As for the biggest correction for them from here, he noted each of the offensive and defensive lines considering how their opponent outplayed both. However, the root of that goes back to how the respective coaches built them to begin with.
“I think both lines of scrimmage,” said de la Torre.
“Both lines of scrimmage? I think that’s also another aspect where Mario and Billy being hired at the same time. They’ve chosen to build their teams differently. Billy chose to do it through high school, development and recruit younger players. Mario and Miami have gone after the transfer portal hard,” de la Torre explained. “You look at the offensive line, defensive line on both teams and Miami was clearly dominant in both of those phases. That probably had a huge part in what we watched and witnessed on Saturday.”
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De la Torre began with the offensive line for Florida, especially on the right portion of it. They helped to get, minus the 71-yard rushing score on the outside, just 2.5 yards a carry while allowing eight tackles for all and three sacks. Even so, they were an aspect that the fanbase apparently thought could have problems coming for this season.
“Florida kind of struggled on that right side of the line, which is something we talked a lot about at GatorsOnline,” said de la Torre. “It didn’t surprise our members at all the way that that right side looked.”
As for the Gators’ defensive line, they got little to no pressure themselves. That allowed Cam Ward to pick them apart as he did with the time that he had after the snaps.
“Then, defensively, where was the pass rush? Cam Ward could have been taken in for loitering. He was just standing in the pocket,” said de la Torre. “It’s tough. I know, Florida? You look at 385 passing yards for Cam Ward. It’s easy to look at the secondary and point that finger but it’s hard to cover anybody at this level for seven seconds, eight seconds and Cam had plenty of time.”
There’s plenty for Florida to now clean up going into their second game against Samford. That starts on the inside, though, before their schedule becomes more difficult for the rest of the fall.
The post The areas where Florida needs to improve most following Miami loss appeared first on On3.
