Florida's Woes

Florida ended up losing the SEC Championship game to Alabama, a resounding 31-13 defeat. Two things of note: their best defensive lineman, the MVP of last year's SEC Championship game, was suspended prior to the game for getting a DUI about five days before the game.

Second, I just read that defensive coordinator was officially hired by Louisville, just five days after the loss. He most assuredly had been contacted by Louisville before the SEC Championship game and had heard about their interest even earlier.

So did that help his focus? I'm sure it did. It certainly didn't IMPROVE his focus. And all the distractions inside his own head, visions of grandeur, etc., contributed to Florida's defeat. But thats how it goes in sports. The winners get copied, and the best copy of a program is a coordinator, or even better, the actual head coach of the program.

Lastly, Florida was a five point favorite.

The attack on Florida begins!

I was reading that the defensive coordinator for Florida, which has had one of the top defenses in the college ranks these last four years, is being sought after by the program at Louisville.

This is consistent with the idea that successful programs breed success in their coaches, and vice versa, and thus programs that struggled hire away coaches from good programs.

But that added bonus for Louisville, an SEC team, is two fold: they weaken Florida by taking away their defensive coordinator (who runs the defense and calls the plays), and the next time they play Florida, they will have a coach who knows their offense, defense, and personnel inside and out.

Upset alert the next time Louisville plays Florida.

BCS Championship Game Analysis part 2

I've been continuing to think the BCS national championship game and the hype leading up to it.  

The over/under was seventy points and I'm beginning to think that it was ridiculously high for the game.  

To score seventy points in the game, each team would have to score 35 points (average).  The most the gators gave up all season was 31; the second most was 21.

To score so many points (like the 49 they hung on the Georgia Bulldogs, the 56 they hung on South Carolina) you have to not just win, but dominate both sides of the ball.  In the South Carolina game Florida jumped out to a quick 21 point lead.  It took them FOUR OFFENSIVE PLAYS and went for a total of 31 YARDS!  

They returned a pick for a score, a pick to the 1 yard line, and recovered a turnover at the twenty six yard line and then scored one pass later.  

So to rack up so many points you have to have an effective offense (the Gators had a drive of one play, 80 yards rushing for a score) and a dominant defense that not only stops the other team, but takes the ball away to get massive gains in field position.  

Urban Meyer is notorious for emphasizing field position and winning the field position battle.  That means getting maximum yards on kick returns and kickoffs, punts and punt returns, and pinning the opponent back.  Well if you can execute and win those battles but force turnovers, you can score a ton of points, more than is the true difference in skill just because you have such better opportunities.  

OU and Bob Stoops I'm sure do the same thing when they decimated Texas Tech.  

But when two teams like that play each other then everything cancels out.  There is no huge advantage in field position for one team over the other.  No team is getting a big field position advantage and also forcing their opponents into three and outs.  

So why would it be high scoring??

Book Review: Urban's Way Part 1

Urban's Way is a very interesting book about Urban Meyer, the coach of the Florida Gator's football team.  He has been there four seasons and already won a national championship and will soon be competing for another one.  

Not suprisingly for someone as educated and successful as him, he is disciplined and has a very well considered approach to the game.  It includes breaking up the season into portions with individual goals, bowl preparation into segments, and counting down the number of days in the season.  A hundred and seven days is the offical count.  

Here is a summary of part one of the book:  Urban Meyer considers himself "one part football coach and one part Father Flanagan, the priest of Boys Town" (p 22.)

The four staples of Urbans program are:

1) Play great defense

2) Turnovers (all coaches are requried to teach ball security the same way)

3) Score in the red zone

4) Win the kicking game

They constantly preach the phrase "four to six seconds of relentless effort"

The core values of the Gator team are:

1) Honesty

2) Respect of Women

3) No stealing

4) No drugs

5) No weapons

"Four and five-star recruits are the lifeblood for the 'culture of winning' " (p 46). 

"he followed [John Wooden's] advice that players shouldn't be treated equally, but rather rewarded for how they contributed to the team" (p 94).  They have the Champions Club to reinforce that those who contribute and invest in the team are rewarded with privileges.  

He also uses "battlefield promotions" by awarding scholarships to people who excel in practice on the spot.  Essentially, a really bad ass play can earn you a scholarship.  

Final thoughts on the game

I listened to the announcers dissect various plays and coverage schemes and was very impressed with the depth and complexity of thought that goes into the Florida plays. They have motions that are designed to get mismatches between their receivers and the defense's players. Receivers vs. safetys. Corners versus running backs.

Very interesting to think of all the things that can happen out there and either Florida's coaches are phenomenal or Tebow really understands the purpose and goal of all the motion and movement and is able to manipulate it to get what he wants. Probably the latter.

Alabama-Florida game

Well the Alabama-Florida SEC championship game was quite a game. It featured two of the best teams in football and two of the best coaches in the college game right now.

In fact, I'd list the top three coaches in college right now, in no particular order: Jim Tressell, Urban Meyer, and Nick Saban.

Of course, I don't even know all the coaches in college football so this is definitely not a complete list. I like these coaches because they seem to embody professionalism, focus, attention to detail, and passion. A lot of coaches have some of these qualities but I think these three coaches have them all.

The Gators eventually covered the spread, which surprised me. I think they were fortunate to do that, but the game was hard fought on both sides. It looked like Alabama was going to pull it out after a dominant third quarter. Finally Florida was driving when Alabama had a three point lead and they were stopped on third down; unfortunately a facemask call was called on an Alabama linebacker. Fifteen yards and a first down.

Watching the replay it didn't look like he actually grabbed his facemask, rather his collar and the runner naturally jerked his head towards the shoulder he was being pulled from.

Alabama did stop the Gators run game though, and held Tebow in check. The x-factor was the Gators passing, and whenever they were forced with third down and long Tebow was able to pull out a great throw to a receiver and get the big gain. Very impressive.

Really the difference in the game was Tebow's clutch passing.

Nick Saban vs. Urban Meyer

This Saturday two of the top coaches in the league will bring their teams to meet in the SEC championship game. Alabama (11-0) versus Florida (10-1??).

Florida is a ten point favorite.  And honestly, I think that is far too high. The logic behind the game is that Florida has a super-speedy offense with lots of tricks that will allow it to run rampant during the game. Their special teams is very good and they should have good field position to start. And their defense is also very strong.

Alabama has a very physical defense and a monster of a Nose Tackle. Their offense is solid, with a great wide receiver in Julie Jones. The rest of their team is good but generally unremarkable.

So who will win? I honestly haven't watched enough games to have a valid opinion.

But I DO know that a good defense will beat a good offense. The only question is whether Alabama's offense is good enough to put up points against Florida's defense. Also, I know that Alabama's nose tackle, who has a Kingly body, will clog up the middle and certainly make it challenging for Florida to have success running the ball. Tim Tebow likes to run straight up the middle. But I doubt he will have much success running against an NFL caliber nose tackle.

The game is always won and lost at the line of scrimmage. It doesn't matter how fast your running backs are if there is a three hundred man bursting through the line of scrimmage every damn play.

So I wouldn't expect them to have a lot of success running the ball. It should be a low scoring affair.

My guess is that Alabama will cover the spread. Who will win will come down to the bounce of the football.