Saurian Sagacity, a UF blog, has taken a look at how teams were ranked in the final 2007 poll vs. their ranking in the first poll of 2008. It's interesting to see how far the coaches catapulted Florida (+11 spots), Clemson (+13 spots) and Texas Texas (+9 spots) vs. their position last year.I'll grant you that the Gators should have a dominating offense this year. They return 9 starters from a unit that averaged over 42 points per game last year (3rd in the nation). But how much better can that unit really be when it comes to scoring points against SEC defenses?
As a point of comparison, UF in '07 (42.5 points) was already the highest point total per game for an SEC defense in many years. From '02-'06, the top scoring offense in the league averaged less than 33 points/game with no team scoring more than 34/game.
I'm not going to say anything ground breaking here, but defensively...are they really going to improve enough to move up 11 spots from last year?
Run Defense:
Meyer's secret sauce defensively has been a run defense that has finished ranked in the Top 10 each of his first three seasons. Even factoring in the hot knife through butter show that UGA displayed in Jacksonville, the Gators still had the #10 run defense last year.
The ability to stuff the run better over year is questionable given that they are losing three starting defensive linemen, and it's hard to improve from a Top 10 ranking. Also, if Omar Hunter (mega recruit DT) is banged up as rumored, the task of improving this unit becomes even greater.
Pass Defense:
So that leaves the Gator anti-air assault as their biggest opportunity to move the needle. They finished 98th in passing yards allowed, 46th in scoring defense and 71st in defensive pass efficiency. They return three of the starting DBs who were responsible for that mess, and they are razor thin at safety due to injuries.
Schedule:
The only opportunity left for improvement is the schedule. On the non-conference side, they swap Florida Atlantic for Hawaii, Troy for Miami and move the FSU game to Tallahassee. In the SEC, they swap UT and LSU home/away sites so it's basically a wash. The game site for UGA, SC, UK, and Vandy won't really matter. However, they do gain a likely win by exchanging a home game with Auburn for a road game against Arkansas.
I think the Gators will be better this year. But going from 9-4 to 11-2 (roughly the move that an 11 position jump in the polls suggests) seems a big much without overwhelming improvement in the secondary.
PWD
Georgia Sports Blog
11 comments:
That run-stopping defense also lost the #8 pick in the NFL draft off the D-line. Carlos Dunlap may be great in time, but in 2008 he likely won't be Derrick Harvey as a senior.
Wasn't UF's DL hit with a ridiculous amount of injuries last year. I remember by the time they got to our game, they had to pull guys off the OL to play DL.
With the Auburn game replaced by Arky, all UF needs to do is win one more game. I think they have a shot at LSU because LSU doesn't have a settled QB yet. That would be 2 wins. But even so, it's not that hard for me to imagine them winning one more game next year that the lost this year and give them the Arky game. That gets them there.
I hate to say it, but we are the only obstacle on the schedule.
The Gators are going 11-1 or 12-0.
Face it.
Florida's schedule is nice and cream puffy, which should account for a better record...lousy defense aside. They'll probably lose to Georgia, but expecting LSU to win in the Swamp and Tennessee to show some semblance of heart against Florida might be tall orders.
PWD,
You've put more thought into your brief analysis than 99% of all Gators. Last time I checked, the slogan was not "great Offenses win Championships".
And Darryl Strawberry - you're taking alot for granted with your assumption. Look for Florida to struggle in a few games. How quickly you forget the Michigan game.
PWD - A big part of Florida's success as a run defense is attributed to the first three ball games against WKU, Troy and UT. For the season, UF opponents ran the ball about 34 times per game, but the first 3 ballgames (all UF blowouts) their opponents ran the ball an average of 26 times for 46 yds. After that UF opponents carried the ball on average 36 times per game and for 128 yd/gm average - which rank UF about 30-33 range out of 119 D-1 schools.
Ark could be a trap game for UF, if Petrino can find some weaknesses in that secondary. Ole Miss might run it on them all day too.
I can wish, can't I?
Of course Clemson and Florida had more room to jump. They both LOST their bowl games! Poor Georgia didn't finish their season by getting beat by a lesser opponent so they couldn't jump as high.
Besides, we all know who the biggest leaper is.
PWD has it right -- it's all in the schedule. I'd say this years Georgia team is better than last years, LSU is not as good as last year, and Auburn has been replaced on the schedule with Arkansas which should be an easier matchup for Florida.
In other words, the relevant comparison is not Florida '08 versus Florida '07. I don't know if Florida '08 is better than Florida '07, but the '08 schedule seems a little easier.
Well, all we can do is play our schedule and beat the ever living crocshit out of the Florida Gators.
God's honest truth - if we don't win the East then fine, as long as we beat those c*cksuckers.
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