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How good is UF's defense?

the storm said:
Napier said they certainly have not thrown in the towel. I’m wondering how many Croc fans bought tickets for the Canes game and if they’ll show up or if they’re now trying to sell them.
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Oh, the coach who’s lost his team, the fanbase and alumni support says they haven’t thrown in the towel? They definitely will when they’re down three touchdowns
 
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skyman said:
When I saw whoever this is hawk down Durham who is a legit track burnerrrrrr with verified 10.39 100 meter times.. I was oooh yea, that boy FASSSSSSSST

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Isn't that Cormani chasing down the back?

If it wasn't this play, then there's another play in the game where he chases an LSU ball carrier down to save a TD
 
This is by far the biggest question I have headed into the game. How good is their defense?

If you want to go glass half-full from their perspective, the defense is definitely good. Who cares about Long Island, but held USF to 16 offensive points, only gave up 10 first downs on the road to LSU, holding them to 13 offensive points. #28 in opp adjusted EPA per play. They are #1 in the country in rushing defense EPA. They have good athletes in the secondary, Sapp is an NFL player. Their defense has been much better than their offense, which obviously isn't saying much, but it's the reason they've even kept their 2 losses close.

But if you want to go glass half-empty, USF is a G5 team that we just absolutely worked, much worse than they did (USF averaged over 6 yards per play against Uif, only 4.88 against us). And LSU is absolutely pathetic on offense. They were well below average in every game this season, yes at Clemson in Week 1 is a good test, but even against Louisiana Tech they only scored 23 and were well below-average. They have been terrible against the pass (in the 70s in EPA, in the 90s in success rate allowed, they have 1 sack in 2 games and are now facing the best OL in America). So is their defense worth a ****? Or have they played a team who is far inferior athletically, and a badly struggling LSU? Our offense will be BY FAR the best one they've faced.

So for me, this is the matchup. Anything can happen in college football, but I just don't see that offense gutting us for 30 points. They scored 1 TD against USF, we scored 7. They scored 1 TD against LSU. They allowed like 10+ TFLs against Long Island Ice Tea. So, if they can't score 30, can our offense against this defense? I think we can. If we do, we win going away.

I'm very confident in our defense versus their offense not being a one-sided matchup that contributes to us losing.

I'm not fully confident our offense versus their defense will be a resounding win for us. That's why I'm most interested to see that part of the game. If we score 30, we win and we're dancing in the 4th quarter.
 
I have concerns of our WRS getting open

I think there will be a lot of plays Beck is standing there protected but no where to go and he has to dump it off, run, or coverage sacks, incomplete
 
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YankeesCane said:
I have concerns of our WRS getting open

I think there will be a lot of plays Beck is standing there protected but no where to go and he has bto dump it off, run, or coverage sacks, incomplete
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We have been very good so far at using the check down. This is a game the TE will likely be more important than previous games IMO. They need to step up.
 
YankeesCane said:
I have concerns of our WRS getting open

I think there will be a lot of plays Beck is standing there protected but no where to go and he has to dump it off, run, or coverage sacks, incomplete
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Dawson was alluding to the fact at some point our tight ends are going to start to step up and make big plays.
 
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We are going to get plenty of push in the run game. Minimize turnovers and we’ll be comfortable by halftime.
 
9oh4Cane said:
We are going to get plenty of push in the run game. Minimize turnovers and we’ll be comfortable by halftime.
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This is where I am, too. Turnovers are the great equalizer in football, if we don't turn the ball over, I will be very surprised if they beat us.

Odds are we're going to stub our toe at some point over the course of the regular season. Just please, for the love of all things holy, don't let it happen in the next 2 games. I'll **** and moan and throw **** if we lose to anyone, but if this year ends up 11-1 with a loss to SMU to Pitt, I'll be ecstatic. I just cannot stomach losing to either of these ****bergs the next 2 games, no matter how the rest of the year turns out. Go beat people up Saturday night.
 
The key to this game will actually be our D vs their O. If we keep getting 3&out while our offense can just get some points every other drive, this game gets out of hand by the second half due to depth issues and UF needing to force passes in the second half similar to ND on the last drive.

UFs D back 7 is possibly better than NDs. Front 4 aren’t gf at behind but have no depth.
 
YankeesCane said:
I have concerns of our WRS getting open

I think there will be a lot of plays Beck is standing there protected but no where to go and he has to dump it off, run, or coverage sacks, incomplete
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Our receivers have been lights out this year. They will get open and get open bigtime. It’s about time fans start showing that room some respect.
 
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OrangeBowlMagic said:
This is by far the biggest question I have headed into the game. How good is their defense?

If you want to go glass half-full from their perspective, the defense is definitely good. Who cares about Long Island, but held USF to 16 offensive points, only gave up 10 first downs on the road to LSU, holding them to 13 offensive points. #28 in opp adjusted EPA per play. They are #1 in the country in rushing defense EPA. They have good athletes in the secondary, Sapp is an NFL player. Their defense has been much better than their offense, which obviously isn't saying much, but it's the reason they've even kept their 2 losses close.

But if you want to go glass half-empty, USF is a G5 team that we just absolutely worked, much worse than they did (USF averaged over 6 yards per play against Uif, only 4.88 against us). And LSU is absolutely pathetic on offense. They were well below average in every game this season, yes at Clemson in Week 1 is a good test, but even against Louisiana Tech they only scored 23 and were well below-average. They have been terrible against the pass (in the 70s in EPA, in the 90s in success rate allowed, they have 1 sack in 2 games and are now facing the best OL in America). So is their defense worth a ****? Or have they played a team who is far inferior athletically, and a badly struggling LSU? Our offense will be BY FAR the best one they've faced.

So for me, this is the matchup. Anything can happen in college football, but I just don't see that offense gutting us for 30 points. They scored 1 TD against USF, we scored 7. They scored 1 TD against LSU. They allowed like 10+ TFLs against Long Island Ice Tea. So, if they can't score 30, can our offense against this defense? I think we can. If we do, we win going away.

I'm very confident in our defense versus their offense not being a one-sided matchup that contributes to us losing.

I'm not fully confident our offense versus their defense will be a resounding win for us. That's why I'm most interested to see that part of the game. If we score 30, we win and we're dancing in the 4th quarter.
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I'm not really looking forward to us running condensed sets and spamming A/B gap runs against UF on 1st downs. That'd be a recipe to kill drives.

We gotta come out passing and spread out. And we have to utilitize play action - we did a good job running enough PA against USF imo. We did horrible in that regard against ND.

Also just logically their offense is the big question as they rely on big plays out of lagway, and we've seen the more opporunities we give him, the more he is going to force mistakes. The surest way to beat UF is to try to make this a high scoring race. Their offense won't be able to keep up at all imo. Give them more opportunities on offense and they WILL turn it over and get a lot of penalties. If you try to reduce total posessions, you work into what little strength they have as a team. And if they do successfully hit one or two big plays it can be the difference in the game. But if you make them NEED to hit 5+ or just sustain a lot of drives, they simply can't.
 
grover said:
We know UF's offense is a disaster mostly due to Lagway and their "preseason top 3" OL. But I can't decide if UF has a good defense.

I've seen Sapp flash then disappear. I've seen some life out of the LBs. And looking at point totals from the back half of last season through 3 games this season, they've held everyone but UTX (last season) to under 20 points a game. This season so far, USF had only 18 points and LSU scored only 13 points despite the UF offense turning the ball over 5 times, not counting LSU's pick-6 on Lagway since their defense couldn't do anything about that.

On the other, they had only 1 sack, 3 TFL and 0 turnovers vs USF and 0 sacks (not even a QB pressure), 3 TFLs and 1 Int (0 fumble recoveries) vs. LSU.. And USF generated quite a bit of offense with 391 Total Yards.

So are they a fraud that will be exposed come Saturday night? Or are they a legit defense that can force the Dawson Express to take the local route?
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They’re solid.

Think the LB’s can be exploited in the passing game, LSU got them turned every which way a few times.

We give up too much cushion to slot guys at times and teams been quick pitching to take advantage of that.

DL….has been solid and aggressive but just hasn’t gotten sacks. Banks being out going to hurt.

Corners….nothing to complain much about there. Money and Moore have been very darn good and Dijon has been serviceable but beatable at times.

Safeties….sigh. I mean Thorton has been…just there and around the ball while Castell has done dog crap in 2 seasons. Which he’d get replaced.
 
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