Team has sense of urgency, Meyer says

By Edward Aschoff
Gainesville SUN Correspondent

Published: Monday, September 6, 2010 at 5:36 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, September 6, 2010 at 5:36 p.m.

Glaring errors helped Florida's offensive incompetence Saturday. Bad snaps, bad timing and bad blocking had the Gators' offense struggling to find any sort of rhythm against a 1-11 team from a year ago.

 

Champions

Offense: Marcus Gilbert
Defense: Jeremy Brown, Ahmad Black, Jaye Howard, Justin Trattou, Jon Bostic, A.J. Jones.
Defensive Player of the Game: Janoris Jenkins
Special Teams Player of the Game: Mike Gillislee

While the college football world shutters at Florida's 212 total yards of offense (187 coming in the fourth quarter), coach Urban Meyer believes the myriad of mistakes in Florida's 34-12 win over Miami (Ohio) can be cleared up.

The thing working in Florida's favor, Meyer said during his Monday morning news conference, is that his team is disgusted with how it looked and the sense of urgency is palpable inside his locker room.

"Coaching a team that has urgency is a positive thing," Meyer said.

A lot of Florida's miscues began upfront with a "disheveled" offensive line pieced together with guys playing brand new positions because of a knee injury to left tackle Xavier Nixon and the suspension of left guard Carl Johnson.Redshirt junior James Wilson moved from right guard to left, while redshirt freshman Jon Halapio made his first-career start in Wilson's spot.

Even with seniors Marcus Gilbert and Maurice Hurt playing tackle, Florida's line struggled. Meyer said he expects to get Johnson back and there's a "good chance" Nixon could play. Backup left tackle MattPatchan (wrist) won't play.

Meyer said he was troubled by the lack of rotation at wide receiver. Junior Deonte Thompson and senior Carl Moore were in on every offensive play and redshirt freshman Andre Debose, who Meyer constantly praised this offseason, never saw the field. Freshman receiver Quinton Dunbar saw limited action, while redshirt freshman Stephen Alli played on special teams.

"Inadequate" preparation last week led to the weak rotation, Meyer said.

"That's the first time that's ever happened here at Florida. You've got to get rotation in there," he said.

Expect a little more with the return of redshirt sophomore Frankie Hammond Jr., who Meyer said will play against South Florida after being suspended for his DUI arrest in June.

Meyer will also make it a point to get Debose in. Meyer said Debose was not injured or suspended, but that he's still got some developing to do.

"We've worked extremely hard to get him ready," Meyer said of Debose. "We want to get him on the field."

Better rotation and a properly set offensive line should help, but it won't change much of the play-calling. What will is how opposing defenses set up. Meyer said he wasn't unhappy with offensive coordinator SteveAddazio's play-calling and that he and his staff weren't being conservative, they were attempting to be efficient. The absence of throwing down field was a result of theRedHawks playing Florida deep, Meyer said.

With the game plan not the issue, Meyer said it was the execution that went sour Saturday.

"It wasn't a beauty pageant. If it was, we would have lost," he said. "We had to find a way to win that game. Everybody saw what we saw and it was a mess."

One out, two back

Meyer said senior cornerback Moses Jenkins hyper-extended his elbow Saturday and will miss six weeks. Redshirt sophomore Jeremy Brown will start opposite Janoris Jenkins and freshman Matt Elam will play the nickel spot.

Florida is expected to get safety Will Hill back Saturday, Meyer said. Hill was suspended for unspecified reasons.

Freshman tight end Jordan Reed (knee) could return as well, Meyer said.

USF defense impresses

Florida and USF were the only teams in the country to record four interceptions in the opening week and while the Bulls showed a "vanilla" defense vs. Stony Brook, Meyer said he considersUSF a top-15 team based on talent.

He's familiar with defensive coordinator Mark Synder, who ran a blitz-heavy scheme at Ohio State in 2004.

"This is an SEC-caliber team we're playing," Meyer said.