From TampaBay.com
With many of his key players injured, his team in the midst of a three-game losing streak and seemingly in disarray, Florida Gators coach Urban Meyer said this week's open date could be considered the most critical of his career for a variety of reasons.
"Yes it is, because it's this year, that's one reason,'' Meyer said. "No. 2 is we're five minutes before kickoff (last week against Mississippi State) and we're being kind of told we don't have any running backs available for the game. Jeff (Demps) ended up playing but he played about 70 percent. Emmanuel Moody wasn't ready to go and Mike Gillislee really wasn't ready to go, so that tells you a little bit about the bumps and bruises. The correlation between that and a lack of production in our run game is obviously there. Omarius Hines did a great job coming in and getting a few plays for us but he's certainly not a running back.''
In this week's national rankings, Florida is ranked No. 75 in rushing offense, 84th in passing offense and 91st in total offense. As the offensive production continues to be a problem, Meyer said he has spent the week in "a very in-depth study" of what Florida is and is not doing well.
When asked if he fixes the problems just for the Georgia game or for the long-haul, Meyer said: "That's a very good question."
"There's two ways you go about it,'' he added. "One's evaluation of scheme and what we're doing, what we're poor at, and like I told you about the production of the run game or red zone or turnovers or passing efficiency, and whether it's personnel changes or scheme changes. That's what this time's all spent on doing. It's one or the other or it's a combination of both. That's what coaches do and we're knee deep in the evaluation phases right now and addressing it at practice.''
