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Third-and-Grantham bites Gators again in loss to Texas A&M

Will Miles

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Gators defensive coordinator Todd Grantham came to Gainesville with a significant track record, and a worrying nickname: third-and-Grantham.

It has showed its face a few times over the past few years.

In 2018 against Kentucky, the Gators lost to the Wildcats for the first time in 31 years while surrendering 454 yards, 8.0 yards per play and 9 of 13 on third down. That defense ranked 37th in yards per play despite ranking 77th in third down conversion percentage allowed (40.4%).

In 2019 against Georgia, Florida gave up 398 yards and 12 of 18 on third down as the Bulldogs dominated time of possession by more than 11 minutes in route to a 7-point victory. That defense was even better over the season, finishing 21st in yards per play and 29th in third down conversion percentage allowed (34.8%).

Things seemed to be trending in the right direction. And then the 2020 season started.

The Gators opened things up against Ole Miss by giving up over 600 yards and 9 of 14 on third downs. They fixed the third down problem a little bit against South Carolina (6 of 17), but couldn’t stop the Gamecocks on fourth down (5 of 6).

Then came Texas A&M. The Aggies absolutely blistered the Gators defense to the tune of 543 yards, 205 rushing yards and 12 of 15 on third down. After the Gators used up 7:28 on the first drive, A&M held a time of possession advantage of 34:37 to 17:55.

Through the first three games this season, Florida is giving up first downs on 58.7 percent of third down attempts. Out of 130 FBS teams last season, that would have ranked dead last by a full five percentage points.

After that game, there was plenty of chatter on Twitter and Gator message boards that Grantham’s scheme is the problem or that the personnel he has in the game is the problem. There’s some truth to both of those opinions, but I don’t think you can pin this debacle on one player.

Instead, it’s the culmination of a bunch of things finally coming to a head.

Bring on the Pain – Third Down

I think it’s instructive to look at every third down conversion that Texas A&M had to see if we can find a common theme. Was it the linebackers screwing up? Was it the corners or the safeties? After all, if it’s one position group or one particular player, we can just sub him out and everything will be better.

Bear with me as we review the pain.

On this third-and-8, Florida rushes five defenders, leaving linebacker Ventrell Miller in one-on-one coverage with the A&M tight end. The receiver wins the battle and Mond makes a good throw for a first down.

On this third-and-9, the Gators bring five rushers again. If you look at Marco Wilson, you can see him looking at the receivers rather than reading the QBs eyes. By the time he gets his eyes back to the QB, Mond is already releasing the ball. That leaves a big window open for the completion for the TD.

On third-and-2, this is decent coverage by Wilson. He does have deep safety help, but I think we can forgive him for not being quite sure whether Davis will be there to actually help. Mond makes a good throw into tight coverage for a first down.

On this third-and-6, the Gators again bring five rushers, this time blitzing from the strong side and dropping Jeremiah Moon into coverage. That leaves Kaiir Elam in one-on-one on the outside, where he’s beaten badly for a first down.

This is something I’ve never seen before – and it should have worked. Grantham decided to rush three defenders and bring Kaiir Elam on a corner blitz on third-and-goal from the 2.5-yard line. Theoretically, this should cause a ton of congestion in the end zone and make it difficult to fit the ball in. I think Amari Burney is supposed to drop into the middle of the end zone with Marco Wilson over the top. Instead, Wilson looks like he’s late arriving to defend the pass for another A&M TD.

On this third-and-7, Grantham brings 5 defenders again, this time with a blitzing Shawn Davis. Davis gives away that he is blitzing because of a hard count and Mond completes the pass against Jaydon Hill in one-on-one coverage. This was good coverage you’ll normally live with.

On this third-and-6, the Gators rush three but Amari Burney is laying way off of his man. It’s an easy pitch-and-catch for Mond and his receiver.

On this third-and-1, the Florida defense was gassed. It was so gassed that tight end Dante Lang was in the game playing middle linebacker. Lang looks tentative and when the A&M offensive lineman gets to him, instead of trying to stand him up in the hole, he tries to move to the side. That opens up the cutback lane for the running back to score.

On this third-and-5, the Gators only rush four, but using a zone blitz with Moon dropping into coverage. This one is worth looking at from another angle to figure out what went wrong.

You can see Moon staring at Mond. And you can see Mond staring down his receiver. But Moon stays put instead of shifting towards where Mond is throwing. That’s a difficult play for a LB to make, let alone a dropping defensive lineman.

On this play, Florida actually does a pretty good job of getting a push up-front. In fact, it looks like Marlon Dunlap might be able to stop the runner. But then he gets overpowered and throws the back forward, making it an easy first down.

This was the backbreaker. It starts with the A&M guard and tight end pulling. At the snap, Gators defensive end Brenton Cox jumps inside. That frees up the pulling tight end to get a hat on the linebacker Mohamoud Diabate. Finish it off with a missed tackle by Ventrell Miller and all of a sudden, A&M is ahead.

This play almost won Florida the game. They again rush five, this time leaving Brad Stewards in one-on-one coverage. Stewart gets beaten but is able to recover to force a fumble.

QB sneak. Not much you can do here, except that ESPN’s first-down marker was way off, making this play look ridiculous.

This was the killer third-down conversion. True freshman Tre’vez Johnson had made a great play chasing down the running back on the prior play, but now he’s lined up six yards back from the line of scrimmage and backs up at the snap.

The Gators only rush four, meaning that Johnson has help behind him. But he ends up getting picked by a combination of an A&M receiver and his own teammate. He can’t recover to make the tackle and the Gators hopes of stopping the Aggies were over.

Who’s to Blame?

After the game, I tweeted that there wasn’t any one player you could blame for the Gators defensive deficiencies. That wasn’t good enough for some fans, who want Marco Wilson benched for the rest of the season. Of course, these are the same fans who wanted Amari Burney benched after last week.

The Gators faced 11 third downs where A&M passed, the Aggies converted 10 of them against man coverage four times, zone four times and some sort of zone blitz twice. Grantham rushed three, four and five and never got a sack or much pressure at all. By my count, you can place the “blame” on eight different Gator defenders for those ten conversions.

So go ahead and bench Burney. Or bench Wilson. But that isn’t going to solve the problem. It certainly didn’t on this play.

Here, Wilson is in coverage on the wide side of the field. The throw goes to the complete opposite side of the field where there isn’t a Gator defender within 20 yards of the A&M receiver. Somebody blew a coverage, but it wasn’t Wilson.

That doesn’t mean Wilson is blameless. He needs to do a better job, just like every single Gator defender. But to pin this on him or any other specific Gator player may make you feel better, but it isn’t right. You don’t give up 13 conversions without it being a team effort.

That means it’s a systemic failure on defense. And if that is true, then the blame falls to the coaches. But I’m not so sure that blame should be based only on scheme.

Third-year dip

Just about every coach experiences a third-year dip.

Gators fans are clearly familiar, as Will Muschamp put up his 4-8 masterpiece in year three and Jim McElwain was so bad in his 4-7 third campaign that he was sent to sharkless waters in Michigan.

Even Gators legends have experienced some level of third-year woes.

Steve Spurrier lost his second and third games to Tennessee and Mississippi State by a combined 41 points before righting the ship to end up at 9-4, but still with losses to FSU and Alabama in the SEC Championship Game. That defense ranked 50th in points per game allowed

Urban Meyer achieved a similar feat, going 9-4 in 2007 with a Heisman Trophy winning QB but a defense that was a sieve (ranked 47th in points per game allowed).

That dip in the third-year performance is usually tied to recruiting. That’s because the players from the coach’s transition class are becoming the major contributors, and often that transition class is weak in comparison to the classes before and after it.

I wrote about this during the offseason, and I thought the combination of Kyle Trask’s experience and some of the transfers Mullen has brought in would paper over some holes left from recruiting. But it turns out, I was wrong.

Then again, look at the 2018 class and the contribution against Texas A&M.

Pitts is obviously an NFL-quality talent. Maybe Pierce gets a look. Is there anybody else on that list who looks like a future pro?

That means that Mullen and Grantham are relying heavily on McElwain-era recruits – classes that most fans agree were not up to the Gators usual standard. Guys who played minutes against A&M who are from the Mac era are the following:

Obviously, Trask has turned into a revelation. But how ugly would things be if he hadn’t turned out to be this good? It’s a testament to Mullen that he’s been able to get as much out of these players as he has, but there are shortcomings.

We saw that last year at safety, where Stiner, Davis, Stewart and Jeawon Taylor kept rotating in-and-out because none of them could stake a claim to the starting role. Grantham could paper over that issue a little bit when he had Adam Schuler and Kyree Campbell against the run up-front, Jachai Polite or Jonathan Greenard coming off the edge and C.J. Henderson locking down the opposition’s lead receiver.

Except for Campbell, those guys are all gone to the NFL and it’s not clear if Campbell will be back any time soon.

Does the responsibility for this fall on Grantham? Yes it does. But it also falls on Mullen, who is the overseer of the program. Mullen did make a change from Sal Sunseri to David Turner as defensive line coach after 2018.

But the after effects of that original hire seem to be showing through now.

Takeaway

All is not lost for the Gators. As bad as the defense was, and as disappointing as it is to lose to Texas A&M, there is some good news.

The Gators lost on a last second field goal, on the road, to a team that’s likely going to end up 7-3 or 8-2. The team was a Malik Davis fumble away from pulling this one out. Kyle Trask continues to excel.

Of course, there’s bad news too.

The defense is a sieve, giving up almost 500 yards per game. Grantham doesn’t appear to have any answers, and I’m not sure he has the talent or depth to draw from to make massive changes. He can simplify things and maybe that helps a little bit. But the problems are too systemic to believe a week or two of practice is going to iron them out.

LSU is next, and the Tigers – who looked like one of the toughest opponents for the Gators coming into this season – have their own massive problems they’re dealing with. Georgia has Alabama next week, and if the Tide win that game then the Gators are right back where they were to start the season: just beat Georgia and you can drop another game and still make it to Atlanta.

Of course, with the defense playing this way, beating Georgia seems a pipe dream right now.

But I’m reminded of how I felt in 2018 after Florida lost its first conference game against Kentucky. That seemed to indicate that Florida would be facing a much bigger rebuild than any of us thought in Mullen’s first year.

That team righted the ship a bit before getting blown out by Georgia, following that up with an ugly loss to Missouri the next week and falling behind to South Carolina 31-14 late in the third quarter. Then Feleipe Franks converted a miracle third-down to Trevon Grimes and all of a sudden, a switch came on and the team started playing way better.

Maybe this year Mullen and Co. can find that switch on defense.

Mullen said during his press conference that this is a weird year. He’s sure got that right. I can’t remember a Gators defense being this bad. But I also can’t remember the last time Alabama gave up 647 yards and 48 points like they just did to Ole Miss.

Things obviously need to improve. You can’t win consistently forcing one punt a game. Third-and-Grantham is real until he – and his players – put a stop to it. But I also don’t think you improve things by firing your coordinator three games in or benching one player. It’s taken all of the Gators – Grantham included – to dig their way into this hole.

They’re going to have to dig themselves out as a team or they’re going to get buried by better teams than Texas A&M.

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