Unit has talent but lacks experience as it tries to get pointed in
By ANTONYA ENGLISH
Published August 21, 2003
the right direction.
GAINESVILLE - Florida coach Ron Zook spent the better part of Tuesday night and early Wednesday examining video from the Gators' practice/scrimmage.
The defense did not look good.
Three days earlier, it had looked great in an expanded scrimmage. And that's about what Zook and his staff expect at this point.
Florida begins the season in 10 days with one of its most inexperienced defenses in years. So looking good one day, not so good the next, is not surprising. "(Tuesday) they didn't play quite as well as they had played, but as you go back and look at tape a lot of the things they did was because they were wore out a little bit and we pushed them hard," Zook said. "In the beginning, and I told them after spring, they will be a defense that will improve as the year goes on."
At least that is the hope.
Zook said the 2003 class resembles the 1993 defense, a unit that was maligned early in the season but improved as the year went on.
The challenge is daunting. Last season the Gators ranked seventh nationally in pass defense and had 14 players who recorded at least one sack.
Gone from that unit are eight starters, all from the defensive front and linebacker positions. The only full-time starters returning are from the secondary. Senior cornerback Keiwan Ratliff and senior strong safety Guss Scott started all 13 games, and redshirt junior strong safety Cory Bailey started six.
"Everybody knows that we lost a lot of our key players and everybody is looking at that as a negative," said Ratliff, who also is expected to see time at wide receiver. "But any team at a level like this when you lose players you expect others to step in and play a key role. It's just that this year, unfortunately, we had more than the usual one or two. But all the returning players we have coming back have talent, they just don't have experience."
That includes senior Bobby McCray, who started five games at end last season and blocked the potential winning field goal in the final seconds of regulation against Auburn. He ranked third on the team in big plays. Darrell Lee, another senior, missed four games because of a shoulder injury, but the coaches expect him to make a significant contribution. At linebacker, Matt Farrior, Todd McCullough and Reid Fleming have played in reserve roles.
In the more than 10 years Charlie Strong has spent as a defensive assistant, taking over a program with so little experience is a first.
"I haven't had a situation like this," said Strong, who is in his first season as defensive coordinator. "We have some young players, but also we have some players that don't have playing experience but have been in the program for a number of years. So what I've tried to do is take what they already know and what I know.
"I came in and learned their terminology and tried to keep the package together because when you're young on defense, you don't want to do a lot, you just want to try to get guys going in the right direction."
Along with the returning defensive backs, Strong has been impressed by redshirt senior Johnny Lamar, who saw limited action last season and is vying for a starting position, and freshmen Reynaldo Hill and Dee Webb. The switch from offense to defense for lineman Mo Mitchell also is expected to bolster the defense.
"He's going to plug up two or three holes at once," Ratliff said. "And that's a benefit to the other defensive linemen because any time you have a player with that size and that athletic ability the offensive line has to pay attention to that."
While Strong said he believes the team has "picked it up" the past few days, he acknowledges it's a work in progress.
"What we have to do is be smarter as a whole team," Strong said. "Defensively, we have to stop people from running the ball, plus we have to be smarter about what we do in certain situations. We can't just go out there and blitz every down ... we just have to get it to where we get better each week and we have to be able to stop people."
