Rob Oller of the Dispatch wrote about a defensive coaching symposium between Florida, Utah and Ohio State that was held last February in Gainesville. Oller gets to the bottom of what made the Florida defense so good given the statistics shared with Buckeye coaches in February. The key -- and this may shock you -- Southern speed.
Quotes from the Buckeye side of the ball about the Florida team speed were mostly on target with no bulletin board fodder. The Vest said it's the fastest team the Buckeyes will face from top to bottom and Troy Smith said the front four had linebacker speed, while the linebackers had safety speed. They're definitely fast, there's no doubting that. But really, there are 5-10 teams every year that have exceptional team speed. Regardless, stud Gator defensive end Jarvis Moss couldn't resist the chance to tell everyone just how fast they were:
I feel they haven’t seen people like us, guys down here in the South who move as well as we do and are as fast and athletic as we are. They’ll get a pretty good taste of it on the eighth.
Troy sums up the supposed speed edge nicely:
Don’t get me wrong. They definitely can run, but the way it’s been portrayed is like, I guess, we’ve been winning our games by walking and jogging.
The real miracle here is how they taught Ohio product Keiwan Ratliff, who, according to eBay is one of Florida's greatest players ever, how to run fast. Believe us folks, the eBay knows football. It got Jeff Bowden fired.
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Elsewhere, Bob Davie has learned Flash and he wants to show you BCS plays to look out for.
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Finally, behind the mighty paywall that is ESPN Insider, Todd McShay of Scouts Inc. takes a look at the NFL prospects for each team, while the entire Scouts Inc. team huddled together to bring us this confusing graphic before predicting a Buckeye victory predicting a Gator victory:
Comments
Jas.
Your Grandma ma is the Bomb.
F Florida and F Michigan ( This is a constant and should always be assumed)
I love her like my own.
GDCII
That's not my grandma, but my, do I wish she were.
Did I miss something? the ESPN site predicts a Gator victory, 27-24...
Good catch. The dyslexia is approaching fast.
Do not get me started about Todd McShay.
He makes no sense what so ever. Like I understood that Trev Albert and now his little buddy Mark May plays the heal just to rile up the fan bases, but I think Tod McShay is just a moron.
A perfect of this is in the position by position break down you have listed here. He picks Florida's wide receivers, yet if you go to his look at his break down of each teams Pro potential players the top Florida player is listed as at best late second round while everyone else is 6th round picks. That doesn't take into account Percy Harvin, but still logically it makes no sense.
Writing this paragraph I think I have developed a twitch ... I need to stop.
http://oh-io.blogspot.com
I'm tired of the SEC speed talk. Last time I checked we were the ones with a World Class sprinter on our team...
"The Buckeyes also anticipate a boost from Ted Ginn Jr., who is expected trade the football cleats for track spikes after completing his track and field redshirt year in 2005. At Glenville High School in Cleveland, Ginn was a national champion in 110-meter high hurdles his junior year and held the top time in the country his senior season at 13.23. He was a two-time state champ in the 110m event and earned another state title in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles his senior season of 2004, winning in 36.73. He added the Ohio title in the 200 meters in 2004 as well. Ginn also has been timed at 10.5 in the 100m and was runner up at the state level in the 200m in 2002, timing 21.16, and second in the 400m in 2003 and `04, clocking a 46.57."
http://www.cstv.com/sports/c-t...
When I saw McShay's article, I knew he was just trying to predict an upset, so he could say "I told you so" Here are two facts that no one has mentioned this week.
First, Flordia's leading rusher has had 2-- 100 yard games this year, non since the fourth week of the season. Second, in conference play, Flordia outscored their opponents by 62 points, where as Ohio St. outscored their opponents by 213 points.
I don't think Flordia has the depth in the secondary to cover all 5 receivers we will throw at them.
OSU 38 Flordia 24