Fire Steve Addazio

I feel like I’ve been a pretty rational person throughout the life of this site.  As Addazio has run our offense and our program into the ground, I have sat back and calmly dictated the mistakes he was making from a football standpoint.  I’m done with that.  Nothing has changed, nothing has gotten better, and I’m just going to come right out and say it.

Steve Addazio is selfish.

There, I said it.  Addazio has to know that he’s a bad offensive coordinator.  No rational person could have watched this team over the last several months and think otherwise.  We have loads of talented players on offense.  NFL players that are going to miss out on millions of dollars because of the way Addazio misuses them and fails to help them translate their athleticism into football talent.  Carl Moore is an NFL wide receiver, but no one in the NFL will ever know it because he’s not given a chance.  Yet Addazio is content to go on, collecting his (probably large) paycheck while the fans and the players suffer at the hands of his ineptitude.

Steve Addazio, we as Gator nation ask you – no, beg you – to step down from your duties as offensive coordinator.  Urban is your friend, don’t put him in the position of having to fire his friend.  At this point as a perfectly sane individual you HAVE to realize that you can’t get the job done as offensive coordinator.  Every day you stay in that position is just one day closer to you getting fired outright.  If you step down now, you can save some face and keep your job as offensive line coach.  You would finally get to do something that you’re comfortable with again, and the fans and players would be spared your inadequacies as a play-caller.  It’s a win-win for everyone involved.

So on to the LSU game.  I could break down this game like I usually do.  I could go on about the same tired issues that our offense continues to have with no signs of change.  I could go on about how after a huge stop by our defense and a bad punt, with the crowd finally back in the game, our offense responds by running yet another bubble screen for a 4 yard loss to take them right back out of it.  I could talk about how we still refuse to spread the field vertically and keep the defense (who was unabashedly stacking the box while our receivers sat 1 on 1 outside) honest.  I could go on about how the Brantley “option” (AKA Brantley toss) play got demolished by a real defense yet again.  I could tell you that Mike “grades out as a champion every week” Pouncey once again got manhandled at center.   But you know what?  We’ve been through all this before.  It’s the same stuff as it’s always been.  Every prediction and every criticism that we’ve made on this site since day one has been correct, and none of it has changed.

The really sad thing about this game is that some people are going to ignore how poorly the offense played because of how the game ended (with our defense getting beat).  Let’s be real here people, our defense never should have been in that position, and never would have been if our offense could put together more than one real scoring drive a game.  Our four scores tonight came off of two turnovers forced by the defense inside the LSU 20, a kickoff return for a touchdown, and the one good drive at the end of the game.  60 minutes, one good scoring drive.  That does not win you football games, and it never will.  I said at the beginning of the year that the offense was going to have to contribute (rather than just soley relying on the defense) once we got into the meat of our schedule.  They haven’t, and the outcomes have been just as we expected.

And you know what the biggest slap in the face was with all of this?  We had the ball, 1st and 10, with 3 minutes left in the half.  After running our standard HB dive for 2 yards, LSU called a timeout to stop the clock.  That’s right, they were so confident that our offense couldn’t pick up a first down that with THREE MINUTES left in the half they were willing to call timeouts to stop the clock.  They disrespected us like that, and what did we do to make them pay?  Almost get a safety on a horrible option play call that got mauled in the backfield for a near safety as Champion Pouncey laid on the ground looking backwards.

The crowd was great tonight, as loud as ever.  Everyone wanted a win.  And you know, people in the stands (though still not in the media) are starting to recognize more and more what we’ve all been saying on this website for the last few months.  In the 4th quarter, the offense was boo’ed multiple times after questionable playcalls.  It’s a good thing that our offensive talent bailed Addazio out with that long catch and run to Moore after Addazio had backed them into a corner on 3rd and 8 after two extremely predictable playcalls on 1st and 2nd down.

I also was pleased to look around the stadium and see the sign pictured above.  The media, if they would even recognize it, would say that that guy is “not a true fan”.  I disagree.  That guy is a hero, because he’s willing to stand up and say what they’re not.  And once again, listening to the post game presser on the drive home, there was no mention made of the problems we have with our offensive coordinator.

The first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have it.  The fans have taken that step.  The coaches and the media have not.  We have to spread the word.  Our NC dreams are likely gone but we can still win the SEC.  But we will never win it with Addazio, so hit up that Twitter, hit up Facebook, hit up campus with fliers, and do whatever you have to to spread the word.  Save Gator Football.

How many points did the player’s respect for Steve Addazio get us last night against Alabama?

All throughout the last two years of watching Addazio try and call plays, pundits have backed Addazio with two main arguments.  The first is that he is a good guy who is well loved and respected by the players and the rest of the staff.  Of course, Ron Zook was well loved and respected as well, and we saw how much that actually translates to the field with 15 losses over three seasons under Zook.  Call me crazy, but I’d rather the guy calling our plays be good at calling plays than be a good guy to have a beer with.

The other major argument that people have made is that the Gators keep winning with Addazio calling their plays, and winning is all that matters.  In fact, after the Miami OH game when I launched this site, Gainesville Sun columnist Pat Dooley publicly blasted the site and made the same argument, stating

“With Addazio as coordinator, Florida is now 14-1. I think that has to count for something.  Let’s see what happens the rest of the way. Off the ledge, people. Like I’ve said a million times, nobody suffers winning like Gator fans.”

We’ve seen what has happened now Dooley, so what say you now?

Simply put, Florida has won as much as they have in the last two years in spite of Addazio, not because of him.  Our defense wins us 11 games a year by themselves.  All our offense has had to do is win us the other one, and even with immense amounts of talent Addazio hasn’t even come close to doing that.

The short-sighted see ugly wins against bad teams and say a win is a win.  Those of us with foresight and a shred of football knowledge realize that just because running the ball up the middle 30 times works against Kentucky, doesn’t mean it will work against a real defense.  Those of us with foresight realize that our defense can’t hold our opponents to a couple scores and set up our offense with 5 drives that start inside their opponent’s 40 yard line every week, and realize that eventually our offense will actually have to do something themselves.  Those of us with foresight realize that it takes an offense AND a defense to win a national championship, and not just one of them.  Those of us with foresight realize that national championship windows are small in college football, and that every week we stick with Addazio is just another week wasted in our window.

So let’s talk about the game.  You all saw it, you all know it was bad.  But here are some more things to remind you just how bad it was.  Addazio had a great idea this week, something that was really going to catch Bama off guard and keep our offense moving.  That exciting new wrinkle was….John Brantley running the option?  Really, that was it, that was the bright idea.  So, even ignoring the fact that any one of us could have told him ahead of time that our dropback passer running the option was not going to befuddle the top defense in the nation, things were worsened when Addazio fell into Addazio pitfall #1 and continued going back to the play no matter how many times it got stuffed.

The really remarkable thing about this game however is that, while our defense certainly had thier fair share of struggles early on as well, even if they had come out and played the best game of their lives we still would have lost.  Why?  Because the offense actually scored negative points, in a manner of speaking.  The offense gave up 7 points on an interception return for a touchdown, and only put up 6 points of their own to counter it.  They were actually outscored by the Alabama defense 7-6, and that’s not even accounting for the other interception inside our own 20 that led to points.

Alabama’s offense could have come out and taken a knee on every play of the game and still won.  And in the 2nd half, that’s essentially what they did as our defense pitched a shutout and held Bama to well under 100 yards of total offense, yet still the halftime deficit only grew.

So what went so wrong that our offense couldn’t even outscore themselves?  To answer that, let’s take a look back to the keys to the game I posted lasted week and see how many of them Addazio followed.

Play like you’ve got nothing to lose

My main contention here was that Florida needed to take a few shots early on to loosen up the Alabama defense and prevent them from stacking the box and playing aggressively.  Not only did Addazio fail to take any shots downfield early on, he failed to take any shots downfield over the course of the entire game.  It’s bizarre really, how can you be down in a game 24-0 in the 2nd quarter, and spend the entire second half down by 3 or 4 scores, and still never take a single shot downfield.  The closest the Gators came was a ~20 yard pass into the endzone intended for Moore.

This was Florida’s greatest fault, as Alabama’s defense quickly adjusted to our conservative offense and began to play extremely aggressively.  So aggressively that both of our brutal interceptions came on check downs, which are supposed to be safe passes.  Alabama was so confident that we weren’t going to get vertical that even when leading by several scores, their players were jumping short checkdown routes.  That can’t happen, and if it does we’ve got to make them pay for it.

Perhaps even more frustrating was watching Florida throw a couple quick 4 yard hitches and another quick 2 yard drag on 3rd and 10 plays.  Brutal to watch, but I’m sure you all know that.

Make Adjustments

I don’t know why I even bothered listing this, since we all knew Addazio wouldn’t do it.  In fact, I’m not convinced that Addazio knows the definition of the word “adjustment”.  Florida stuck with their gameplay of HB dives and short passes no matter how futile it proved to be against the Alabama defense, and rode it all the way to a blowout loss.

Be Less Predictable

Raise your hand if you successfully predicted exactly what play Florida was going to run prior to the snap of many of their plays last night.  Ok, you all look pretty goofy right now, reading this with one of your hands in the air, so go ahead and put them back down.

I said that Addazio was going to have to get over his “stay on schedule” mentality where 2nd and 10 was an automatic run down to set up a more manageable 3rd down.  I said that I feared Addazio was too confident in that mentality after we were consistently able to run for 8 yards on 2nd and 10 against Kentucky.  I said it wouldn’t work that way against Alabama and that we’d have to throw in those situations to set up manageable 3rd downs.

So what happened?  Exactly that.  2nd and 10 continued to be an automatic run play, and just as I feared against Alabama it set up 3rd and 9s rather than 3rd and 2s.  Our longest run on a 2nd and 10 play was 4 yards, and all the rest either resulted in a loss or a 1 or 2 yard gain.  It wasn’t until the game got really out of hand that we finally started to mix things up a bit on 2nd and long, and by then it was way too late, and we were dealing with way too many other Addazio inadequacies for it to matter.

So, here we are.  We’re 4-1, and by a miracle of the schedule things are actually set up that even with this blowout loss we could still win the national championship this year if we can win out.  But we can’t do it with Addazio calling the plays and running the offense.  I told you that with this offense we could not contend with top teams more than a month ago and some of you said “let’s wait and see”.  Now you’ve seen, and by a miracle it’s still not too late, but the time for action is now.

We could have spent the weeks against USF, Kentucky, and Tennessee with a new play caller working out the kinks so we were ready for the meat of our schedule, but instead we wasted them praying that a guy we all knew was a dud would miraculously turn things around.  Now, our only option is to throw someone else into the fire and hope it sticks.  It may sound rash, and it may sound like it can’t work, but the alternative, to let Addazio continue running this team into the ground, is certainly not a better alternative.

We no longer have any margain for error.  If Addazio retains his play calling duties, then the season is over.

And really, what has Addazio ever done to qualify him to call plays?  Prior to taking over for Mullen last year Addazio hadn’t called a play since 1994…in high school.  His resume was as a good offensive line coach.  He can coach up a bunch of linemen and run them through a practice, how does that qualify a person to call plays?  Florida was hoping that with the offense already set up by Mullen, a guy with little experience calling plays could step in and pick things up where they had left off.  Clearly, that is not the case, so it’s time to get someone who is actually qualified running an offense to run the offense.

My Apologies for this post being a bit late, I had to get back into town and then yesterday was opening weekend for the NFL, you know how that goes.

Anyway, for the second straight week we put up a decent looking score against a weak opponent, and dropped in the rankings.  This weekend’s USF game was a tale of two halves.  The first half saw more of the same on offense, minus the snap debacles of week 1, of course.  It looked like our Mighty Gators would be shut out in the first half before the defense saved the day and forced a turnover deep in USF territory that the offense was able to capitalize on for their only score of the first half.

The grumblings around the stadium in the 1st half could be heard in their silence.  Fortunately the half was not a screen-fest like week 1, but many of the same issues were still there with the playcalling.  Demps up the middle, Moody to the outside.  We took some shots downfield, but the routes were no better than before.  A particular 3rd and 7 or so comes to mind where we had Hines running a short hitch out of the left slot and our receiver out wide left running a streak.  The pass was dropped of to Hines who was tackled well short of the 1st down, and it just left me wondering, what was the point of those routes?  They don’t beat any defense.  If the defense is playing cover 2 then the dimeback has Hines and the safety has the receiver out wide left.  If the defense is playing cover 3 (which if I recall, they were) then the dimeback has Hines and the CB has the receiver running the go.  Cover 4 and its the same, as is man.  If the receiver out wide left were to run a deep in route, then that dimeback suddenly has to choose between him and Hines.  If he jumps up on Hines, then the deep in is open.  If he drops back to cover the in, then maybe he’s back far enough that Hines can turn and pick up the first down after catching the hitch.

Anyway, luckily for us football is a four quarter game, and things got much better in the 2nd half.  Addazio finally started using guys to their strengths better (Gillislee and Moody out of the I, up the middle, and Demps to the outside which led to a long touchdown).  From their, we really wore South Florida, who was clearly not as deep as us, down.  The only major mistake of the half came on a goaline play that nearly went for six the other way, which would have gotten USF back into the game.  On the play, the right slot and wide receivers both ran outs, and didn’t get nearly enough spacing between them, as they ended up in almost the same place nearly costing us a 14 point swing.  Luckily, the pick was dropped and we survived it unscathed.

In the end, Florida finished with 420 yards on offense, a huge improvement over week 1.  The offense put up 31 points, but really only had one legit scoring drive to go along with a big run (which we can’t discount, since we live on those).  The rest of the points came on “drives” that started deep in USF territory after a turnover over long kick return.  Brantley put up 172yards passing on 31 attempts, which still leaves him down around 5ypa on the year.  That number that has to rise, especially given the competition in these first two games (Tebow averaged over 9ypa every year), and they’re going to have to start hitting some of those big plays to the WRs to stay in it with SEC teams and keep them honest, because we won’t be able to wear them down like we did USF.

In the end, I give the offensive performance a grade somewhere in the C- range, a huge improvement over week 1’s F-.  We’re headed into the heart of our schedule now though, and near shutout halves and pounding a weaker team with the same basic plays out of the I-form aren’t going to cut it anymore.  Hopefully Addazio will spend this week putting together some passing plays from sets under center to keep these SEC defenses honest.