Gainesville, FL
University of Florida head coach Urban Meyer and several players met with the media Monday to discuss their thoughts on the upcoming game against Tennessee:
Head Coach Urban Meyer
Our plan to win was to play great defense and we do not feel that we did play great defense. We held a great rusher to 37 yards; however, we let them throw 300 yards. It was not a great day on defense. In terms of turnovers, we only created one and had zero. So that shows we are taking care of the ball pretty good, we are plus three on the season. Red zone is one of our stronger areas on both offense and defense. We were four of five on Saturday and to date we are 24 out of 26. In terms of our kicking game, we only hit five out of our ten goals but we have zero punt return yards on the season. Time of possession was a big advantage for the Gators. For third downs, we were 53 percent and Ole Miss was only 18 percent. There are some areas that we need to clean up. We had 127-recorded total yards, which is incorrect. We had about 200 yards taken off from penalties in that game. When you start taking off 40-yard punt returns and 20-yard runs being taken back, you will normally lose a Southeastern Conference game. The question of the day is what am I going to do and I guess we could go out to practice and run a bunch of gassers if I had an ignorant team. But we don’t have that, we have a team that wants to win and needs to understand if you lose 200 yards on penalties, you will lose the game. We are going to spend a lot of time on that today because 200 yards is obviously significant. Our coaches and players are disappointed with their level of play, but a strength of our defense is the red zone coverage. The defense has been down there 15 times, which is too much, but have given up four touchdowns, seven field goals, two turnovers and two missed field goals. We count that once you hit the red zone, anything but a touchdown is a victory. Four of 15 we have failed by giving up a touchdown but the other times we have held our own down there. You are 1-1 in the SEC, if you let Ole Miss score touchdowns down there. I do not want to take a way from the way that Ole Miss played. I thought they had an excellent game plan and that program is on the rise. That is a hard team to get prepared for. They play extremely hard. They are well coached as well.
The only champion on defense is Derrick Harvey, who is also the player of the game. On offense, a champion was Eric Rutledge, our fullback, who is playing very well. He graded out at 88 percent. Kestahn Moore graded out at 92 percent and continues to play extremely hard. He got dinged up a little bit during the game and didn’t have a lot of carries in the second half but he is doing exactly what I have told him to do. He averaged 5.2 yards per carry and two catches. He has great hands and we are going to start getting him the ball more and be more involved in the pass game. He was also protecting the quarterback. Carlton Medder played well. We only had three champions to go along with our player of the game, Tim Tebow. He played 90 plays but he actually did not have his best game in many ways but as far as toughness, character and riding that horse, Tim played as good a game as I have seen a quarterback play in certain areas. As far as tenacity and toughness, I knew who we were going to go to win that game.
We have a big time game coming up. It is at 8 p.m. on national television. Our guys are excited about it and cannot wait to get involved in this week of preparation.
Tim Tebow
On Auburn
“Obviously, they are a very good team they’ve been upset a few times this year but that doesn’t take away from the ability and the athletes they have on their team. They are still one of the top teams in the SEC. They are very good and have a great defensive coordinator and they are going to play hard. Everybody is pretty focused on Auburn. It is a huge game and a game we look forward to before the season."
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