With four minutes left in the Florida/Vanderbilt game, Kaiir Elam intercepted a Ken Seals pass in the Florida end zone to effectively close out the Commodores. After the play, Elam displayed a symptom of the Gators’ defensive struggles this season. He lost big-picture focus and chose to dance. Chester Kimbrough followed Elam’s lead and danced, too. This type of behavior will draw an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty every single time. Both players have been around long enough to know better and Elam should be a leader. For some people the thought is “who cares?” with a 21 point lead late in a game. Honestly, that’s the point. Does an interception in a game against a 35 point underdog warrant excessive celebration? Is this defense so good it doesn’t need to maintain focus? Of course not, to both questions. The Vandy game was an opportunity for the Florida defense to take steps in the right direction. Instead, the Gators struggled to get lined up right, struggled to limit yards after contact (YAC), and somehow felt finger wagging and dancing were warranted after the occasional good defensive play.

The point is this Florida defense doesn’t execute the fundamentals well enough to lose focus and waste time on “swagger”. Offenses in college football today are complex. Being physically gifted on defense isn’t nearly enough. To compete, defenses must line up correctly and have all eleven guys playing “assignment football” as a unit. It’s necessary for players to understand down and distance, setting the edge, gap control, and where they have help and where they don’t. Getting to that point should be the full time job of this defense.

The Gator offense wasn’t especially crisp today, but played well enough deserve the win. Yet again, Kyle Trask was effective, spread the ball around and managed the offense well. Gator fans have grown accustomed to this luxury. Florida would’ve liked to have run the ball better, especially early in the game, but did enough to provide an adequate cushion for the defense. Kadarius Toney continues to be a feast or famine type player. Every time he touches the ball something overtly good or bad happens.

There are some likely contributing factors for the inconsistent play today. Florida used a completely different pregame ritual that included dressing at the team hotel and staying out on the field during halftime. The Gators also used a lot of different and younger players throughout the game on defense. On offense, true freshman, Josh Braun started at guard and sophomore Ethan White played important snaps.

Next week, the Kentucky Wildcats will provide greater challenges for the Florida defense than those created by Vandy. This will be especially true depending on the extent of Ventrell Miller’s injury and the availability of Jeremiah Moon. Playing in the Swamp and Kyle Pitt’s return should both help a great deal.