Florida football: Five things the Gators must do to beat Utah

Florida football keys to victory: Patrick Toney knows what he is doing

If you want free points on the internet, just say “Something something Todd Grantham” and call yourself a Florida Gators expert. Since Grantham is gone, we can’t blame him if things go south on Saturday. Among the myriad of problems Grantham had was not trusting his highly rated players to do things highly rated players can do (like having Kaiir Elam play 10-yards off the line of scrimmage).

New defensive coordinator Patrick Toney came to Florida from Louisiana with Napier and on paper deploys his personnel properly. Heading into Saturday the one area where Florida’s defense should have a defined advantage over Utah’s offense is the defensive backs vs wide receiver matchup.

Knowing so much of Utah’s offense sticks within 10-yards of the line of scrimmage and around the middle of the field, the question for Toney is if he trusts his cornerbacks to be in one-on-one matchups with little safety help.

Florida needs to load the box in the beginning and challenge Utah to beat them. If Utah starts beating Florida over the top with a single-high safety, Florida is probably doomed anyway because the Utes will tear the Gators apart in the run game if Florida opts for a softer two-safety, cover-two type look.