Florida Football: Gator assistant coaches get a mixed bag of report cards

As 2022 comes to a close and the dust from the Las Vegas Bowl and Early Signing Day have settled, it is time to take a comprehensive look at the positives and negatives from Florida football this past season.  After going 6-7 on 2021 with a dumpster fire of a team, it didn’t seem possible that Gators could go 6-7 again.

Well, they did.

It’s a big reason why On3 gave Billy Napier a D+ for his first year in Gainesville.

We here at Hail Florida Hail will hold off on our Napier grade until later this week, because we first want to look at Napier’s assistants.

First we will look at the defensive side led by Patrick Toney. Grading assistant coaches can be tough because:

1. We are evaluating units with players they didn’t recruit

2. We can’t say 100% if a unit is simply a byproduct of the greater defense around it

What we are looking at is overall improvement in a unit and how recruiting has gone for that position heading into 2023.

Florida Football: Defense wins championships

There are not a lot of pretty stats for the Florida football defense, so we are going to have to dig to find some bright spots. Relative to the rest of the stats for the Gators, the defensive line ranking 84th in sacks per passing attempt is actually one of the higher stats for the defense.

The defensive line was by no means lights out, and Gervon Dexter didn’t feel like as big of an impact as he could have been. But Spencer seemed to get the most out of guys like Desmond Watson and Princely Umanmielen. And it felt like the defensive line could flush QBs out of the pocket, there just wasn’t any backup to bring them down.

Kelby Collins is also coming next year, so that helps boost our grade for Coach Spencer.

If you are honest with yourself, the corners for Florida football this year weren’t great. Jason Marshall never took the next step and Avery Helm and Jalen Kimber were cast aside for Jaydon Hill despite his struggles.

Knowing Corey Raymond came to the Gators as one of the most renowned coaches in the country makes this grade hard to assign. The DBs for Florida were routinely seven or more yards off the line of scrimmage, but was that due to Raymond or Toney?

We don’t know the answer for sure.

What we do know is Raymond has secured a bevy of incoming talent, led by his flip of Dijon Johnson. He also couldn’t quite secure Cormani McClain, though that might have been out of his hands.

The inside linebackers for Florida football were a mess before Jay Bateman got to town, so it isn’t fair to pin all the problems of the unit on him. The only truly competent inside linebacker Florida had all year was Ventrell Miller, who committed to Florida when Jim McElwain was still the coach.

When Miller wasn’t on the field, the Gators looked completely lost on how to line up and it almost cost them against USF.

Freshman Shemar James did show signs of development though, which is why we give Bateman a passing grade.

Barely.

Florida has only signed one linebacker for 2023, Jaden Robinson, and he is the 3rd lowest rated player in the recruiting class for Florida.

As the outside linebacker coach, does the conflict with Brenton Cox fall on Mike Peterson or elsewhere? What was odd was that prior to Cox being dismissed from the team, he seemed like he was having actual growth in his game.

But if we dive deeper into the roles Peterson is assigned, he is also the “Alumni Liaison.”

Remember the issue Brandon Spikes had being removed from the sidelines at a game? Oops.

Peterson is credited with T.J. Searcy’s recruitment, so he barely hangs on to a passing grade.

We haven’t actually failed any unit of Florida football prior to getting to Patrick Toney, so can we place all the blame on him?

Yes, yes we can.

Because in addition to being the defensive coordinator, Toney is also listed as the safeties coach.

Guess who would have worked directly with Trey Dean and Kamari Wilson all season, and still opted to play Dean?

The stats for Toney are as ugly as they get, the worst being Florida’s third down defense being the worst.

And at the core problem for the defense was that it didn’t have anyone who could wreck plays one-on-one, but it constantly set up in safe cover-three zones waiting for someone to do just that.

As noted earlier, corners routinely were over seven yards off the ball. Motions would easily identify the defense Florida football was in. Blitz packages were nonexistent. Safety help was nonexistent. The usage of a QB spy was nonexistent.

We can gripe about aspects of the Gators offense, but the reality is that with a defense that was even average the Gators go at least 9-3 this season.

Toney just felt like he was in over his head and never seemed to even try and make adjustments while the sky was falling.

And while Florida is having success on the defensive side with recruiting, Jordan Castell, the 9th highest rated recruit for The Gators, is the highest rated recruit where Toney is listed as the primary recruiter.