Tebow is good to go

[TheTodd]

Urban Meyer dismissed reports that Tim Tebow has missed practice the last week because of an injured back Saturday morning after the Gators officially ended the two-a-days portion of preseason preparation. Monday, classes begin at the University of Florida and football practice will be relegated to the afternoons.

Throughout the week there have been rumors that Tebow’s back has been so sore that he couldn’t practice but Meyer said that’s not the case at all.

“Tim Tebow has not missed practice at all,” Meyer said. “He’s been held out of live situations against the defense mostly to get Johnny Brantley reps. His lower back was a little sore. He’s fine, 100 percent. We also held (Brandon) Spikes out of some live stuff. That’s what you do this time of the year. I think Jermaine Cunningham, too, we backed off. Everybody’s 100 percent healthy.”

Meyer equated what’s been done with Tebow and Spikes to the same thing that happens in spring practice.

“When you get near the end of spring practice those four and five year starter guys you put them on the shelf,” Meyer said. “I did that with Brandon James a little bit today, too. I’ve seen enough. I want to see those other guys play.”

The effect of Tebow missing live drills has been improvement in backup quarterback John Brantley.

“Johnny has taken a lot of snaps the last two days,” Meyer said. “He’s made a lot of progress. He’s close to being a quarterback. I like his attitude.”

Now that the two-a-days phase is over, the Gators will move back to the Sanders Practice Fields starting Monday, which coincides with school starting at UF. Meyer said he will be glad to get back into the practice routine the Gators will be going through every week during the season.

He also noted that he got the tough preseason camp he wanted.

“Our whole feeling is you need to feel bad before you feel good and I want our guys to feel like they’ve been hammered and they’ve been hammered pretty good,” Meyer said. “Our goal was to make this the most difficult camp there was and I think we’ve done that. It’s officially over. We’re going to meet this afternoon, lift and then they’re off. They’re going to get close to a 48-hour break until 2:10 Monday afternoon. We’ve accomplished our mission and now we have to get game ready. We’re not game ready yet.”

Meyer wouldn’t go so far as to say all the preseason goals were accomplished, but the two main goals were reached.

“I wanted to make a hard camp and make sure we build a little chemistry on our team and we’ve done that,” he said. “I would never say we’ve accomplished everything. We’ll see. That’s to be determined.”

NO INTENTION TO DISS ZOOK: Meyer’s comments Friday morning were widely interpreted as criticism of former Florida coach Ron Zook, who was the head coach of the Gators prior to Meyer’s arrival in January of 2005. Meyer said that was not the intention.

“It was about the way the locker room was set up,” Meyer said. “Our staff has never been critical of any staff. I think the question was about Miami’s fight, which I don’t know anything about. I just said that we had fights here a lot because of the way the locker room was in the past. It’s not that way anymore because the locker room has been changed.”

NUMBER ONE BY THE WIDEST MARGIN EVER: The Gators are the number one team in the nation to start the season in both the coaches and now the Associated Press polls. When the AP poll was released Saturday, it was Florida by the widest margin ever.

Meyer said, “I’m humbled and it’s a credit to recruiting. That’s good players in the program. Everything else is over-rated.”

SATURDAY SCRIMMAGE: The Gators ran a long scrimmage Saturday under game conditions with players running on and off the field, punts, kickoffs and with a full set of officials. With most of the battles for starting positions sewn up, there were still a few places where there is some competition going on.

“There’s a nice little battle between Jaye Howard and Terron Sanders for that three technique spot,” Meyer said. “(Nose tackle Lawrence) Marsh got better today. I saw Deonte (Thompson, wide receiver) make a couple of plays. (Wide receiver Riley) Cooper made a couple of plays.”

FLEXIBILITY WITH BJ: Meyer said he finally has the personnel so he can diversify the role Brandon James has in the offense. James has seen some offensive reps in the past couple of years, but Meyer has been hesitant to give too many plays to his All-American kick returner because of personnel issues.This year, with Chris Rainey, Jeff Demps and Joe Haden available to run back punts and kicks. Meyer said he has the flexibility to use James more in the offense.

“Remember our first year we really struggled back there,” Meyer said. “Last year Brandon James probably earned more right on offense but when you talk about team concept and risk, we needed him more in the return game. Now we’re going to play him a little bit more on offense because we have some guys who can handle the ball back there.”

OVER ON DEFENSE: The Gators return so many starters and veterans (top 22 on the two-deep and 32 of the 35 that traveled last year) that defensive coordinator Charlie Strong has been able to add more looks and more blitz packages to the defensive package.

“They have installed some stuff,” Meyer said. “We have more stuff than we’ve ever had on defense. The reason you have the complexity is because we have a lot of veterans. We have some really good coaches over there. At the end of the day, I’d say the defense had the better half of this two a day camp.”

The ability to make the defense more complex has a lot to do with the kind of personnel he has at safety, where Meyer keeps saying he has four starters. Starters Major Wright and Ahmad Black along with backups Will Hill and Dorian Munroe will all be on the field a lot as the Gators rotate players in and out depending on the formations they are seeing.

The questions about the safeties keep popping up due to reports that Hill has elevated his game to new levels. The sophomore from New Jersey played extensively in Florida’s nickel packages last season.

“Will Hill’s a starter,” Meyer said. “Last year Percy (Harvin), (Louis) Murphy (Riley) Cooper and (Aaron) Hernandez were starters [at wide receiver]. It depended on the formation. Will he [Hill] beat out Major Wright or Ahmad Black or Dorian Munroe? They’re starters, so they’ll all play.”

IMPROVING THE SPREAD: With so many teams running variations of the spread offenses, defenses are catching up somewhat. When Meyer arrived at Florida the talk was that the spread wouldn’t work, especially in the SEC, because of all the speed on defense. At least eight teams on Florida’s schedule this year will run some variation of the spread so it’s obvious the offense will work. Since Florida already runs the spread, defending it is less of a problem since the defense has to go against that offense every day in practice.

“The good thing is we’ve defended it but the negative is these teams have defended it as well and the defensive coaches have done a much better job in the last few years because they see it’s not a novelty,” Meyer said. “It used to be a novelty offense.”

To stay ahead of the curve with their own offensive scheme, the Gators have been looking for ways to tweak what they do to stay ahead of the curve. During the August practices the Gators have been adding a hurry-up package similar to what Oklahoma used last year. That means lots of no-huddle looks with the idea of snapping plays off so quickly that defenses can’t change their personnel packages to adjust.

“If we had to prepare for that in two days I don’t have any idea how you stop that,” Meyer said. “You can see that in the points they score. You’re going to see a little bit of that in our offense as well. I really admired the way they did that. It’s not a novelty anymore. You have to be better coaching offense and our defense obviously works on that every day in practice.”

Oklahoma had some success against Florida’s offense in the BCS National Championship Game so Meyer expects to see some variations of the defense by opponents this year.

“All you have to do is see teams doing a good job pressuring us,” he said. “Oklahoma did a fine job and I’m sure everybody in the country has seen that video tape. We spend a lot of time on how teams have successfully defended us and I’m sure everybody’s pulling that off the tape.”

[Toothy]

Thanks, Todd.

[MinGator]

Thanks, Todd.