Champ wants improved mental effort
Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2011 7:35 am
Almost all of the news out of the first week of Florida’s fall training camp was glowingly positive, but on Saturday night a somewhat tired-looking Will Muschamp finally expressed some concerns he has with the team.
“Pleased with our physical effort, but not pleased with our mental effort as much,” he said. “A lot of mental mistakes and things we’ve got to get cleaned up and reduced on both sides as far as making sure our guys are playing fast, playing physical.”
Much of that is to be expected with a young team learning new schemes on both sides of the ball.
In fact, it’s somewhat surprising it took a full week for Muschamp to voice his concerns. But he was careful to stress it’s not the effort he’s concerned about.
“I’m pleased with the effort, we need to get better mentally,” he said.
The concerns are normal for most teams, as the dead heat of August beating down on practice can be overwhelming at times.
Being 13 scholarships below the NCAA limit has also taken its toll, as individual players are being asked to do more at several positions due to the short depth chart.
“It’s a little frustrating just because we’re thin with our numbers on both lines of scrimmage,” Muschamp said. “We’re pushing through that and I think the guys have worked hard, we just, mentally, I think we need to be sharper, we need to be mentally tougher in training camp.”
Muschamp outlined a few areas he’d like to see Florida improve, and most of them were on the defensive side of the ball.
While linebackers Jelani Jenkins and Jon Bostic have been impressive at the weak-side and middle linebacker positions, the Gators are still desperately searching for a starting strong-side linebacker and depth behind them.
“We’ve got to build more depth behind those two guys,” Muschamp said. “We’re not where we need to be there.”
One player has switched positions to help provide some depth at linebacker. Two days ago, Muschamp took true freshman safety Chris Johnson and put him at linebacker.
“He’s a physical guy, done a nice job with his physicality, his play,” Muschamp said. “But we just moved him two days ago. He’s still having a hard time getting lined up. But when he does, he plays. He strikes, he hits, he runs.”
Another area that hasn’t quite been up to par is the safety position. Muschamp is pleased with the play of Matt Elam and said Josh Shaw and Jaylen Watkins have been good as backups, but he’d like to get a little more out of Josh Evans.
“Josh Evans is, mentally, we’ve got to get our assignments down and how we play and how we communicate,” he said. “It’s so critical at that position.”
Finally, the head coach sees some lingering issues with the pass rush. That was one of Florida’s biggest struggles a year ago.
The Gators looked to have solved it in spring practice, but that was against a severely depleted offensive line.
Now that Florida’s offensive line is healthy and building some depth, the defensive front is struggling a little more.
Muschamp credited some of that to the offensive line, but reiterated the defensive line must improve in the pass rush.
“We’ve got to get more consistent rushing,” he said. “I think we’ve gotten a good push inside at times with Dominique (Easley) and Jaye (Howard), and Sharrif (Floyd) has done some nice things. But again, it’s just not consistently winning the one-on-ones. I don’t know that we’re winning the one-on-ones consistently enough.”
That’s something Muschamp’s defense will rely on heavily in 2011, particularly with such a young secondary.
If the Gators can’t pressure the quarterback, the Florida defense could be in big trouble in the new head coach’s first season at the helm.
“You’ve got to be able to pressure with four guys,” Muschamp said. “That’s something that when we’ve been able to affect the quarterback, we’ve had four good ones rushing up front. Whoever got the one-on-one was going to win.”
With his team struggling a little bit with the mental part of the game, Muschamp and his staff have continued to evaluate what they want to do as a team.
They’ve been picking and pulling certain parts of the schemes out and throwing them away.
“That’s a fine line,” he said. “You can’t do so much your players are confused. We’re right now weeding things out of what we do to get our guys to play fast and get them ready for the season.”
The head coach thinks it’s critical to not overwhelm his players, and that’s been an emphasis since spring practice.
“What I don’t want to do during the season is install new stuff each week,” he said. “That makes for a slow player on Saturday. We need to install for the season. So we’ve game-planned, we’ve looked at all of our opponents so we have an idea within our scheme what we need to do to be successful. With that being said, we’re trying to pare down right now where we are.”
The first week of practice is in the books, and Muschamp is ready to move on to the second.
“It was pretty quick,” Muschamp said. “There’s been some days out there it’s felt like long. But I’ve been pretty pleased with the effort overall. Up and down a little bit, a little inconsistent, but I’m pleased with where we are.”
“Pleased with our physical effort, but not pleased with our mental effort as much,” he said. “A lot of mental mistakes and things we’ve got to get cleaned up and reduced on both sides as far as making sure our guys are playing fast, playing physical.”
Much of that is to be expected with a young team learning new schemes on both sides of the ball.
In fact, it’s somewhat surprising it took a full week for Muschamp to voice his concerns. But he was careful to stress it’s not the effort he’s concerned about.
“I’m pleased with the effort, we need to get better mentally,” he said.
The concerns are normal for most teams, as the dead heat of August beating down on practice can be overwhelming at times.
Being 13 scholarships below the NCAA limit has also taken its toll, as individual players are being asked to do more at several positions due to the short depth chart.
“It’s a little frustrating just because we’re thin with our numbers on both lines of scrimmage,” Muschamp said. “We’re pushing through that and I think the guys have worked hard, we just, mentally, I think we need to be sharper, we need to be mentally tougher in training camp.”
Muschamp outlined a few areas he’d like to see Florida improve, and most of them were on the defensive side of the ball.
While linebackers Jelani Jenkins and Jon Bostic have been impressive at the weak-side and middle linebacker positions, the Gators are still desperately searching for a starting strong-side linebacker and depth behind them.
“We’ve got to build more depth behind those two guys,” Muschamp said. “We’re not where we need to be there.”
One player has switched positions to help provide some depth at linebacker. Two days ago, Muschamp took true freshman safety Chris Johnson and put him at linebacker.
“He’s a physical guy, done a nice job with his physicality, his play,” Muschamp said. “But we just moved him two days ago. He’s still having a hard time getting lined up. But when he does, he plays. He strikes, he hits, he runs.”
Another area that hasn’t quite been up to par is the safety position. Muschamp is pleased with the play of Matt Elam and said Josh Shaw and Jaylen Watkins have been good as backups, but he’d like to get a little more out of Josh Evans.
“Josh Evans is, mentally, we’ve got to get our assignments down and how we play and how we communicate,” he said. “It’s so critical at that position.”
Finally, the head coach sees some lingering issues with the pass rush. That was one of Florida’s biggest struggles a year ago.
The Gators looked to have solved it in spring practice, but that was against a severely depleted offensive line.
Now that Florida’s offensive line is healthy and building some depth, the defensive front is struggling a little more.
Muschamp credited some of that to the offensive line, but reiterated the defensive line must improve in the pass rush.
“We’ve got to get more consistent rushing,” he said. “I think we’ve gotten a good push inside at times with Dominique (Easley) and Jaye (Howard), and Sharrif (Floyd) has done some nice things. But again, it’s just not consistently winning the one-on-ones. I don’t know that we’re winning the one-on-ones consistently enough.”
That’s something Muschamp’s defense will rely on heavily in 2011, particularly with such a young secondary.
If the Gators can’t pressure the quarterback, the Florida defense could be in big trouble in the new head coach’s first season at the helm.
“You’ve got to be able to pressure with four guys,” Muschamp said. “That’s something that when we’ve been able to affect the quarterback, we’ve had four good ones rushing up front. Whoever got the one-on-one was going to win.”
With his team struggling a little bit with the mental part of the game, Muschamp and his staff have continued to evaluate what they want to do as a team.
They’ve been picking and pulling certain parts of the schemes out and throwing them away.
“That’s a fine line,” he said. “You can’t do so much your players are confused. We’re right now weeding things out of what we do to get our guys to play fast and get them ready for the season.”
The head coach thinks it’s critical to not overwhelm his players, and that’s been an emphasis since spring practice.
“What I don’t want to do during the season is install new stuff each week,” he said. “That makes for a slow player on Saturday. We need to install for the season. So we’ve game-planned, we’ve looked at all of our opponents so we have an idea within our scheme what we need to do to be successful. With that being said, we’re trying to pare down right now where we are.”
The first week of practice is in the books, and Muschamp is ready to move on to the second.
“It was pretty quick,” Muschamp said. “There’s been some days out there it’s felt like long. But I’ve been pretty pleased with the effort overall. Up and down a little bit, a little inconsistent, but I’m pleased with where we are.”