Florida Football: Studs, duds and thuds from Week 0 win over Miami

Florida football did come out with a win against Miami in Week 0, but it wasn’t pretty by any stretch of the imagination.

At the end of the day, there’s more to a game than just winning it. When all eyes are on you, you have to beat unranked teams convincingly. Florida football failed to do that against the Hurricanes in Week 0, but they still came out with the win.

So, where were the studs, duds, and thuds for the Gators? To elaborate: the stud was basically the MVP, the dud is something that didn’t go as well as expected, but not terrible, and the thud just didn’t go well at all. With that being said, here is what we’ve got for the Gators.

Stud: Florida’s defensive line

The defense lost a lot of key players last season, but their defensive line looks even better than last year. Although not all sacks came from linemen, getting 10 of them in a game is just absurd. The line simply gave Jarren Williams a hard time the entire game. He wasn’t comfortable from the start. By the end, he was either getting sacked or making a bad throw due to the pressure.

Florida’s strength on defense might be their line. If they continue to play like this, there is still hope for the season. They have the talent, depth and ability to make plays.

Dud: Feleipe Franks

Feleipe Franks had a pretty good game, but there were simply too many errors. He was a part of both fumbles, and he had two picks. The first simply bad luck when the ball went off the receiver’s hands, but the other was inexcusable. If you’re Franks, you can’t throw a pick late in the fourth quarter with the lead. If Miami’s offense was competent, Florida would have lost that game.

Now, there were some good things about the game for Franks. He showed abilities to extend drives with his legs. On fourth downs, he made the right decision. He also had a great pass to Josh Hammond in the fourth. However, most of the great plays by Florida weren’t on him. If Florida wants to contend in the SEC East, Franks will have to play better.

Thud: Florida’s tackling ability

The struggles for the Gators were obvious. You can’t win games convincingly if you can’t tackle wide receivers. It was like this was NCAA 14 and you were playing on freshman difficulty. Plays like that should be routine for any SEC team, but Florida just couldn’t wrap up Miami’s receivers.

Most of this falls on the secondary trying to make the big play, but the whole team struggled. If I were Dan Mullen, I would spend a lot of practice time this week focusing on the fundamentals of wrapping up.

The game was good for Florida to win, but they still have a long way to go if they want to have a chance to beat Georgia later in the year.