Opponent Defense Preview: Oh, right. Todd Grantham.

I will begin by allowing Dawg Sports to explain the concept of “3rd and Grantham.”

In all seriousness, if you go back and watch those scoring plays you’ll see Georgia receivers making plays in one-on-one coverage, and D’Andre Swift getting past an oncoming run blitz to find daylight behind it. That’s the live by the sword, die by the sword nature of Grantham’s attacking style. It’s not bad. When it works, it puts offenses back on their heels and can take over a game. But when the offense is able to execute against it and find the holes, big plays are going to be the result.

And that about sums up the Florida defense. On the whole, Florida’s defense is really good, one of the best in the country. The Gators are allowing 16.7 points per game, 11th in the country, and an average of 5.3 yards per play. To put 5.3 yards per play in perspective, Kentucky and Tennessee are both averaging 5.5 yards per play; so, Florida has turned its average opponent into something worse than a team playing a wide receiver at quarterback and Tennessee. (Seriously, though, don’t look up how many yards per play Vanderbilt is averaging.)

The team leader in tackles, by a pretty wide margin, is David Reese II, a linebacker. It’s normally a good sign when your leading tackler is a linebacker (and a not so good sign when your leading tackler is a safety, by the way.) Two more linebackers, Jonathan Greenard and Jeremiah Moon, have combined for seven sacks, and defensive lineman Jabari Zuniga, who seems like he has been at Florida for approximately seven years, has 13 tackles on the season — but seven of them have been behind the line of scrimmage.

And given the strength up front, it’s probably fairly easy on the defensive backs; CJ Henderson leads the team with nine pass breakups and the Gators have collected twelve interceptions on the season.

That said, remember that concept of “3rd and Grantham.” The Florida defense is basically strong, but when it glitches, it glitches hard.