Buster Faulkner says Florida's offense has gotten 'out of whack'

Buster Faulkner has watched Florida’s offense drift from explosive to erratic over the past two weeks, and he does not shy away from describing the unit as “out of whack.”

The Gators’ offensive coordinator traced the decline to small execution errors, lost opportunities and an inability to stay ahead of the chains. Without the explosive plays that powered Florida’s undefeated start, those mistakes have snowballed into stalled drives, protection problems and turnovers.

Faulkner also evaluated Aaron Philo’s performance, discussed the impact of Vernell Brown III’s absence and previewed a talented Texas defense coordinated by his former coach and colleague, Will Muschamp.

Here’s everything Faulkner had to say.

Why has Florida’s offense stopped producing at its previous level?

I think there are several things, starting with probably eight plays where, to the naked eye, you wouldn’t see the lack of execution. I thought those really snowballed into some other things that we could have prevented.

We’ve got to do a great job of being detail-oriented. This time of year, you cut back on some reps. When you’re not in, you’ve got to be locked in to the guy in front of you getting the rep.

There are a lot of details that, during the first few weeks, we either got away with or overcame because we were explosive.

When you aren’t explosive, like we haven’t been the past couple of weeks, you’ve got to be extremely detail-oriented because you have to stack plays — 5 yards, 6 yards and 8 yards.

That’s some of it. Some of it is that maybe we got outplayed.

How can the offense counter defenses aggressively playing the run?

They were playing the run aggressively with their front six and getting depth on the back end. I think they were probably trying to take away the big shot plays, which we weren’t able to get to because of the way the game unfolded.

We had some early in the game that we wanted to get to. On one we did, they dropped way out from underneath it. The back didn’t get out into the route, so that’s why the defender was able to fall off and make the play.

We’ve just got to execute better. That’s the bottom line and where it starts. We’ve got to do a good job of putting our guys in positions to succeed. That’s another area where we’re going to place a lot of focus.

We’ve got to do what we’re good at, and we’ve got to play at our pace. We were the aggressor early on, and we’ve got to get back to that.

How are you trying to restore the offense’s confidence?

That’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to get the confidence back. I would say that I’m usually always fiery, but that’s a good group in there. We’ve gotten out of whack, and we’ve got to find a way to get that back.

That starts with me and our staff getting our guys going. But I have full confidence that we’re going to get this thing rolling in the right direction.

We’re starting to get Eric (Singleton) back. He has been able to practice this week, which has been really good. He hadn’t practiced and really just played in the game. I think getting some continuity there will hopefully ignite us because he is an explosive guy.

All good offenses have to be explosive. If you aren’t explosive, it goes back to what I said: You have to be able to put drives together.

There was one particular drive when we had to settle for a field goal. If we don’t have a missed assignment, I think we have a touchdown run.

We had a holding call that knocked us from what was going to be third-and-2 to second-and-17. Then, we got sacked and completely changed the field.

That isn’t complementary football. Before halftime, with four and a half minutes to go, we threw the interception. That isn’t complementary football. We can’t do that.

We’ve got to clean those things up, play complementary football and be able to win 27-24 or whatever the game looks like. That’s where we are right now.

Why has pass protection declined during the past two games?

It still goes back to being in long-yardage situations and having to play catch-up. That’s when defenses can pin their ears back and get after the quarterback.

As soon as you turn on the Oklahoma game, it’s the same thing. Texas was getting after their quarterback.

We’ve got to stay on schedule and be more detailed. When it’s second-and-8, we’ve got to make it third-and-4, not third-and-9.

When you’re playing catch-up in the second half, it also takes the entire play-action game out of the equation because they can pin their ears back.

I thought South Carolina was really talented at defensive end. That’s what we’ve got to stay out of.

Has Brown’s absence limited the playbook?

It doesn’t necessarily tie your hands. I think Bailey (Stockton) is an unbelievable football player. Everybody in that locker room will tell you the same thing.

But when you have VB, his explosiveness is unbelievable. His ball-in-hand game is really good.

Do we miss him? Yeah, we miss him. We love him and can’t wait to get him back, whenever that is. He’s working hard to return. That isn’t the reason, but he’s a great player. You always love having great players out there.

Does having the receiver room at full strength help the offensive line?

You might be overthinking it a little bit, but anytime you have guys who can do what he can do in this offense, it helps everything.

It takes pressure off the offensive line. You can get the ball out quickly because he can take a 1-yard throw and turn it into a big gain. Whenever he gets back, he’ll be ready to go.

How can Florida revive its downfield passing game?

Some of it is staying on schedule. We had some shots we wanted to get to early in the game. With the way they were playing us, you saw on the interception how deep they were and how they were getting underneath all that stuff.

You felt that they wanted to take that away. That made the horizontal passing game good for us. We were getting 6, 7 or 8 yards. If they’re going to give us that, we’ve just got to take it.

Do we want to get the downfield part of our game going? Yes, we want to get it going. We’ve got to stay ahead of the chains, play complementary football and get ourselves into good field position.

We had the ball at the 40 on, I think, the third drive of the game, and we went backward. That’s where you want to push it downfield. We potentially could have had something right there.

We want to get it going. But if they’re going to play way over the top, we’ve got to find other windows as well.

How would you evaluate Philo’s performance against South Carolina?

Honestly, other than probably three plays — and I know that sounds crazy because you can’t turn the ball over and that changes everything — he really played within himself.

He was throwing the ball on time and taking what the defense gave him. I thought he looked more comfortable this week and was seeing it much better than the week before.

He had done a good job protecting the ball until that one throw. I think the other two interceptions early in the season weren’t really on him.

He would obviously like to have that one back. The fumble was crucial because you’re going in there, and I think it would have been an 11-point game with 13 minutes and 20-something seconds to go.

But he plays extremely hard and smart. He has done a lot of really good things. He’s still only seven games into being a starter in this league. He has a lot of football left to play.

How is Philo handling his first two-game losing streak as a starter?

He’s a mentally tough kid. He wouldn’t be here if he weren’t mentally tough, so he’s handling it fine. It’s not just the quarterback. I get it. It’s the most important position in all of sports.

But we have a lot of things to clean up. He has things to clean up. I have things to clean up. We have things to clean up. There were some other things around him that, to the naked eye, you wouldn’t be able to tell cost us either points or the continuation of a drive.

We’ve got to clean things up all around him. That’s where we are today.

How important is accounting for Texas edge rusher Colin Simmons?

They know where those guys are, and that’s on me. There was one last week when, if we had a chip call on No. 6, Aaron was getting ready to throw a dig to Dallas on third-and-15. The design was there.

I probably should have had a chip call on. If we had the chip call on, I think we pick up a first down. It’s the same way this week. We’ve got to know where Simmons is.

But it’s really their entire defensive line. It’s a really, really good defense with a stout front. We’ve got to know where all of them are, strain up front, finish blocks and sustain them. That has to show back up to what it was early in the season.

How are you addressing the recent dropped passes?

We’re still going to throw it. We’ve had a couple of drops, and those hurt drives. Again, it goes back to some of the self-inflicted stuff.

One was going to make it third-and-2. Instead, it was third-and-8. Then, we didn’t squeeze the protection on the next play, and we got sacked. That totally flipped the field position. We could have been facing third-and-2. Instead, we were punting on fourth-and-whatever-it-was, around 20.

Those are the things you’ve got to eliminate. Play good football and give yourself a chance. Then, you’re right there in it, and you’ve got to find a way to win the game 24-20 or whatever it is.

We’ve got to play better complementary football as a whole. Everybody has to understand that this is the SEC. It’s a real league. It isn’t going to get any easier. I can assure you of that.

How do you restore the offense’s early-season identity?

Show them what we’ve done. Go back and say, “Let’s get back to playing like this and finishing.”

Explosive plays often happen because of an extra-effort block. We’re showing them a lot of that stuff. We’ve got to return to that and play with confidence.

The biggest thing is understanding that there’s going to be adversity during games. During those first four games, we were rolling and didn’t punt much. When you get into games like we’ve had the past couple of weeks, you have to be able to pull yourself out of that rut.

I thought it really started both weeks right before halftime. This week, we got the ball back and were able to go down and give ourselves a chance to score points, but it was the drive before that.

Then, we came out for the second half and had a good drive. We got the ball back and didn’t do anything with it. It has really started during the middle eight for us. Then, during the second half of the third quarter and throughout the fourth quarter, we’re trying to play catch-up.

We’ve got to keep ourselves out of that situation the best we can.

What is the trademark of a Will Muschamp defense?

I’ve known him since I was 19 years old. I’ve known him for a long time and have a lot of respect for him. He’s a great football coach. His fire, intensity and passion show up on film. His players are going to play hard. That’s the No. 1 testament of a coach, and that’s what they’re doing.

What do you remember about playing for Muschamp?

I was actually the scout-team quarterback during his first year. He was the same way he is now. He had a lot of fire, passion and energy. He loves football. Again, he eats, breathes and sleeps it.

He has always had really good defenses. Even back then, he had good defenses. He would get really mad at me.

Have you faced Muschamp as an opposing coach before?

This will maybe be the first time I’ve ever gone against him. Obviously, I played when he was the coach and then worked with him for three years. I have a lot of respect for him.

How can the offense help its offensive line?

It goes back to the design of the run game. Being able to throw the ball downfield or get the ball to the edges on early downs has to be part of it.

It doesn’t all fall on the offensive line. The tight ends are involved in the run game and are a crucial part of what we do offensively.

The quarterback has to make the correct read in the run game. The running backs have to press it and hit the right holes. There are a lot of things we’ve got to do to get back to where we were.

I told the guys that I don’t even remember the final numbers, but I think we had around 140 rushing yards. Really, that came during about two-and-a-half quarters because of what we were trying to do the rest of the time.

Tramell had a couple of late scrambles, so you tack those on. Then, we lost, I think, 26 yards on sacks. The numbers can be a little deceiving. If you’re playing four quarters the way we want to play, that probably looks more like 180 or 190 yards, and you’re in the game.

That’s the complementary football I’m talking about that you’ve got to be able to play in this league. Right now, that’s missing, and we’ve got to figure it out.

Are defenses identifying Florida’s presnap tendencies?

I’m extremely mindful of tendencies — what we call birds and rabbits. Are we giving something away with a stance?

Third down is a little different. We look at it and study it. We study our tight ends’ alignments and our backs’ alignments.

One thing people say is that it’s difficult to find tendencies in our alignments. It doesn’t look to me like there are any. It’s easy to say, “They’ve got something on us.” Well, they did. They lined up, played a four-down front and got after us. That’s really what it was. They simplified their defense. Give them credit.

But as far as tendencies go, we’re always studying them to determine whether we have any tells. Right now, it’s difficult to say that we have any.

Does your familiarity with Muschamp help this week?

I wouldn’t say he has any tendencies from that standpoint. This is his first time being a defensive coordinator in a while. He was the head coach at South Carolina, and somebody else called the defense.

He’s a defensive-minded guy, but those defenses looked different from what he’s doing now. He didn’t call it at the last place he was, but he was heavily involved in everything that went on.

He’s going to adapt to his players and staff and take input, I’m sure, from other guys who have been there. Blake Gideon was the defensive coordinator where I was last year. You see some of the things he has done in the past.

Will is going to make it a collaborative effort with the guys around him and do what’s best for the players.

Does the horizontal passing game increase the importance of perimeter blocking?

Getting the ball out on the edge has produced some of our better drives because the guys have gotten it in space. I don’t think we’ve blocked as well as we did earlier in the season. That has been a point of emphasis this week.

You can be explosive getting the ball to the perimeter. We’ve seen ourselves do that. It’s the blocking, extra effort, strain and sustain — all the things it takes to be explosive. That’s a major point of emphasis, and it’s going to be part of who we are.

You see it throughout college football. Good teams get the ball to their guys in space because you want them to affect the game as much as possible.

How will Florida replace the injured Duke Clark at running back?

London Montgomery and Evan Pryor are two really good backs. Their numbers have to be called, and they’re going to be called this week.

They’ve both played a little bit here and there. They played a lot at the places they were before, so they have experience.

You’ve seen London in the return game and how explosive he can be. Injuries are part of it. We’ll miss Duke, but somebody else has to step up.

How is Philo handling the losses with Texas and Georgia approaching?

Losing isn’t fun. One thing about him is that he takes it personally. That's why I like him. The past two weeks haven’t been fun for anybody. That isn’t what any of us want.

He knows he’s the quarterback of the football team and that it all starts with him. That’s just the reality of the position. I don’t want it any other way, and he doesn’t want it any other way.

He’s only going to get better and better. All young quarterbacks get better if they stay with it. The tough ones make it through, and I fully anticipate him doing that.

Was the third-and-5 quarterback run a missed opportunity to be more aggressive?

That’s one of the execution plays I was talking about. If we execute it, that’s going to be a big run.

That isn’t necessarily the aggressive part I’m talking about because it was one of the plays we really liked in that situation.

If we fit it up, it has a chance to be really big. It goes back to doing everything correctly at practice. That’s one of the plays that bothered me.

What can Florida improve in its two-minute offense?

Right before halftime, we threw the interception. They got the ball and scored. They still had two timeouts. The biggest thing you can’t do when playing complementary football is give it back to them with a chance to score another touchdown before halftime, especially against an explosive offense.

We wanted to get a first down before we got going. We got to second-and-2 and were going to run it, get the first down and get moving. We didn’t get the first down. At that point, you have to take a little clock and make sure you move the chains so you don’t give it back to them. That was the thought behind it.

Once we got the first down, we got going. We were able to move downfield and give ourselves a chance to kick a field goal. I thought we executed that phase the way we wanted.

We would have liked for it to happen on the second-and-2 run because then we would have been able to get into it sooner, but we didn’t.

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This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Buster Faulkner says Florida's offense has gotten 'out of whack'