Wink Martindale’s choice of gear while coaching in the Citrus Bowl is reflective of the professionalism of the Moore era.
Much credit to Cristobal, his staff and players. They were very well prepared, had a great plan and the personnel to attack the weak points on the offensive front and create havoc in the backfield and get after Sayin. Late in the 2nd qtr we completely abandoned the zone run game, swapped out 3 RG before finally getting some traction running more gap schemes and providing a credible play action threat to be able to get the ball downfield. As Day has pointed out all year, "the issues are always there" and the deeper you go into the season you either get them corrected or they will be exposed and attacked by the teams with the staff and personnel to take advantage. It's been no secret all year that our OL was the weak link, uncertain if they were championship caliber and that question was answered in back to back games. Def something to be said for the downside of the teams with a bye week. It seems they are 0-5 in the new CFP era. Hard to simulate the intensity and physicality of a play off game on the practice field without putting your kids at risk. Tough balance there, while we did benefit by having an extra week to heal up some nicks and bruises, it was clear we didn't get our game footing until well into the 2nd qtr. No "bad Beck" moments in this game. He played well and when pressured, made good use of his legs to get key first downs and was very effective in the quick pass game. Completely unexpected by me and seemingly our staff as we rarely seemed to "spy" him as we would typically do for a QB with a running threat, hats off to him. Key first downs were critical late when we had recaptured the momentum allowing them to finish down the stretch. Well done young man