Florida Football: Gators got after the quarterback in 2016

There are 31 days till college football season, and today we’re talking about the most important aspect of football: Getting after the quarterback.

The Florida football team has been built around defense for a long time, but never more so than the last few years. Without sugarcoating it, Florida’s offense was terrible last season. They were forced to ride the defense’s coattails all season, and somehow the defense carried them all the way to an SEC East title.

And that leads us to no. 31 on the Southbound and Down College Football Countdown.

Florida Gators had 31 sacks last season

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Florida’s 31 sacks last season ranked fourth in the SEC, behind Alabama, LSU, and Texas A&M, and ranked 38th in the country. The Gators got multiple sacks in 7 of their 13 games last season and racked up of four or more sacks four different times.

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Florida had seven sacks in their 32-0 dismantling of North Texas. And they got five sacks in their 45-7 win over Kentucky and their 20-7 win over South Carolina.

However, in the final four games of the season, against LSU, Florida State, Alabama, and Iowa, the Gators managed only four sacks, including a goose egg against the Seminoles.

It’s difficult to put a number on how many returning starters Florida has on defense. They had seven players from their defense drafted in the 2017 NFL Draft, but they had a lot of guys who gained some valuable experience.

There are 14 players on this year’s defense that started at least one game last season, and 12 that started multiple games. There are six players on this year’s team that started at least six games last season, including Duke Dawson, CeCe Jefferson, Nick Washington, Kylan Johnson, and Jordan Sherit.

And one of their starters, Marcell Harris, who led the Gators in tackles last season, will miss the entire season because of an achilles injury.

Next: Jim McElwain stepping up on the recruiting trail

If this year’s defense can come anywhere close to resembling last year’s defense, it could be another good year for Florida football.