Roman Harper, Cole Cubelic call out season-opening effort from Florida

Roman Harper and Cole Cubelic from “Read and React” joined their SEC Network colleague Paul Finebaum Monday to share their thoughts on Florida’s ghastly season-opening performance.

Put simply, Harper and Cubelic called out the effort of the Gators, who lost at home to No. 19 Miami, 41-17, Saturday afternoon.

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“You got to have better effort on both sides of the ball,” said Harper, who starred as a safety at Alabama and then with the New Orleans Saints. “Florida has to play harder. You can’t have one guy miss a tackle and the running back run for 15, 20 yards just off the one guy. Where’s the rest of the guys that are running to the football?

“You got to overpopulate the football. I don’t think they played well. I thought they played hard early, but the moment it didn’t go well, it was ‘Eh, I guess it’s one of those.'”

Cubelic, who played center at Auburn before emerging as a voice in the SEC media landscape, offered his two cents as well.

“I have something that I reference as executional effort,” he said on The Paul Finebaum Show. “I think you can give good effort sometimes, but it has nothing to do with the play. You have to engage and go block somebody, you have to chase down a ball carrier and go tackle him. It can’t just be moving your hands fast or acting like you’re getting in front of somebody and then getting out of the way.”

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Florida, and especially head coach Billy Napier, has taken the brunt of college football criticism Sunday and Monday after the Gators’ embarrassing start to the season — against an in-state foe in a once-annual rivalry, no less.

Miami quarterback Cam Ward diced up the Florida secondary for 385 yards and a trio of touchdowns. The Gators allowed 11 plays of 20 or more yards, the most of any team that’s played only one game this season, and the 11 missed tackles they recorded — according to Pro Football Focus — certainly didn’t help.

Defensively, Florida hardly looked better than the team that allowed 38.3 points per game during its five-game skid to end last season. The Hurricanes poured on 529 yards of offense in their decisive win. And the Gators had two roughing the passer penalties further first-half drives, both of which ended in touchdowns.

To make matters worse, Florida starting quarterback Graham Mertz left the game in the third quarter and entered the concussion protocol. He was sacked three times and threw a pick.

Napier’s seat is getting hotter by the day. After earning the job on the back of three straight double-digit-win campaigns at Louisiana, he’s led Florida to six and five-win seasons the last two years. Saturday was hardly the start to the 2024 season he was looking for.