As the Florida Gators prepare for Saturday’s contest against Vanderbilt, offensive coordinator Kurt Roper met with the media Tuesday for his weekly press conference. The offense looks for continued success after a big weekend against Georgia. The Gators ran for 418 yards rushing and while they had 27 yards passing, Florida only turned the ball over once. More will be expected of the passing game going forward, and Vanderbilt’s defensive line will present a challenge for a Gator offense looking to add an aerial attack.

Here is some of what Roper had to say:

The ease of play calling on Saturday:

“Well, you know, I don’t know that I look at it in terms of easy. It was just… there was a small sampling of plays, I guess. There weren’t a whole lot of choices that we were going to or even discussing at that point. It was different in that fact. The menu was smaller.”

The satisfaction of defeating Georgia:

“It’s fun to win football games, I guess is the best way to answer that question. It’s hard. Anywhere you’ve ever been, it’s just hard to win games. When you go out and win the game, really simply by running the football, it makes it even more of a challenge. I guess I was just impressed with the way our guys played and the way they competed, the energy and, shoot, just played with great passion. I was appreciative more than anything else. It was good to get with those guys.”

Florida’s defense stopping Georgia on third-and-short:

“Yeah. That’s huge. It’s a big part of the game because every game changes. An interesting stat to me that I always hear is when so-and-so runs for X number of yards or has X number of carries, they’re like 22-3 over that time. Well, what nobody says is they probably had the lead at that time and they were able to … there’s a lot more to stats than sometimes come out when it’s just a simple stat. So what you’re saying is exactly true. We were able to keep playing that game because of how well our defense was playing.”

The blocking of Clay Burton and Tevin Westbrook:

“They did a good job. You know, they really did. They were physical. We ask them to do a lot, moving around in formations and Georgia, you know, it might not look like that in the game because people were saying ‘Well, they’re running the same thing and the same thing’s happening.’ Georgia was very multiple with pressures and fronts and they were doing a lot of things to try to obviously create some problems for us and stop the run and our tight ends had to do a lot of stuff on the run with getting over there late in motions and different things like that. So having two guys who have played a lot of football really helps.”

Memories of coaching at Duke against Derek Mason’s Stanford defense in 2011:

“We didn’t do very well. They obviously do a great job. He’s an outstanding defensive coach. They’re very multiple and they’re very physical. The thing that jumped out to me going against them at Stanford was they used their hands as well as anybody use their hands and get off blocks. They use their hands as well as anybody I’ve seen use their hands and get off blocks. You can see that coming along for this defense. It’s true hand to hand combat those guys are really good at fitting their hands and getting rid of a blocker and making a tackle so much in defensive football today it’s take blocks on and turn it to the unblocked hat, I think coach Mason does a great job of telling his defenders they’ve got to defeat a block and still make that tackle and not always count on having an extra defender. So I think he’s a heck of a football coach.”

Vanderbilt’s defense:

“They’re multiple. They’re a multiple front team, a multiple coverage team. They do a good job with their pressures. They play a lot of people. It’s been interesting going through their games, they have a lot of people that they play on the defensive side of the ball. You know you just see them playing a mix of youth and some experience. They’ve got two young linebackers that look like good football players to me. They’ve got some youth all over the field really.”

Jeff Driskel’s possible role:

“Yeah, obviously the healthier he gets the better he feels and then some of that role can take place, like the Matt Jones role at quarterback. That’s a role that obviously Jeff can do really well at 230 pounds, 240 pounds if he is feeling really well. Now they’ve got to defend the pass more in that sense, too. So that role can obviously grow depending on how he is feeling.”

Possible package for Michael McNeely:

“You’ll have to talk to Coleman [Hutzler] about that right there. But he’s a good football player. He really is.”