Urban Meyer loves adding new wrinkles to his team's game plan.
But the two major additions this season have not been successful.
Sure, the Joker and Banzai packages sound cool, and they were successful in their debuts against cakewalks Troy and Charleston Southern, respectively.
The honeymoon is over, though, and neither has looked as effective since.
The Banzai was the Gators' version of a no-huddle offense and was supposed to be a great way to change the pace of the game to better suit their style of play.
All it really did was move the huddle from a couple yards behind the line of scrimmage to at the line of scrimmage.
Often, it seemed the players would hurry to the line just to wait for signals from the sideline, allowing opposing defenses plenty of time to prepare for the next play, which is what this package was supposed to counteract.
At the start of the season, Florida used the offense frequently, but it has been seeing a decreased role in recent games.
Against Georgia, the Banzai was nowhere to be seen as part of Meyer's plan to fix some of the offensive problems the team has had in recent weeks.
"We didn't audible a lot, we let them play," Meyer said.
The Banzai package probably will linger for the rest of the season and Meyer will try to fix it in the offseason, but it is not going to be the prevalent fixture in the offense as once expected.
The Joker package falls into the same category.
The 3-3-5 defense was supposed to take advantage of the Gators' three great defensive ends (Carlos Dunlap, Jermaine Cunningham and Justin Trattou), the army of quality linebackers and the three "starting" safeties (Will Hill, Ahmad Black and Major Wright).
Although defensive coordinator Charlie Strong knew it would be susceptible against the run, it was going to be effective against pass-heavy teams and on third-and-long situations.
The only problem is that on third and long, teams are usually unwilling to just heave the ball down the field and instead opt to run or throw screens.
Tennessee was the first to take advantage of this formation, breaking off runs of 20 and 13 on third and long and added a 21-yard screen play on another one.
Since then, the Joker has made only occasionally appearances in third-and-long situations, and the Gators have made an increased push to add depth at defensive tackle, so they could play more four-man fronts, despite being plagued by injuries at the position.
If Strong wants to get Trattou and Hill, who are both the third man at their position, on the field, he is just going to have to rotate them in because the joker is barely a viable option.
Just because these two wrinkles have failed that doesn't mean Meyer or Strong have lost their touch. Meyer's past additions have had success and are now staples in the offense, and Strong is directing the nation's best defense.
The Banzai's failure has not kept Meyer down either, because he has already unveiled a new candidate to be added to the offense.
In the last two games, he has added the I-formation to the game plan with much success, but before anyone goes claiming the I-form is here to stay, just wait because a couple more games could expose this too as a fraud.
