Film Study: The case for Kadarius Toney as Gators QB for 2018

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Note: This is the first in a series looking at all the Gators QBs (Kadarius Toney, Kyle Trask, Jake Allen, Emory Jones, Jaylin Jackson and Feleipe Franks).

I’ve been asking for Gators wide receiver Kadarius Toney to get a real shot as the starting QB for the Gators for more than a year now.

The biggest reason for that is the superior statistics that he accumulated in high school compared to his competition at starting QB. I harp on completion percentage a lot because I think it translates from high school to college. But even if you don’t believe as strongly as I do in that particular statistic, we’re still talking about a QB who averaged 11.5 yards per rush (in 78 attempts) and 11.5 yards per attempt (in 252 attempts) and produced 47 total touchdowns his senior year in high school.

He is certainly smaller than traditional quarterbacks (5’11”, 194 lbs). But let’s not pretend the other QBs are without warts.

Feleipe Franks struggled his redshirt freshman season – and while there is little doubt that Jim McElwain and Doug Nussmeier played some role in that – his track record suggests his ceiling is good-but-not-great. Kyle Trask couldn’t win the starting job in high school, albeit competing against D’Eriq King, a very good college quarterback. Jake Allen is a pro-style QB who led his high school to multiple state titles, but is likely a square peg in Dan Mullen’s offense. And Mullen’s prize recruit Emory Jones is talented, but the track record of players with his pedigree in their true freshman season is not promising.

Yet still, every time I suggest Toney should get a shot, the refrain from detractors is some variation of the same argument: he can’t actually throw the ball.

To those people, the high completion percentage that I cite from high school must come from endless bubble screens or some kind of gimmick. After all, they heard that he was inconsistent during spring practice last season and he threw a screen pass directly into the ground on one of his two chances during a game.

So instead of continuing to use statistics to make the case for Toney, I decided to go the the film. Except I didn’t want to cherry pick from highlights. Instead, I watched and charted every throw from his best and worst games of the season so I could see him at both extremes.

What follows is my analysis of Toney’s abilities, warts and all.

Where Toney struggles

The two games that I watched were the season opener against Vigor (14-25, 198 yds, 1 TD, 2 INT) and Blount’s playoff loss to Park Crossing (22-31, 485 yards, 5 TD, 2 INT). Watching every play made one thing abundantly clear. Toney isn’t really a running QB.

I don’t mean that he can’t run. He certainly can. What I mean is that every time a pass play was called, he kept his eyes downfield and attempted to make a throw. The problem is that he didn’t appear to always see the field very well when he did break containment.

On this play Toney is flushed from the pocket by pressure. He escapes to the right and attempts to complete the ball to his receiver. But he completely misses the corner cutting in front of the wide receiver and throws a pick.

This wasn’t an isolated incident. He actually made almost the exact same mistake on the next play when Blount got the ball back leading to another INT. Blount lost this playoff game on a last second field goal, and these two turnovers led directly to 10 Park Crossing points.

Compounding the mistake is that the field is wide open for him to run. Normally you would coach your QB to get the ball to the receiver because he has a better chance at making a play. But for Toney, that just isn’t the case. He’s electric in the open field and so more discretion about when to keep the ball would serve him well.

The other area where Toney really struggles is with his footwork. Interestingly, this manifests itself much more on short throws than on longer ones.

On this throw he doesn’t set his back foot and drive through the throw. The result is a weak pop-up to the wide receiver. It doesn’t cost his team on this particular play, but these throws need to have more zip on them to be effective at the next level.

He does the same thing on this play, but this time the poor footwork causes the ball to sail for an easy interception (though he makes a nice tackle).

It happens again on this play as well. You can see him lean back and not set his feet before airmailing the wide receiver. This was a fourth-and-2 and should have been an easy conversion.

I’m picking plays that are obvious but many times he is able to execute properly even with the footwork issues. This is something that Toney will need to work on at the next level extensively.

Where Toney Excels

As I suspected from his completion percentage, Toney is extremely accurate. But this accuracy comes from two distinct places. The first is that he often seems to make the right read.

On this play, his initial read is the wide receiver at the bottom of the screen. But at the snap, it becomes clear that the inside corner is covering the intended receiver. Toney comes off that read and dumps it over the middle to his slot receiver for an easy first down.

If you watched the national championship game, you saw Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa make this exact same throw to end the game. Watch Toney look off the safety before delivering the ball perfectly to his receiver.

This play ends as an incomplete pass, but that isn’t Toney’s fault. It hits his receiver right in the hands. Tagovailoa was praised (rightly so) during the telecast for showing this advanced feel for the game. Toney shows that same kind of feel.

That feel is further demonstrated on this play. Toney initial wants to go deep but it isn’t open. He then comes off that to his receiver in the middle of the field, who also isn’t open. Finally he scrambles slightly to his right and throws off his back foot to his outside receiver.

Two things we should note on this play. This shows Toney’s arm strength, as the ball travels 20 yards on a line on a throw off of his back foot. It also demonstrates his lack of footwork, as he didn’t need to make the throw this way.

The biggest takeaway is that Toney was completely comfortable going to his third read. He wasn’t looking to scramble after one read. He didn’t panic and take off at the first threat of pressure. Instead, he manipulated the pocket to find a window to deliver the pass.

That is really important when evaluating Toney. One thing I noticed over and over again (especially against Park Crossing late in the year) was that Toney’s receivers were consistently either wide open against a zone defense or being covered 1-on-1. That means he was delivering the ball to the right place.

But even when his receivers weren’t wide open, he still showed accuracy in tight windows.

On this play, Toney has to fit the ball in over the corner and under the safety. I don’t think he threw the ball to the right receiver here (the safety was shaded that direction), but he was able to fit the ball into a tight window where only his man had the opportunity to catch the ball.

That’s a consistent theme on the tape as well. On this play Toney is able to rifle the ball to his slot receiver between two linebackers and a safety.

On this play, Toney fit the ball over the linebacker and under the safety. Again, you could argue that this ball is forced and that Toney didn’t read the defense correctly. He should have probably thrown to his receiver at the top of the screen as the safety broke towards the slot receiver at the snap (because this is a play Blount runs a lot). But still, Toney was able to fit the ball into the tight space.

Does Toney have the arm strength to succeed at Florida?

Okay. Maybe I’ve convinced you that Toney is accurate. Maybe I’ve convinced you that he will make the right reads. Maybe I’ve even convinced you that he won’t just take off at the first hint of pressure.

But can he really make all the throws? Again we go to the film, and again I was surprised at the arm strength that I saw.

Toney appears to have plenty of zip on this throw across the middle of the field. It’s delivered on time and on a rope, in a place where only his receiver can catch the ball. He actually protects his receiver too. If he had hit him in stride, he would have been leveled by the safety.

On this play Toney is flushed from the pocket. He then throws deep to his wide receiver, who has slipped behind the coverage. He did underthrow the receiver somewhat, but he also threw the ball 55 yards while on the run.

And when he’s not flushed from the pocket, Toney throws a really accurate deep ball.

This is the right read (1-on-1 coverage) and the receiver doesn’t have to break stride.

On this one, he even drifts a little bit away from the pressure that’s about to come. The throw is to the outside where his receiver can get the ball and the defensive back has no chance.

This is actually an easier throw, as the receiver has multiple steps on the corner. But Toney delivers it in-stride, which means it goes for a touchdown rather than just a long gain.

This one is just ridiculous. Anybody who tells you Toney is a “running QB” who struggles to throw the ball hasn’t watched the man play.

Overall, I charted 13 throws longer than 15 yards in the two games I watched. On those plays, Toney completed 8 for 332 yards (25.5 yards per attempt) and two touchdowns. I counted one bad read, one questionable read, two poor throws (though both out of bounds), two decent throws, and seven excellent throws.

Takeaway

I admittedly came into this exercise with a bias based on the statistics I’ve already compiled. But even I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. Toney ran for nearly 900 yards his senior year of high school, but he is not a running QB.

Perhaps there isn’t a better play to demonstrate that than this one.

Pressure is immediate, and Toney does an unbelievable job to just get away. He then scrambles left, and could try to turn this into a gain of a couple yards. But he does something many of us were shouting for all last year from the Gators QBs: he throws the ball out of bounds.

Again, this isn’t something that Mullen will have to teach. He already does it. Mullen won’t have to teach him how to come off of his first (or second) reads, or keep his eyes up when scrambling from pressure either.

Instead, Mullen will need to focus on is two things. First, he’ll have to focus on footwork to make Toney more consistent with his throws. Second, he’ll have to focus on teaching him to get down so he doesn’t get injured.

That was the one thing that concerns me from watching these two games. In both games, Toney ran read-option keepers and came up gimpy. He was able to make it back onto the field in the game against Vigor, but his injury cost Blount the playoff game against Park Crossing, as his replacement threw a backbreaking interception.

But that’s the catch-22 with Toney at QB. Everything I’ve seen indicates he has the ability to become an elite pocket passer at the collegiate level. But his running ability is what makes Toney truly special.

He was struggling with his accuracy in this game against Vigor, and Blount needed a play to put the game away. So Toney put them on his back on the ground, putting the final exclamation point on the game with this 74-yard run.

There’s going to be some risk Toney will get injured. But that risk will be there with Feleipe Franks or Emory Jones in Dan Mullen’s offense, just as it was for Nick Fitzgerald last season.

Would it be ideal if he had all of these skills and was 6’3” and 235 pounds. Of course it would. But a player with Tim Tebow’s skill and size isn’t walking into the locker room, at least not in 2018.

But after watching the film, I sure am glad Kadarius Toney is walking through that door.

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