Film Study: The case for Kyle Trask to be the Gators QB in 2018

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Note: This is the fourth in a series looking at all the Gators QBs (Kadarius Toney, Kyle Trask, Jake Allen, Emory Jones, Jaylin Jackson and Feleipe Franks). Click on the links to read the other breakdowns.

In all the excitement of the Emory Jones commitment and questions around whether Dan Mullen can improve the play of Feleipe Franks, the forgotten man has been redshirt sophomore Kyle Trask.

It’s easy to understand why. After all, Trask didn’t even start for his high school team, sitting behind D’Eriq King. King was only a 3-star prospect, ranked 396th nationally. But King also posted a QB rating of 154.6 in 139 attempts in 2017 after taking over as Houston’s starter halfway through the season. King is a good QB.

The question though is whether the same can be said of Trask, which is difficult to answer because so much of his career is in the shadows.

He’s been in Gainesville for two years now and has yet to throw a pass in a game. He couldn’t beat out Feleipe Franks, Luke Del Rio or Malik Zaire last season and he couldn’t beat out King in high school. In his only college action in last year’s spring game he struggled, going 6-15 for 60 yards and an interception.

On the flip side, there have been rumors that he was either right on Franks’ heels or even better last season but the staff wanted to go with their star recruit instead. He also completed 73.3 percent of his high school throws, and never dropped below 70 percent in any season, despite coming off the bench cold in all of those games.

Anyone who tells you that they know how he’s going to react when the game goes live is lying. They haven’t seen him take a meaningful snap in six years.

But Mullen keeps alluding to accuracy being the most important attribute in his QB, and the high school completion record is hard to ignore. That is particularly true when you compare it to the 56.9 career high school completion percentage of Franks, who appears to be his main competition.

So what can we expect of Trask in 2018? I took a look at the film to try and figure that out.

Where Trask Excels

Manvel High School ran a spread option offense while Trask was there. This was likely because of D’Eriq King, a true dual-threat QB being the starter, but Trask ran the same offense when he came into the game.

This is a real advantage for Trask. Franks’ offenses at Wakulla High School and his first two years at Florida have all been designed for a drop-back passer. But Trask has experience with the ball handling necessary to run the offense and how to read the defensive end.

On this third-and-1, Trask sees the defensive end crash down to tackle the running back. He pulls the ball and runs for the first down. He isn’t an explosive runner, but this is incredibly effective in short-yardage situations, particularly because Trask is listed at 6’5”, 239 pounds.

Nobody is ever going to be another Tim Tebow, but short yardage situations with Trask in the shotgun would be an almost automatic first down if he can make the right decision like he does here.

Trask also throws a really nice deep ball. It has plenty of zip to get down field quickly, but he seems to be able to put it on his receiver’s hands.

On this play, Trask identifies the receiver at the bottom of the screen as being in 1-on-1 coverage and makes a perfect throw to hit him in-stride for a TD.

But this is part of why it is hard to determine what Trask can be. First, look at the score in the GIF (69-14). Is it possible that the opposition wasn’t concentrating? Well, that’s certainly how it looks as they are in a cover-zero set and only have 10 men on the field. Trask makes a beautiful throw, but it’s against an overmatched opponent.

Still, you have to make the throw. And Trask does seem up to the task on that.

On this play, the safety for Strake-Jesuit bites on the play fake and takes a step forward. That’s plenty for the slot receiver to blow past him, and Trask hits him for the TD. This is the kind of throw where it is easy to try and lead the receiver with a perfect pass, but Trask puts just enough air under it that the receiver slows down slightly but is still able to keep running after the catch.

In the limited tape available, Trask was repeatedly pressured and showed pretty good poise in the pocket. He certainly was not afraid to step into a throw when about to get hit.

On this play, the blitzing linebacker comes completely free and drills Trask. Yet he still identifies the correct receiver, steps into the throw and misses just slightly long. Unlike the play above, this is not a throw you want to put air under and risk allowing the safety to come over and make an interception.

He showed the same thing in Florida’s spring game last season.

Here he is completely surrounded by bodies and still steps into the throw. Admittedly he was wearing a white non-contact jersey, but I’m pretty comfortable from the tape I’ve seen that Trask will take the hit to deliver the pass instead of putting his head down and trying to escape.

Trask does show an ability to go through his progressions instead of locking onto one receiver.

On this play, the running back ends up being where Trask throws the ball, but that certainly is not his first read. Initially, he is looking out towards the right side of the field and only comes back to his left after being flushed up inside the pocket. Instead of running, he identifies his running back streaking down the field and delivers a perfect pass that is dropped.

He showed the same thing in last year’s spring game. On this play, Trask’s first read is outside to the right side of the formation. When that isn’t open and he gets pressured, he gets the ball to his checkdown receiver. This isn’t something that we saw Florida’s QBs do much of in 2017.

Where Trask Struggles

While Trask will look at multiple receivers on a play, what I saw when looking at the tape was that he often doesn’t make the correct read based on the coverage being played.

On this play, Trask has to see that his opponent is in cover-2. He should know this because the safeties are parallel to each other at the snap. He should also know this because when they motioned a receiver from the top of the formation into the backfield, the safety didn’t move.

This is significant because it means that the receiver at the top of the screen is going to be double covered. Yet that is the first receiver that Trask looks at, and by the time he is ready to come to his next read, he is already under pressure and gets sacked.

On this play, Trask thinks he sees cover-2. But the safety at the bottom of the screen drops straight instead of immediately heading wide as he would in cover-2. What this means is that the receiver at the bottom of the screen is where the ball needs to go. Instead, Trask tries to lead his receiver over the middle but instead leads him right into the safety.

This isn’t an isolated incident with Trask. In the image below, you can see that the safeties are offset, indicating that the deep safety will be patrolling the middle of the field.

That means that the corner at the top of the screen has deep help on inside breaking routes, which is what is run here. That allows the corner (Duke Dawson) to come off of his receiver and break-up the pass to the receiver crossing in front of the other safety.

Had the play call been a deep route to the outside, Dawson could not have come off of his man like this. Now, perhaps the receiver ran the wrong route. But if the receiver did his job, then Trask has to look immediately to the left where he has a running back on linebacker Christian Garcia, a matchup that Florida’s opposition took advantage of later that season.

The other thing that shows up on tape is that while Trask is fairly mobile, he is not going to confuse anyone for a dual-threat QB.

On this play, Trask is flushed from the pocket and runs but is unable to escape the defensive back coming up to make the tackle. I have no doubt Mullen will be able to make Trask effective in the running game if he is the starter, but he is not going to make a defense pay when a play breaks down with his legs.

Takeaway

So what do we take from this? I’ll be honest that I don’t really know.

Trask does seem accurate when he has time and delivers the ball to the right spot. He appears to come off of receivers who are covered and will stand in the pocket and take a hit to deliver the ball. He also has the size to convert short yardage running situations from a read-option look.

But he also struggles with understanding where to go with the ball against different coverages, both pre and post-snap. He isn’t going to scare anyone with his legs, and so knowing where to go with the ball right away is going to be critical.

Trask certainly has more mobility than Feleipe Franks. But he has a lot less than Emory Jones. And Jones may struggle with some of the same reads, but his athletic ability will bail him out in situations where it will not for Trask.

Still, reports from spring camp indicate that Franks and Trask are clearly separated from Jones and others for the starting QB position. And if we were to compare which of the two fits better in the type of offense that Mullen wants to run, I’d have to say it is Trask.

I don’t care that all of his play was in garbage time. There is enough evidence from his high school film that he is more accurate than Franks. The touch that he shows is something that Franks has just not shown at any level thus far. And while his arm may not be as strong as Franks, he has plenty of zip to get the ball to anywhere on the field.

But hitching your wagons to Trask is hitching them to an unknown. Still, we pretty much know what we’re getting with Franks. I wrote that his ceiling is probably a QB rating of around 137, or right around average. The floor is obviously last season’s performance.

Even if Trask can only achieve that, he would do it with a red zone efficiency due to his running that would likely make the Florida offense better than with Franks. And I don’t believe that he will get rattled when the pressure ramps up. Franks may look really good in camp right now, but I question whether he’ll look as good when that white jersey isn’t on.

The film is pretty clear that there are no such concerns with Trask.

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