College Football, Florida Gators

The Gators streak against Kentucky ends in confusing loss

Embed from Getty Images

The Florida Gators lost to Kentucky 27-16 on Saturday night in the Swamp. It wasn’t a fluke. And that perhaps is the hardest thing for Florida fans to swallow following the game.

The Wildcats outgained the Gators 454-360 but the total yardage doesn’t tell the story. Kentucky averaged 8.0 yards per play while Florida averaged just 5.4. For a frame of reference, Oklahoma led the FBS last season with an 8.1 yards per play average. Marshall was the 64th ranked offense with an average of 5.4.

Advertisements

And therein lies the problem. Florida’s offense was actually improved from last year’s squad (4.9 yards per play, 104th). But obviously that isn’t enough, particularly when your defense is getting continually torched.

I picked Florida to win this game. I did so because Florida has more talent, at least based on recruiting rankings. But considering that the best players on the field were clearly Kentucky running back Benny Snell and Kentucky QB Terry Wilson, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Kentucky won the game.

If anything, the surprise should be that Kentucky didn’t win by more than they did.

All of that indicates that this is a bigger rebuild than lots of Gators fans believed following the opening win against Charleston Southern. The reality is that this team earned its 4-7 record last season with a putrid offense and an average defense.

If the Kentucky game taught us anything, it’s that the roles of each of those units appears to have reversed.

Florida Defense

Florida’s defense was probably doomed from the start. But things didn’t get any better when cornerback Marco Wilson went down with a torn ACL.

Kentucky marched right down the field and scored a touchdown on that drive. From that point forward, Florida only really stopped Kentucky twice when the Wildcats were trying to score.

Kentucky spent the first half allowing Florida to hang in the game, first fumbling after a 50-yard drive deep into Florida territory and then throwing an interception in the Florida red zone on the next drive.

Then the Wildcats came out in the second half, eliminated the mistakes and put up 14 points on its first two drives (along with a combined 168 yards). At that point Florida was only 11 points behind but it might as well have been 100 with the pace the Gators offense was playing with.

On the first of those touchdowns, Kentucky provided an interesting wrinkle with a fake pitch to Snell to open the play. The reason Kentucky has that wrinkle in the playbook is because they know what response it will get, namely that Florida’s defenders will begin flowing in that direction.

That’s a reasonable response for Florida’s defense, except for safety Jaewon Taylor (#29). Taylor is responsible for backside containment on the play, but because he overruns the play, Wilson is able to run through the hole as Taylor gets pancaked by Kentucky lineman E.J. Price (#72).

This wasn’t an isolated incident for the Gators defense.

Earlier in the game, Kentucky running back Benny Snell (#26) rumbled for 44 yards. Florida middle linebacker Vosean Joseph (#11) immediately jumped to his left at the snap. It looks like Joseph’s response is to the fullback who heads in that direction as the lead blocker.

This is just unacceptable on this particular play though because Chauncey Gardner Johnson (#23) is blitzing from that side. Joseph’s decision leaves a gaping hole right where he should have been and he isn’t able to get back in time to tackle Snell.

Making things worse is that safety Jaewon Taylor (#29) takes a poor angle to tackle Snell and instead of tackling the Kentucky running back, gets in the way of Joseph who is in pursuit. Even with Joseph’s mistake, this should have been an 11-yard run instead of a 44-yard run.

Florida certainly struggled against the run, surrendering 303 yards on 41 carries. But the Gators weren’t much better against the pass.

Both touchdowns that Florida gave up through the air were in long-yardage situations. The first came on a second-and-16 throw on a broken play on Kentucky’s first drive. You could excuse the safety (Brad Stewart, #2) getting beat deep on a play like this where it became a scramble play. Sometimes that sort of thing happens.

However, the second play came on a third-and-16 and presents a real issue for defensive coordinator Todd Grantham.

On the play, Florida is playing a defense to guard against the pass, rushing only four. Kentucky runs the Nussmeier special play-action on third-and-long and has seven blockers for four Gator pass rushers (until the tight end leaks out into the flat).

At the snap, one Kentucky wide receiver drops back as if for a screen. The tight end releases to the boundary and is guarded by corner C.J. Henderson, who is guarding that zone.

The Florida safeties and linebackers both immediately begin backpedaling. It’s hard to know exact responsibilities without knowing the defensive call or the all-22 film, but I’m not sure the exact call matters.

In any zone defense, the role of the safety is to keep the deepest receiver in front of him. Jordan Rodgers can talk about how Wilson waited for his receiver to “clear the zone” all he wants. The truth is that Florida safety Jaewon Taylor can’t let the receiver get behind him, especially because there isn’t anyone else in his zone.

But this isn’t just Taylor’s fault. The defensive line gets zero pressure on Wilson. Not only that, but they overrun the pocket and Taylor could have tried to run for a first down. But since there was no pressure, Wilson was able to step into the throw and put it right on his receiver’s hands.

At the end of the night, Florida’s defense gave up six plays of 20 yards or more. Those six plays went for 202 yards. If you subtract those plays from the ledger, Kentucky only averaged 4.9 yards per play. But those plays accounted for all three offensive Kentucky TDs and were the daggers that Florida just didn’t have.

Grantham is known as “third-and-Grantham” because his defenses are susceptible to big plays. That was certainly true Saturday night against Kentucky. But the trade-off for those big plays is supposedly an ability to pressure the QB and make plays in the backfield.

The Gators had zero sacks, three tackles for loss and zero QB hurries. If you’re going to give up big plays all over the place, that just isn’t going to get it done. There isn’t any sense in having the risk if you don’t get any reward.

Florida Offense

Florida’s offense actually was pretty similar to Kentucky in one way. The Gators averaged 4.8 yards per play when you subtract their 20-plus yard plays from the ledger.

The problem is that the Gators only had two of those plays and that neither of them went for TDs.

I have to admit, Florida’s offensive game plan really confused me. The Gators came out in the first quarter and were moving the ball, but they were moving at a much slower pace than last week against Charleston Southern.

The Gators averaged 33.2 seconds per play in the first half. Now some of that is because they were running the ball more than they were throwing it and so the clock ran in between plays. However, whereas last week’s offense was clean, this week’s seemed bogged down with the play clock constantly running down and certainly never having the ball snapped before the play clock reached 10 seconds.

The other thing that confused me was the reliance on the pass in the second half. The Gators threw the ball 12 times in the first half, completing 7 of them for 105 yards. That 8.8 yard per pass average is very good and Franks was very effective in the first half.

The Gators threw the ball 26 times in the second half and it wasn’t very effective. And it wasn’t just that Florida decided to throw. It was when they decided to throw.

In the first half, Florida had 18 first-down plays and only six of those were passes (33%). In the second half, Florida had 21 first-down plays and 12 of those were passes (57%).

That isn’t just because Florida was behind in the fourth quarter and had to throw the ball exclusively. The Gators’ first three drives of the second half had 11 first-down plays and six of those were passes (55%). The reality is that Florida decided that throwing the ball was best, and I think that’s a questionable strategy.

If Florida was facing eight-man fronts the entire second half, then throwing the ball would make sense. In fact, that would be exactly what Mullen typically does, using the numbers to his advantage. But that’s not what happened.

On first-and-10 on the first drive of the second half, Florida did run the ball. But they did so against an eight-man front. You could argue that the men I have labeled seven and eight are off the line of scrimmage, but the fact remains that Kentucky walked up a safety to support against the run.

Florida ran the ball against this front and Jordan Scarlett gained seven yards, setting up a second-and-3. So surely Florida would run the ball again, right?

Well, they should have against this front. Kentucky only has six defenders in the box, with two deep safeties and defensive backs lined up across from three wide receivers. Instead, Florida threw a bubble screen, an interesting call. The closest Kentucky corner blew up the block from the Gators wide receiver and drove him back into the ball, forcing an incompletion.

So on third-and-3, Florida got a 5-man front. Granted, the Gators were in an empty backfield set. But Feleipe Franks has the ability to run a QB draw. In fact, Jordan Rodgers warned to watch for a QB draw before the play was snapped because he saw the same numbers advantage.

Instead, Florida threw the ball with Franks narrowly avoiding being stripped before delivering a completion to Tyrie Cleveland for a first down.

My issue with this isn’t that Florida got a first down. It’s that it doesn’t jive with Mullen’s philosophy of doing what the numbers dictate. It also wasn’t an isolated incident, as it occurred repeatedly in the second half where Florida ignored a numbers advantage in favor of putting the game in Feleipe Franks’ hands.

Takeaway

And putting the offensive responsibility on Franks is a problem. He’s just not good enough yet to carry a team, certainly not one giving up 8.0 yards per play on defense.

Yes the offensive line has struggled. The Gators were only able to muster 51 yards on 17 carries in the first half but Franks went 7-12 for 105 yards. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Gators only ran the ball 12 times in the second half and six of those came on the 99-yard TD drive.

Take away that drive, and Florida’s playcalling was 16 pass versus 6 runs in the second half.

Those passes weren’t getting the ball into the hands of Florida’s best players either. Kadarius Toney was clearly the most explosive player on the field and only got two carries. He did have a couple of drops at receiver, but we know he’s green there. Give him the ball in the wildcat.

Van Jefferson – after all of the hype prior to the season – caught 2 passes for 31 yards. If he’s your best player, you have to find a way to get him the ball on a screen, a slant or a fade where he has a real chance to catch the ball.

Or how about a reverse? Some sort of misdirection? Or maybe come back to the tight end after Moral Stephens was wide open for a TD?

Without helping Franks with either the running game or some misdirection, he’s probably going to be exactly what we thought going into the season: Inconsistent.

Even if Franks was lights out, I’m not sure if he would have been able to overcome the defensive shortcomings. Had Florida been able to score quickly, that would have just given Kentucky more opportunities to shred Florida’s defense.

And that’s really where Florida fans should get really concerned. The Gators couldn’t stop anyone through the air last season (8.0 yards per attempt allowed against FBS opponents) but were average against the run (4.2 yards per rush). Saturday night – against a team significantly less talented than other teams on their schedule – the Gators surrendered 9.4 yards per pass and 7.4 yards per rush.

I just don’t know how you fix that. When they played six in the box, they got beat deep. When they loaded the box, Kentucky ran right over them anyway. That can’t just be strength and conditioning.

Advertisements

The starting 11 on defense against Kentucky two years ago had a national recruiting ranking average of 235th. The starting 11 Saturday had a national recruiting ranking average of 504th. The defensive line in 2016 averaged 323rd in 2016 versus 439th Saturday. The linebackers averaged 202nd in 2016 versus 783rd Saturday (including Chauncey Gardner-Wilson as a linebacker). The defensive backs averaged 173rd in 2016 versus 361st Saturday.

This isn’t a scheme issue. It isn’t an effort issue. I fear that it may be a talent issue. And that’s a real problem, because Florida just lost at home to a team that is significantly less talented than six teams remaining on the Gators schedule.

I picked Florida to finish 7-5 because I didn’t believe in their defense. The defense was the reason they fell to 4-7 last season and needed to significantly improve for this to be a successful season.

Certainly the offense didn’t help Saturday night, and neither did Franks. But to pin this on him is missing the point. The worst defense in the FBS last season was East Carolina, who gave up 7.5 yards per play. The Pirates also gave up 46 points per game.

And if the defense doesn’t improve quickly, that might be what’s in the future for this Florida Gators team.

FEATURED IMAGE USED UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE FROm Photo-Gator

4 Comments

  1. David

    Thanks for another thoughtful article and analysis. I’m struggling to find 6 wins now

  2. oxking

    This team is significantly worse on defense even compared to last year. They were not only manhandled they were mauled. I remember John Mackay’s statement talking about the Bucks that lost every game. “We didn’t block and we backed it up by not tackling.

    Franks stinks too but it’s hard to see Mullen in a good light either. It was a terribly called game, slow, slow game.

  3. SW FL Joe

    Safties allowing receivers to get behind them is not new. Our DB coach is the same one who let the heave to cleve happen

  4. donnie

    Hey Will,

    I’m a newer reader to your site, so forgive me if you’ve done this. Excellent analysis by the way. What would it look like if we took a Dan Mullen play from 2008 and one from Saturday and showed them side by side? The ineptness of us to block vs the success we had then. I bet it would be mind blowing and sad all at the same time. Thanks!