Georgia wins big after exploiting Florida’s depth and conservative game plan

There aren’t any moral victories in the SEC. That’s the hard truth after Florida’s 19-point defeat at the hands of Georgia.

It felt like Florida had a chance in the first half, but kept shooting itself in the foot. It felt even more like Florida might really have a chance after Feleipe Franks hit Freddie Swain for a 36-yard TD to briefly take a 14-13 lead on the first drive of the second half.

But Georgia took control from that point on, outgaining the Gators by 191 yards and outscoring them 23-3. A lot of blame will fall on Feleipe Franks, and he certainly should take a large share with his performance.

But there is plenty of blame to go around.

Offense

Franks completed 62 percent of his passes, but only averaged 5.0 yards per attempt. He also missed the opening throw that could’ve been a touchdown, threw a terrible interception and had what seemed like a backbreaking fumble on a run out of his own end zone.

But we should be fair to Franks too. The interception was not converted into points by Georgia. The defense forced a three-and-out and then Florida went right down the field for a TD to bring the game back to 10-7.

The fumble can’t happen in that situation. But the play call there also reveals a deeper issue about this team that kept showing up throughout the game.

Take a look at the defense. There are seven men in the box. You can run against this look with the QB and that means you have seven blockers counting the running back. Scarlett’s man – Tyrique McGee (#26) – is the one who strips the ball.

Contrast that to earlier in the game on a third-and-long when Franks’ number was called.

Here Georgia only has four men in the box against five blockers. That means there is a numbers advantage and Franks didn’t have to take on anyone until he encountered a safety. This is why he was nearly able to pick-up the first down that allowed Mullen to go for it on fourth.

My problem with the first run isn’t that he ran his QB while backed-up in the end zone. It’s that Franks isn’t the kind of runner who does anything but gain two yards when the numbers are even.

How much better is the situation at second-and-8, still backed up but now having to throw versus if Mullen had taken a deep shot and was now second-and-10? The fumble was the worst possible outcome of this particular play, but there weren’t a whole lot of great outcomes for that play call to begin with.

And that was the problem I have with Mullen’s offensive game plan. When you are an underdog (Florida was 6.5 point underdogs at kickoff) – particularly if you’re less talented than your opponent – conservative game plans put you at a disadvantage. You have to take chances.

I went back and charted the plays in the second half. The Gators came out firing right away as Franks hit Freddie Swain on a laser for a 36-yard TD. I’m still not sure he threw to the right guy, but you can’t argue with the results.

That pass put Florida up 14-13. On the next three drives (13 plays), Florida threw the ball three times. Those plays included a swing pass to Tyrie Cleveland for no gain on third-and-8, an Emory Jones deep pass that caused a pass interference penalty and a swing pass to Kadarius Toney for no gain on a first down.

That swing pass set up a third-and-8 hand-off to Lamical Perine for five yards to set up a 42-yard field goal for Evan McPherson. This play call was just idiotic.

McPherson has proven repeatedly that he has range from 47-yards out. The gain by Perine maybe increased his odds by a percentage point or two. But how often is a third-and-8 converted on a run up the middle? It’s just not a good use of the scarce plays that Mullen had left in the game, especially considering that the defense was having trouble stopping the Bulldogs.

After the field goal, Georgia’s Tyler Clark was flagged for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty which allowed Florida to kick-off from mid-field. Mullen brought in Jorge Powell to launch a pooch kick that was immediately fair caught.

I think he should have called an onsides kick. Again, the downside is relatively minimal as Georgia would have started its drive from the 40 rather than the 25. But the upside of getting the ball back was significant.

Georgia immediately went right down the field and salted the game away with a touchdown throw to Terry Godwin. It wasn’t until then that Mullen decided to open up the offense for Franks again, but he threw three straight incompletions.

Not only was the conservative play calling confusing but so was the way that the playmakers were targeted.

Emory Jones hasn’t played in a game since Charleston Southern. Yet there he was in the biggest game of the year chucking the ball deep and running the ball four times.

It’s not that Jones was in the game carrying the ball that bothered me. It was that he essentially took those carries away from Kadarius Toney. Toney still got three touches (on receptions), but that ignores the fact that he had been much more explosive on the ground (11.4 yards per rush) compared to through the air (6.9 yards per catch) coming in.

I have no problem with Jones having a package. But to not implement both the Jones package and the Toney package in a game where Mullen clearly didn’t trust his QB seemed an error in judgment.

None of this excuses Franks’ performance. He accumulated a yards above replacement (YAR) of -1.56 and a QB rating of 110.1. And if your coach can’t trust you to throw a pass on third-and-8 in enemy territory, you shouldn’t be out there.

But the conservative game plan in a game where Florida could ill-afford to be conservative is puzzling. You can go into a shell against Mississippi State and squeeze out a win. You can’t do that against better opponents in the SEC.

Mullen understood that a few weeks ago, as Franks was firing down the field repeatedly against LSU. That just didn’t happen Saturday afternoon against Georgia.

Defense

Franks will likely get the bulk of the criticism this week. The rest will be reserved for the defense, particularly the defensive backs, who struggled after C.J. Henderson went out with a back injury.

Florida did surrender a ghastly 10.0 yards per attempt to Jake Fromm. But they also gave up 4.6 yards per rush and only had one sack and two QB hurries.

Coverage isn’t just up to the defensive backs. Some of the blame for Fromm being able to sit in the pocket and pick the defensive backs apart has to lie on the Gators front-seven.

My colleague Bill Sikes – among others – hinted at a recruiting problem that surfaced for Florida in this game.

Today, the Jimmys & Joes beat the X’s & O’s. Mullen was much better than Kirby, but the talent disparity was just too much. Recruit. Recruit. Recruit. 🐊

— Bill Sikes (@realbsikes) October 27, 2018

He’s not wrong in the macro-sense. It did appear that defensive coordinator Todd Grantham blitzed a lot less than you would expect once starting corner C.J. Henderson went out on the first drive.

There’s also no doubt that Florida is thin on the back end. The Gators’ projected starters on defense averaged 3.8 stars and a 247Sports composite average ranking of 222nd. The Gators’ defensive backs once Henderson went out average 3.4 stars and a 247Sports ranking of 558th.

That can be good enough some days, but against Georgia it clearly wasn’t. That’s because the seven Bulldogs who caught passes consisted of four 5-star players and three 4-star players with an average 247Sports composite ranking of 85th.

Florida was going to have trouble covering them with Marco Wilson and C.J. Henderson. With Trey Dean and C.J. McWilliams, it should be a completely different story, right?

A cursory glance on Twitter will give you the idea that C.J. McWilliams was getting roasted over and over in the game.

Still not sure why McWilliams ever sees the field. He’s terrible

— Derek Tyson (@DerekJTyson) October 27, 2018

To my eye, McWilliams didn’t play that badly. I can only think of two times when he got beat. The first was on a 12-yard touchdown to Jeremiah Holloman where he had really good coverage and Georgia just made the play. The second was when Florida was down 29-17 and he lost Riley Ridley on a third-and-4 conversion for 22 yards.

Some of the plays that looked like his fault don’t look to be so upon additional examination.

On this play, receiver Jeremiah Holloman runs right by McWilliams for a TD in the back of the end zone. Immediately you might think this is McWilliams fault, but it isn’t.

He is responsible for throws in front of him and is taught to be aggressive because he has help deep. You could blame him for not getting his hands on the receiver at the line. You might even blame him for letting the receiver run by too easily. But at the end of the day, safety Jeawon Taylor (#29) has deep outside responsibility.

This is particularly true because there isn’t anyone else for him to be responsible for. D’Andre Swift (#2) coming out of the backfield is the responsibility of linebacker Vosean Joseph (#11, green arrow). McWilliams has underneath responsibilities (yellow arrow). Taylor (circled) has deep responsibilities and that’s where the throw goes. There isn’t another receiver anywhere near that side and Fromm is staring left immediately.

McWilliams might have some responsibility here, but for fans to target him for this is misguided. It also ignores the ball he swatted away to force a Georgia field goal at the end of the second quarter in one-on-one coverage.

Georgia had eight explosive plays in the game. Without knowing the coverages and schemes exactly, it can be hard to determine who’s at fault, but I think it breaks down like this.

• Vosean Joseph – 3
• Donovan Stiner – 2
• Chauncey Gardner – 1.5
• J. McWilliams – 1
• David Reese – 0.5

I’m not going to show them all, but here’s a sampling.

On this play, Joseph gets knocked back initially but then has Swift in his sights. Instead, he is a victim of a stiff-arm and it turns into a big play.

Here Joseph just doesn’t cover Isaac Nauta coming out of the backfield. You can tell the Gators are in man coverage based on how the corners guard their men coming off the line. Joseph just ignores Nauta and it turns into a huge play for Georgia to spark the drive at the end of the half.

On this play, Chauncey Gardner-Johnson (#23) jumps the swing pass even though that isn’t his responsibility. The cornerback (McWilliams) is there if they throw the swing pass. Gardner-Johnson creeps up and allows tight end Charlie Woerner to run right past him for an easy pitch-and-catch.

On this play, linebacker David Reese (#33) takes a poor angle and gets pinned on the backside of the play. Swift is able to skirt through the hole and then it looks like Gardner-Johnson (#23) could take him down a couple of different times but pulls up instead.

So fans can blame recruiting for this loss, but the big plays were allowed by guys who have been in the lineup and performed already this season. In many cases, those explosive plays were caused by someone being out of position or being over-aggressive, not a talent deficit.

The 22-yard reception by Ridley against McWilliams and the 24-yard TD catch by Terry Godwin against Donovan Stiner to put Georgia up 29-17 were the only big plays that were due purely to a physical advantage by the opposition.

That means two things. First, Georgia just beat Florida and likely would have with or without Henderson. Second, these mistakes are correctable moving forward and Florida should be able to tighten them up for the rest of the season.

Takeaway

In July, 271 of 285 media members picked Georgia to win the SEC East. There was a reason for that. The Bulldogs are loaded.

But they are also young in some spots. It showed up a couple weeks ago against LSU and in spots against Florida. The Gators just weren’t quite good enough to take full advantage. But they were a lot closer than the 36-17 final would have most believe.

Perhaps the most important play of the game was something that definitely won’t find its way on any highlight shows.

Florida had cut the lead to 10-7 and forced Georgia to punt from its own 20. Normally that would mean really good field position. Instead, Georgia punter Jake Camarda boomed a 57-yard punt and a holding penalty was called on linebacker David Reese. The result was Florida taking over at its own 15-yard line.

The Gators were able to get a first down but had to give the ball back to Georgia. That was when Jake Fromm found Isaac Nauta four straight times as Georgia raced down the field.

The Bulldogs only got a field goal, but they definitely found something in the passing game. Up until that point, Jake Fromm had been 3-5 for 22 yards. He went 5-6 for 75 yards on that drive and continued that in the second half (9-13, 145 yards).

Let’s be honest. The better team won. Fromm is a better player than Franks. Swift and Holyfield were better than Scarlett and Perine today. And Georgia’s wide receivers were able to make plays in ways that Florida’s were not.

With Kentucky’s win over Missouri, Florida has officially been eliminated from the race for the SEC East. That’s a tough pill to swallow when you were up 14-13 after blazing down the field to start the second half.

I’m really proud of the team and the way it played. The goal-line stand is something I’ll remember for a long time. For the most part, effort wasn’t the problem.

But it’s also disappointing to have the game right there and watch it slip away, especially when it slips away while you’re being conservative.

Aside from its eight explosive plays, Georgia averaged 3.9 yards per play. Aside from its two explosive plays, Florida averaged the exact same 3.9 yards per play. The difference was that Georgia was willing to take chances and able to execute.

Mullen was right in his post-game press conference to lament his team’s execution. It wasn’t very good and they may have struggled regardless of the play calls.

I just wish he’d given them a chance with something more aggressive.