Saturday afternoon against South Carolina, the Florida Gators offense won the game.
That’s quite a departure for a team that last season couldn’t get out of its own way in close home games against Texas A&M and LSU last season. It was a departure from last week against Missouri, where the defense needed help and got none from the offense in a 38-17 shellacking.
But on this Saturday afternoon, the Gators imposed their will on South Carolina’s defense. By the fourth quarter, the Gamecocks were gassed, and the Gators took advantage to the tune of 367 rushing yards, 238 in the second half.
Beating a now 5-4 South Carolina team isn’t a program-defining win by any stretch. But after the way the game spiraled out of hand last week against Missouri, it was impressive to see the Gators show fight after being down 14-0 after the first quarter, 21-14 at the half and 31-14 late in the third quarter.
And while the defense struggled mightily in the first half, it was great to finally see the offense bail them out.
Tale of the Quarterbacks
The QB play in the game was roughly a draw through the air.
It didn’t feel like Feleipe Franks played as well as Jake Bentley because of the way the Gators were behind the entire game and because of the way South Carolina was able to carve up the Gators defense early on.
Franks had a QB rating in the first half of 121.2 compared to 174.6 for Bentley. That swapped in the second half, as Franks had a QB rating of 179.1 compared to 112.4 for Bentley. Overall, Franks had a QB rating of 151.5 to 152.4 for Bentley.
And that doesn’t take into account any of the work Franks did on the ground.
For the game, Franks had 16 rushes for 36 yards compared to 6 rushes for 8 yards for Bentley. But that sells Franks short because he was sacked twice for a loss of 18 yards. Taking those out of the equation means that on designed runs, he accounted for 54 yards and 3.9 yards per rush.
In my preview of what the offense might look like without the option of going to Kyle Trask, I stated that Mullen had to run his QB more often. I thought maybe it would be Emory Jones or Kadarius Toney taking on that role, but Franks was efficient enough that he was able to take a bulk of the QB carries.
This makes for an offense that starts to look explosive when the offensive line is getting push up-front.
Offensive line play
Anytime you run for 367 yards at a 5.9 yard per rush clip, it means the offensive line is doing its job. The much maligned unit consistently got push up-front and it was pretty much an all game thing.
Florida averaged 4.7 yards per rush in the first quarter, 5.5 in the second and third and then 7.0 in the fourth. After the Gators fell behind 14-0 after South Carolina’s first two drives, it was the running game that led the drive that brought the game to 14-7 and also gave the defense a blow.
On that drive, 11 of the 13 plays were runs that accounted for 69 total yards. The only third down pass was the pass interference penalty in the end zone.
If you want to look for the difference between last week’s loss to Missouri and this week’s comeback against South Carolina, it was offensive line play. Because the Gators only averaged 4.0 yards per rush last week, they threw the ball 40 times and only ran it 28.
Saturday against South Carolina, they threw it 21 times while running it 62.
Did the defense really struggle?
When South Carolina receiver Deebo Samuel caught an 89-yard pass that eventually led to the TD that put South Carolina up 17, it seemed like the Florida defense just wasn’t going to be able to stop the Gamecocks.
But that was the last explosive (20+ yard) play that South Carolina got in the game. It was also the only one of South Carolina’s four explosive plays that didn’t come on the first two drives.
Those first two drives accounted for 167 of the Gamecocks 386 total yards for the game. That means that for the other 45 plays of the game, the defense allowed an average of 4.5 yards per play. If you remove the 89-yard pass from the equation, that drops to 3.0 yards per play.
It is definitely true that the Gators defense dug the team into a hole. It’s also true that the poor tackling and missed assignments that led to the explosive plays at this point in the season are inexcusable.
But also remember that after Kadarius Toney muffed the punt in Florida territory, the defense held South Carolina to a field goal. Omitting the 89-yard throw to Samuel, the defense gave up only 56 yards in the second half.
The offense won the game for the Gators, but the defense righted the ship after the first two drives.
Toney Terrific
Kadarius Toney was electric yet again.
He had six touches for 84 yards and a touchdown (seven if you count the muffed punt). He made a subtle move on his touchdown reception that left two Gamecock defenders bouncing off each other while he ran into the end zone. He ran for 33 yards on a reverse that probably should have gone for about 5 yards except for his ability to start and stop while defenders were flailing.
Mullen admitted after the game in his press conference that he hasn’t gotten Toney the ball enough, and I still don’t think he got it to him enough in this game.
But one thing he did do in this game was put Toney on the field even when he wasn’t the target.
On the touchdown drive to bring Florida to within a field goal, Jordan Scarlett ripped off a 21-yard run on a second-and-7.
The entire line blocks this well, but the receiver out there blocking the outside linebacker, the one who drives him backwards and then pancakes him 18 yards downfield? That’s Toney.
On the next play, Franks completed a 14-yard pass to C’yontai Lewis.
Note that Toney is the outside receiver who is used to hold the safety up high. Lewis slow-plays the route and ends up in a wide open zone. This is what I spoke about when I talked about Toney’s “gravity” and compared him to Stephen Curry on last week’s Gators Breakdown podcast.
Just like Curry’s ability to hit three-pointers from anywhere on the court, Toney’s presence opens things up for his teammates as well.
On the next touchdown drive to take the lead, everyone will remember Toney’s 33-yard run that got the Gators into the red zone. But the two plays before are the ones I noticed, even though they were just hand-offs to Jordan Scarlett because they came from the exact same formation.
The top play is a 7-yard run for Scarlett. The bottom is Toney’s long run. Because Toney has become a willing blocker – and because Mullen has him out on the field – Florida can run the plays to Scarlett (which gained 16 yards) and run the play to Toney (33-yard gain) from the same formation.
That helps disguise what Florida is trying to do. This is an advance in the offense that wasn’t there in last week’s game. Toney touched the ball six times, but he affected the game even when he wasn’t touching it.
Thunder and Lightning
Coming into the game, Jordan Scarlett and Lamical Perine had six explosive (20+ yard) runs. Against South Carolina, they combined for five.
That led Scarlett to average 8.8 yards per rush and Perine to average 6.7. Scarlett came into the game averaging 5.6 yards per play and Perine came into the game averaging 5.2. So this was an outlier for the two players for this season, and quite frankly, their careers.
That suggests three things.
First, Scarlett and Perine need to get a ton of credit for imposing their will on South Carolina. Multiple times Scarlett ran over South Carolina would-be tacklers to extend his runs by 5 to 10 yards.
Second, the offensive line played really, really well. This was perhaps the best game that the offensive line has played all year. It reminded me of the game in 2016 against LSU where the Gators line took over in the second half and Scarlett and Perine were able to help Florida put the game away.
Finally, this likely is somewhat smoke and mirrors. Scarlett and Perine are very good players. But 8.8 yards per rush is the kind of average that you expect from Sony Michel at Georgia last season. Scarlett has averaged 5.2 yards per rush in his career and Perine has averaged 4.6.
This was a fantastic game for both, but to expect to be able to rely on that moving forward this season is likely too much to ask from these players.
The attempted silencing of Luke Del Rio
Del Rio – the former Florida QB – blocked me on Twitter after I wrote an article for SEC Country prior to last season saying he should be the starting QB, so I hadn’t seen what he tweeted until they decided to bring it up during the game broadcast.
Prior to the Trask injury, Del Rio tweeted the following:
Call me crazy, but I honestly believe that if Dan Mullen starts Feleipe Franks this week then he is at serious risk of losing the fanbase.
Greg McElroy – a former QB and the color commentator – said that he thought Del Rio should just shut his mouth on the telecast. This is ridiculous.
Like it or not, Del Rio is now a member of the media. He – more than anyone – has experience with a Gators team that has a struggling QB and a coach losing the fan base. He just lived through it.
Not only do I think Del Rio should be able to say what he said, I think it’s a legitimate take since he made it before the Trask injury. There were plenty of people who reached out to me who wanted to see what Trask could do, and would lose faith in Mullen had he started Franks when Trask was an option. Why Del Rio can’t express that opinion as well escapes me.
Look, I think Del Rio’s approach of picking at the Florida fanbase is abrasive and comes across as petty. After all, he doesn’t have a platform analyzing college football because he was a backup at Oregon State.
But his takes add to the discussion, which is almost always a good thing. People who only want to hear good news about the Gators have plenty of outlets to go to. Del Rio just isn’t one of them.
Attendance
I never thought I’d live to see a day when the attendance at Florida Gators games became a hot-button issue. But Mullen decided to make it an issue during his press conference last week and that vibe was picked up and repeated by his assistants and players.
The student section was again pretty barren when the game started and filled up about the same as it did last week against Missouri. That still means that 82,646 people saw the Gators pull off a 17-point comeback.
Yet, there is the perception that Florida is a poor fan base for leaving empty seats for these games. But what happens when we look at the data?
Well, it turns out that attendance is down all across the SEC, and that Florida’s attendance patterns very closely match the broader trends in the conference. Since 2015, SEC attendance is down 6.9 percent overall. At Florida, that percentage is 8.5 percent.
So yes, if you think Florida’s attendance has been bad this season, it has been slightly worse than the SEC as a whole. But look at the schedule: Charleston Southern, Kentucky, Colorado State, LSU, Missouri, South Carolina and Idaho.
I think what we’re seeing this year is a combination of the overall attendance trends in college football, a horrible home schedule and uncertainty around game value.
What I mean with uncertainty around game value is that if you are traveling to the game, then you have to ascertain which games will be entertaining. If you thought Florida would go 7-5 (like I did) to start the year, then the later you go to the game, the less likely the game really matters. That means that you’re likely to schedule your visit – and tailgates with kids who might attend the school – around the big games.
That means that you would see dips in attendance at programs that have struggled recently and large jumps in big games. Florida had more than 90,000 people at the LSU game and hasn’t eclipsed 83,000 in any other game.
And Tennessee – which is a really good comparison to Florida in terms of churning through multiple coaches and having a couple of good years sandwiched around bad years while not really competing for a championship – has seen a 7.1 percent dip in attendance since 2015.
However, the Vols had Florida and Alabama on the schedule this year (100,027 and 97,027) while averaging 90,097 fans for the other games. Were they to have substituted a cupcake instead of Florida at home, that would have driven the decrease to over 10 percent.
None of this is meant to be an excuse. It’s meant to be a factual analysis that indicates that Florida fans’ attendance isn’t any different than other programs with similar recent results.
Now that Florida is 7-3 and still has a chance at a 10-win season, I expect to see an uptick in attendance in 2019.
The program versus the fans
Of course, the attendance is only an issue because Dan Mullen made it one. I’m not the only one who’s noticed.
This "us against the world" attitude with the #Gators started with Muschamp, got worse with McElwain and it's still there. It's not going to win anybody over, certainly telling your own fans to shut up won't play well.
— Nick de la Torre (@NickdelaTorreGC) November 10, 2018
Based on the data above, Mullen is half-right. Florida’s attendance is down more than the SEC overall, but there are legitimate reasons for that. He also did experience a giant uptick in attendance (23.8%) the first year he took over at Mississippi State. He believes fans are necessary to win because he saw the energy it gave his players in Starkville that first year.
The problem is that even if you’re right, it doesn’t do any good to continue insisting to your supporters that they are wrong. That creates an adversarial relationship that isn’t remotely productive.
I feel bad that Feleipe Franks has to endure the boos from the home crowd. And I know how I would have reacted to the amount of criticism that he has endured this past week when I was 19 and it would have used a different finger than Franks used to shush the crowd.
But the heat has been turned up by Mullen making this an issue in the first place. Maybe it started with Muschamp and got worse under McElwain, but it could stop with Mullen and he has chosen not to do so.
Back to the game
I’m sure attendance will continue to be a hot topic for the game against Idaho. But I’m most interested to see how much Emory Jones gets to play.
This is the game I would have targeted to have him get real, significant reps were Trask still around. However, if you give him reps against Idaho, then you can only play him in one of the games against FSU or the bowl game. Of course, that presupposes that Mullen envisions Jones taking over as the starter at some point this season.
It’s not entirely clear to me that he’s prepared to do so. That means that the Idaho game will tell us a lot about his plans.
Regardless, the Gators have a chance to win 10 games, bury Florida State’s 2018 season and get to a fairly major bowl game. There’s a lot to play for in the next three games.
I can’t wait.