Florida performance against UT-Martin points towards promising things for 2019

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I think most Gators fans expected a little bit more from Florida against UT-Martin, at least when they only had a 3-0 lead heading into the second quarter.

Apparently Dan Mullen did too, as he ripped into the team at halftime and dropped an expletive during his interview with the Gators Radio Network heading into the locker room after the first half.

But at the end of the day, Florida ran away with a dominant 45-0 win.

The Gators outgained UT-Martin 543-194. They didn’t turn the ball over. Feleipe Franks only threw two incompletions.

The only thing that really went wrong was injuries, as dynamic playmaker Kadarius Toney and lock-down cornerback C.J. Henderson both went down with injuries that look like they may be significant.

Plus, I think there are some things we can look at from 2018 that indicate promising things for Florida.

Running Game

Push up-front was the issue that Mullen talked about at halftime and was asked about after the game.

There’s no doubt that Florida’s offensive line needs to improve and the running game is going to struggle until it does.

But I think it’s instructive to look at where Florida was at this time last year in the running game.

If we eliminate the running of Franks, Florida had 52 carries for 255 yards (4.9 yards per attempt) in its first two games last season versus Charleston Southern and Kentucky. This season, Florida has 53 carries for 236 yards (4.5 yards per attempt) in its two games thus far excluding Franks.

So Florida is running the ball just as often and just slightly less effectively. To be honest, we shouldn’t be too upset about that considering the youth along the offensive line.

Last year Florida had three explosive (20+ yard) running plays in its first two games. This year, the Gators only have two. So had a running back popped a 20-yard run instead of getting tripped up at the line of scrimmage (i.e. Malik Davis fumbling the pitch against Miami), the statistics would be identical.

It wasn’t really until the last four games of last season that the offensive line became dominant up-front in the run game. Through the Missouri game, Florida averaged 4.9 yards per rush, exactly what the Gators averaged in the first two games of the season.

From that point on though, Florida averaged 5.9 yards per rush. It took two thirds of the year for the line to develop, but develop it did. By the end of the year, we remembered them as being a great running team from the start, but it just isn’t true.

I suspect the same will be true this year. At some point, the things Hevesy is teaching them will click and the running game will improve.

Passing Game

Until that point where things click up-front, Florida is going to have to rely on its passing game, specifically QB Feleipe Franks.

If there’s one thing I think should be really encouraging to Florida fans, it is that when the Gators couldn’t run the ball against Kentucky last season, Mullen tried to put the game on Franks’ shoulders (38 pass attempts) and he wasn’t able to deliver (44.7 completion %, 6.1 yards per attempt).

Thus far in 2019, Franks has been able to deliver.

Yes, he had some bad turnovers against Miami. But hidden in that performance were that his underlying metrics were very good.

In fact, his metrics have been so good thus far that he compares really favorably to his compatriots in the SEC.

Now that everyone in the SEC has basically played a cupcake and a Power-5 opponent, we should be able to compare the QBs performance thus far. When compared with the QBs who have played the most, Franks grades out as the third best QB, in a virtual tie with Jake Fromm.

But look at that list again. Franks is breaking into the top tier of the QBs in the conference. Tagovailoa is clearly in a class above and was last year as well. After his performance against Texas, LSU QB Joe Burrow may be there as well.

But Franks has been much better this year in his own right.

The above chart shows Franks’ performance in the first two games this year versus last year. While his rushing numbers are down, he has increased his yards per pass attempt by 2.4.

You perhaps could dismiss this performance against UT-Martin as just being against a cupcake. But last season against cupcakes (Idaho and Charleston Southern), Franks completed 69 percent of his passes. To complete 93 percent of his passes against UT-Martin says something about his development.

And you can see it in his downfield accuracy as well. Last season in the opening two games, Franks was 2-10 on passes more than 20 yards past the line of scrimmage for 76 yards, both against Charleston Southern. This year, Franks is 3-6 for 169 yards and 2 TD, with the two touchdowns coming against UT-Martin.

The biggest thing I noted from charting Franks’ passes from last season was that he showed an increased level of accuracy on deep throws in the final three games of last season versus FBS opponents (53.3%) compared to earlier in the year (34.4%). The fact that Franks is at 50 percent going deep this year is a really good sign. There are reasons for that.

One of the biggest criticisms from the arm-chair QBs about Franks has been that he locks onto receivers. Well, watch his head here.

Franks’ description of the play afterwards was that Jefferson was his first read, but he came off of him to look at a corner route that was covered, and came back to make the deep throw to Jefferson.

You can see him go through those progressions. UT-Martin only rushed three linemen and dropped all four of its linebackers into coverage. But the strong safety took a couple of steps up towards the line of scrimmage, which is what let Jefferson get open deep.

This is good patience by Franks. He has shown an ability to pick apart cover-1 looks deep when the defense gives that to him. Being able to make teams pay when they play a zone is a next step for him.

Coming out of halftime, Florida wanted to put the game away with a touchdown drive. They were doing a good job going down the field until a personal foul penalty was called on Brett Heggie. That eventually left Florida in a third-and-15 situation that might have left Mullen playing for a field goal last season.

UT-Martin played a zone again, hoping to stop Florida short of the sticks. The hole in a zone is over the middle and Franks finds Grimes and delivers a strike allowing him to run for a first down.

Fans have also criticized Franks for not getting the ball out on time. But on this play, he does just that. It looks like his primary read was to the right side of the formation. But the minute he sees a zone coverage, he whips back to hit Grimes.

Even in the firstt quarter when the offense stalled, it wasn’t Franks’ fault.

This is a really good play call. It’s built on something that Florida showed last year against Michigan where C’yontai Lewis pulled across the formation and blocked while Franks faked to Perine and ran around the edge for a big game.

This time, Pitts – in the Lewis role – pulls across the formation and acts like he’s going to block. He then slips past the safety and Franks delivers the ball to him right in stride. Pitts trips or else this is likely a touchdown and nobody is complaining about a slow start.

The thing I think we should recognize from these three plays (and the other TD pass to Tyree Cleveland) is that Franks isn’t trying to fit the ball into tight spaces. Jefferson, Grimes, Pitts and Cleveland were all wide open.

That’s why Franks is completing 78 percent of his throws this year. He’s throwing to the right receiver based on what the coverage dictates.

If that holds through the season, he’s going to win the Gators a bunch of games.

Things to look for

Coming into the game against UT-Martin, I highlighted three things I was looking for: penalties, defensive line play, and targeting Toney/Pitts.

Penalties were perhaps my most pleasant take-away from the game. After committing nine penalties against Miami, Florida only had two versus UT-Martin. The aforementioned penalty against Heggie and a holding penalty against left tackle Stone Forsythe were it.

Not only was the Florida offense able to overcome the penalties for touchdowns, but only one was what I would qualify as a mental mistake. Certainly Miami likely caused some of those penalties because they are physically superior to UT-Martin, but it was an area Florida could clean up and did.

The Gators defensive front was spectacular yet again.

After a 10-sack performance against Miami, the Gators added another five against UT-Martin. Not only that, but Florida had another 10 tackles for loss. The UT-Martin offense averaged 3.9 yards per play, which would have ranked first in FBS last year.

The Gators did give up three explosive plays to the Skyhawks. But if you eliminate those three, UT-Martin averaged just 1.8 yards per play.

Obviously it’s hard to make declarative statements about what this defense currently is after a cupcake game. But combined with the performance against Miami and I do think we can start to make some statements about what its ceiling might be: a top-10 unit.

And the offense early on did focus on getting the ball to Toney and Pitts.

Pitts obviously tripped on the play that would have been a TD and Toney got hurt early on. But the fact that Florida was focused on getting the ball to its playmakers early is a good sign.

Injuries

Clearly the big negative to the game were the injuries to Toney and C.J. Henderson. You never want to see an injury, but the fact that these came in a game that Florida won so easily adds to the disappointment.

How Florida replaces the injured players is an interesting question.

At wide receiver, Toney has been the guy who has gotten the offense going for three years now at this point. Florida has a ton of talent at the position, but none with the skill set Toney brings.

However, you could see a clue if you stayed for the second half against UT-Martin.

Here, Florida starts with Toney out as a receiver and motion him into the backfield. They then hand it to Toney with Perine as the lead blocker. By starting Toney at receiver, it ensures that the defense is in a nickel defense.

This is the play that Toney got injured on, but it’s also a look Mullen hasn’t shown thus far. The question is whether they’ll be able to show it more with Toney out.

Here’s the exact same play, except this time it was run with redshirt freshman Jacob Copeland. Fans have been waiting to see Copeland for a while now, as he was the highest rated recruit from two years ago.

Copeland is a different player than Toney and Mullen has stated that he is still learning the offense. But he clearly has a burst that the Gators can take advantage of if Toney is out for a while.

The injury on the other side to C.J. Henderson actually concerns me more.

Mullen indicated that it is a mild ankle sprain, but ankle sprains can be tricky injuries. This is especially true for cornerbacks, who utilize change of direction more than any other player on the field.

The good news for Florida is that true freshmen Kaiir Elam, Jaydon Hill and Chester Kimbrough all got time in the game against UT-Martin and acquitted themselves quite well. Those players are going to be needed if Henderson misses any significant amount of time.

Luckily, Florida’s upcoming schedule is going to be light on QBs who can take advantage of a weakness in the secondary should the freshmen struggle.

Kentucky QB Terry Wilson suffered a season-ending injury so the Wildcats will be breaking in Sawyer Smith, a transfer from Troy against the Gators. Tennessee QB Jarrett Guarantano has been bad, with a YAR of -0.82. Ben Hill Griffin Stadium has also been a house of horrors for the Vols their past two trips to Gainesville. Towson just barely snuck by the Citadel in its first game of the year.

So the key is not whether Toney and Henderson are back for next week. I think the key is whether they can get back for the Auburn game coming up in early October.

Takeaway

Florida did what it needed to do against UT-Martin.

They shut the Skyhawks out, made big plays through the air and eliminated careless penalties.

I would have liked to have seen them run the ball more. I would have liked to have seen more from Kyle Trask and Emory Jones because the game was salted away sooner.

But that’s really where we are now.

After years of beating teams like UMass and East Carolina with scores of 24-7 and 31-24, Florida just went out and played relatively uninspired and still won by 45. That’s a good thing.

Because we should have expected there might be a letdown coming after all of the Miami hype coming into the year. These guys knew they could take UT-Martin. They just decided not to really do it until the second quarter.

Certainly they won’t be able to get away with that against Auburn or LSU. But I don’t expect that they will try.

Instead, Florida has a pretty favorable schedule to go into the gauntlet against Auburn, LSU, South Carolina and Georgia with a 5-0 record. The Gators also have a QB who is taking steps towards silencing his doubters every time he steps out onto the field and is starting to prove that he can win games rather than just manage them.

Enjoy it, Gator fans. You haven’t had that from a QB since 2009.

Featured image used under Creative Commons license courtesy Photo-Gator