Why are fans trying to push aside the best Gator QB since Tim Tebow?

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Gators fans can be a fickle bunch.

Sometimes that’s a great thing because our expectations are so high that only a championship will do and it pushes the program to greater heights. Sometimes it’s difficult though as a player who plays really well is cast aside for the promise of what someone else might do.

Such is the case of Kyle Trask.

Trask took over for Feleipe Franks after a gruesome injury against Kentucky and led the Gators to a 9-2 record. This significantly undersells what he did though. In that Kentucky game, he entered in the fourth quarter with the Gators down 21-10 and completely turned the offense around. He then went into Death Valley at night, a week after suffering a knee sprain, and nearly upset the Tigers and Joe Burrow. He completed 67 percent of his passes, averaged 8.3 yards per attempt and had a QB rating of 156.1, good for 26th in the country.

Against FBS opponents, the Gators offense ranked 15th in passing yards per game, 23rd in yards per pass attempt and 16th in completion percentage. This after the Gators ranked 96th, 71st and 90th in those three categories in 2018 and 107th, 101st and 92nd in those categories in 2017 under Franks.

Trask’s statistics aren’t at the level of Tim Tebow, but they’re way closer than any other Gators QB has gotten in the last decade. Since Tebow led the 2009 offense to a ranking of 5th in yards per pass attempt, Gators QBs have averaged a ranking of 82.7 from 2010-2018.

That’s why it’s been so interesting to me to see the clamoring for Emory Jones to be the starter in 2020. Maybe I’m forgetting but it didn’t seem like this was even a discussion coming into 2019 with Franks. He had clearly established himself as an effective – if imperfect – starter.

Trask has now established himself as better than Franks, one of the reasons he moved on to Arkansas.  Trask’s stats compare favorably to Rex Grossman in 2000, you know, the year before he delivered a 2001 performance Gators fans still believe deserved a Heisman Trophy. And yet still there is a contingent of the fan base that doesn’t think Trask has room to grow.

So the question is, is that contingent justified in its thinking?

The Long Ball

Any discussion of Trask versus Jones starts with throwing the ball deep.

Trask clearly doesn’t have the same arm strength as Jones. The ball jumps out of Jones hands while sometimes – especially in the rain – it appears to float out of Trask’s. But the question remains, is Jones better than Trask at throwing the ball deep.

Well, luckily there is a site out there that charts every throw a QB makes at SEC Stat Cat.

This chart illustrates why Trask is the starter. While Jones admittedly has a very small sample size, he was much less accurate than Trask at both the 0-10 yard distances and the 20+ yard distance. Trask completed a higher percentage of deep passes and had less inaccurate throws.

That doesn’t mean Trask throws a great deep ball, but it does indicate that there is no immediate improvement sitting on the bench for those types of throws.

The other problem is where Dan Mullen tends to attack.

You might think Mullen would have had significantly more deep targets in 2018 than 2019, since he had a QB who was much less accurate but had a cannon for an arm. Well, you’d be wrong.

The target depth of throws is almost identical between 2018 and 2019. This suggests that Mullen has areas of the field he wants to exploit and players that he wants to get the ball to independent of who the QB is at the time.

That’s a problem for Jones as the 1-10 yard target depth is the area where he has struggled the most, completing only 56 percent of his throws and being inaccurate two-thirds of the time. Oftentimes, this is also where third downs are converted.

The play below might have been the most important play in the game against LSU. Florida’s offense had stalled after going up 28-21 in the third quarter and Joe Burrow had led two straight touchdown drives. At that point, Mullen decided to give Jones a shot at a full drive.

On this play, LSU is showing blitz and they bring it. Florida doesn’t have enough blockers as they had five wide receivers in the formation. That makes the read pretty easy. If the linebackers come on the blitz, the middle of the field will be open. If they don’t, the outside is where he’ll want to go.

Both linebackers rush immediately but Jones looks left first. That means he can’t set his feet to hit Kyle Pitts coming across the middle. Pitts was in one-on-one coverage against Grant Delpit and had beaten the All-American  for the first down. But by the time Jones came to him in the progression, it was too late.

I realize it’s not fair to cherry pick one of Jones’ three throws in the game and read a ton into it, but this is a read that is important to make quickly. And it’s particularly useful when contrasting to Trask.

The first thing to note is that when Pitts (#84) goes in motion, Delpit (#7) follows. This suggests that LSU is in man coverage. Note that before the snap, Trask taps his hip, giving a signal to Van Jefferson (#12), lined up on the outside. I think what Trask was signaling was that since LSU was in man, he expected the middle to open up, allowing Jefferson to get open on a slant.

You obviously notice the touchdown when watching the game. But seeing Trask make an adjustment based on the coverage is something I haven’t seen Jones do. I think that points towards an understanding of defenses that is the reason for the discrepancy in accuracy on those shorter throws.

If Jones were hitting long throws at a significantly higher clip, I’d understand why fans are clamoring for him. But he isn’t. The reality is that Trask was more effective there too.

QB Running Game

But here’s where Jones makes up ground against Trask.

Jones ran for 256 yards on 42 attempts, a 6.1 yard per attempt average. Contrast that to Trask, who ran for 8 yards on 63 attempts (0.1 yard per attempt). Jones is clearly the better runner.

But that’s not completely fair to Trask. It’s no secret that Florida’s offensive line wasn’t very good in 2019. Consequently, Trask was sacked 22 times and sack yardage is factored into rushing numbers.

If we assume that each sack lost around 5 yards (a relatively low estimate), that would put Trask’s actual designed run plays at a 2.9 yard per attempt average. Of course, you can’t just subtract sacks – and it’s not a coincidence that Jones wasn’t sacked once – but Trask was sacked much less as the season went on.

For comparison, it’s probably a good exercise to look at the running success of Feleipe Franks in 2018. Franks ran for 350 yards on 110 carries in 2018. But he was also sacked 12 times on 322 attempts. Had you given Trask those additional carries while reducing his sacks to 12, he would have had around 225 yards on the same number of carries. Not as good as Franks to be sure, but not as bad as it looked in 2019.

Indeed, one of the reasons that Franks’ rushing numbers look so much better than Trasks’ is because of Emory Jones. Jones ran the ball 42 times in 2019 after only running the ball 18 times in 2018. Basically, Jones ran the ball more, taking the ball out of Trask’s hands for those runs that went to Franks in 2018. That is the way you would hope things would go.

And the biggest thing that you just can’t ignore is the offensive line.

Football Outsiders tracks offensive line statistics and above shows where Florida ranked in 2018 and 2019 in the six stats they track that have to do with the running game. Florida was significantly worse in five of the six categories.

The statistic I like the most is Opportunity Rate, which is somewhat complex but essentially measures whether the offensive line did its job on a running play. Florida went from ranking 17th in 2018 to 125th in 2019. I think it’s really difficult to blame Trask for not being able to run the ball in an offense that wasn’t able to run the ball to begin with.

Franks was averaging 3.2 yards per rush again in 2019 when he went down against Kentucky, but that is hidden by his performance against UT-Martin. Against Miami and Kentucky, Franks ran the ball 15 times for 31 yards. He was struggling to get anything going too.

Again, I don’t think Trask is going to be fantastic in the running game – and I do think Jones should be in the game as a running option from time-to-time – but he’s not the stiff his statistics point towards.

Finally – and I think this is the most important point – if you plot passing yards per attempt and rushing yards per attempt versus points per game for 2019, scoring increases 2.1-times more for every extra yard of passing you extract versus every yard rushing.

That suggests that a QB who throws the ball more effectively is always going to be more valuable than one who runs the ball. Obviously, if you can have one who does both, that’s great. But I think you probably want to error on the side of the pure passer if you have to make a choice.

Level of Competition

This is an issue that I don’t think many people take into consideration when comparing Trask and Jones.

Trask was thrown right into the fire, having his first meaningful snaps against Kentucky and then excelling against Tennessee a week later. He was clearly still learning when the Gators played Auburn, LSU, South Carolina and Georgia in the teeth of its schedule.

However, in those four games, Trask completed 62 percent of his passes for 11 TD and just 2 INT. That led to a QB rating of 147.3 during that stretch, with a low of 146 and a high of 149. For comparison, both of those ratings were higher than Franks’ season rating for 2018.

Conversely, Jones only made 10 throws in meaningful games when the outcome hadn’t been decided. He did complete 60 percent of those throws, but only averaged 2.9 yards per throw. Considering that defenses were gearing up for him to run (I mean, weren’t we all just waiting for them to have him fake the run and throw deep every game?), this is really poor.

In 2020, Trask is going to get a much easier level of competition. Full games against Eastern Washington, South Alabama and New Mexico State along with switching Ole Miss for Auburn should allow him to put up better numbers.

But even then, I’m not sure that matters all that much. Last season, the Gators faced four defenses that ranked 30th or higher in yards per attempt allowed. Against those four, Trask had a QB rating of 151.6 with a low of 146. Against all other competition, his QB rating was 159.9.

The reality is that Trask appears to be consistent regardless of the competition. Whether he has an extra gear is the big question and why people still want to see what Jones can do.

Does Trask have an extra gear?

A month ago, I wrote that Trask likely wouldn’t be able to replicate the jump that Joe Burrow showed between the 2018 and 2019 seasons. I still think that’s the case.

However, after diving into the numbers a little bit more, I think it’s a lot closer than I originally thought.

My main reasoning for thinking it unlikely that Trask would be able to replicate Burrow’s jump was because Trask completed nearly 68 percent of his passes in 2019 while Burrow completed less than 60 percent of his. The fact that Burrow was able to jump that completion percentage up to 78 percent is the biggest reason he made the jump he did and Trask just doesn’t have that room.

However, if we break things down based on throw distance, things start to look a little bit better for Trask.

Trask’s 2019 was better than Burrow’s 2018, no matter what way you slice it. He had more explosive plays and hit them at a higher percentage at each distance. He had a higher completion percentage at each distance. And he had a higher yards per attempt average at four of the five distances, but those numbers are really close.

The area where Trask made the most headway was on throws behind the line of scrimmage. Burrow only completed 75 percent of those while Trask completed 96 percent of his. In fact, if you subtract enough completions from Trask to get him down to 75 percent at that distance, his numbers come really close to 2018 Burrow.

But there’s one other thing those two seasons have in common: absolutely putrid running games.

If we look at offensive line play for 2018 LSU versus 2019 LSU, there was improvement across the board. And if we look at opportunity rate again, the line went from 96th to 12th, doing its job far more often this season. Indeed, the 2018 Tigers offensive line stats actually look strikingly similar to the 2019 Gators.

The LSU OL improvement in 2019 led to significant improvement in the Tigers’ run game. In 2018 they ranked 87th in yards per rush but improved to 21st in 2019. Perhaps not coincidently, with many of the same underlying offensive line statistics, Florida ranked 80th in yards per rush in 2019.

The other place that LSU improved significantly was pass protection. In 2018, Burrow had 86 throws on second or third down with 10+ yards to go. On those throws, he had an average of 2.38 seconds to throw the ball. That improved to 2.51 seconds on 88 attempts in 2019.

Conversely, Trask had 80 attempts on second or third down with 10+ yards to go in 2019. On those throws, he had an average of 2.28 seconds to get rid of the ball.

But even more, those 80 throws on long-distance downs amounted for 23 percent of Trask’s throws. In 2018, those 86 long-distance downs accounted for 25 percent of Burrow’s throws. However, his 88 long-distance downs accounted for only 17 percent of his throws in 2019. So even though the total number was more, his offensive line was forcing him into those throws less often on a percentage basis.

Not coincidently, with more time to throw, he went from completing 57 percent of his throws on those downs to almost 80 percent. Trask (amazingly) completed 71.3 percent of his throws on long-distance downs with less time than Burrow.

Just imagine what he could do with another half second to throw the ball.

Takeaway

The point of this article isn’t to denigrate Emory Jones. He is a highly skilled quarterback who will be an important part of the Gators future.

But based on the limited film thus far, he has holes in his game just like Trask does.

Trask earned the job with his performance in 2019. And yes, I know he doesn’t possess a cannon, but there are reasons I don’t think he needs to.

The first reason is that Mullen’s offense isn’t designed to take constant deep shots. That is illustrated by the fact that the target distance didn’t change very much from 2018 to 2019, even though Franks – with a much stronger arm – was the QB in 2018.

The second reason is that Trask didn’t have any time to throw in 2019. The running game was below average. The offensive line was worse than that. And Mullen had to call on Trask to throw the ball 56 percent of the time, after asking Franks to throw the ball only 39 percent of the time in 2018.

It isn’t realistic to expect Trask to make a leap like Joe Burrow did last year. But he doesn’t have to win the Heisman Trophy to be a much better QB. If you’ve read my stuff for any length of time, you know I love when QBs have high completion percentages. I think it is indicative of their ability to read defenses.

Well, Trask sat at 68 percent in his first year as a starter since high school. Consider me impressed.

And while a Burrow-like jump isn’t likely, I do think that there is reason to believe that with an improved running game and a little bit more time, Trask is going to be able to hit the deep balls that everyone believes he struggles with. If that happens, Trask does indeed have a next gear.

And that’s really the only reason to pine for Jones at this point. You have to think that Trask doesn’t have that next gear and Jones potentially does. The thinking would be that since 2020 is the year Florida has an opening with Burrow, Tagovailoa and Fromm leaving, let’s take the guy Mullen recruited out of the garage and see what he can do.

Trask may not have been recruited by Mullen. He may not have Jones’ wheels. And he may not have Franks’ arm. But his underlying stats indicate that he does have the potential to hit another gear. And even if he doesn’t, he was the 26th ranked passer in all of college football last year. He was ranked third in the SEC. I get that people want to see what Jones can do. But we’ve already seen what Trask can do.

And it’s the best quarterbacking in Gainesville since the Tebow era.

Featured image used under Creative Commons license courtesy Photo-Gator