Gators take on the Vols

Is Tennessee all that good? That’s probably the key question to understanding what will happen when the Gators take on the Vols on Saturday night.

I mean, I know that they’re 3-0. I know that they defeated a Pitt team that is probably a borderline top-25 team. But does that actually prove that this Tennessee team is any better than the 7-6 squad from 2021?

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Obviously a second year in Josh Heupel’s system is a positive for the Vols. Heupel’s teams have always scored a bunch of points and his time at Tennessee is producing on that side of the ball as well. But it’s easy to look good when you’re playing Ball State and Akron.

Of course, you could ask the same question of the Gators.

After Anthony Richardson played lights-out against Utah, Florida fans wish the lights had been out during the Kentucky and South Florida games as ugly as they were. Still, the Gators are 2-1 with a win over a team currently ranked 13th in the country and a close loss to a team ranked 8th.

It’s an interesting question to ponder, but had the Kentucky and Utah games been switched in the Gators timeline, would we feel the same way about the team?

After all, Richardson would have started out with an absolute stinker but then righted the ship against the Utes. After a down performance against USF, the expectation would be that he could right the ship again against the Vols. Instead, it feels like everything is moving in a negative direction and hope for an upswing is in short supply.

The Gators have won 16 of the previous 17 meetings between these two teams. The game hasn’t even been close since 2017 (i.e. the Heave to Cleve game) and even in that one, Florida shouldn’t have needed the bomb to win.

But it hasn’t been complete domination. There have been plenty of close games, but Florida has seemed to have a voodoo doll directly connected to Vols fans in those games that they’ve used repeatedly and cruelly (Franks to Cleveland, Grier to Callaway, Treon Harris’ 10 points on 4 passes, Trey Burton for 80 yards).

Tennessee is clearly perceived as the better team coming into this one, as evidenced by the Vols being set as 10.5 point favorites. But the last 17 years is a lot of history to overcome and you have to wonder: Does Tennessee have what it takes to slay those ghosts?

Offensive Tendencies

When evaluating Tennessee, I think it’s worth taking a look at their schedule. They defeated Ball State 59-10 in their opener, but according to ESPN’s FPI, the Cardinals are the 118th ranked team in the country. In their third game, the Vols defeated Akron 63-6, but the Zips are ranked 129th in FPI. Yes, Tennessee dominated, but they should have dominated.

In between those two games against the bottom dwellers of the FBS was an overtime win over Pitt on the road. I suspect Florida would be 3-0 against the slate as well.

And while the Heupel offense has been humming, let’s look at the game against Pitt a little bit closer.

The Vols offense only put up 91 rushing yards against the Panthers (on 35 carries) and 27 of those yards came from QB Hendon Hooker. Pitt had the Vols on the ropes early, up 10-0 driving deep in Tennessee territory when Pitt QB Kedon Slovis threw what really was a perfect pass where only his receiver could catch it.

Except that receiver – Bub Means – allowed the ball to bounce off of his hands right into the waiting hands of Tennessee defensive back Trevon Flowers. Tennessee then drove for a TD and instead of  being down 17-0 the score was just 10-7. Slovis went down later in the half, his backup played terribly, yet still Pitt was able to force overtime.

One thing I pointed out that Kentucky took advantage of against Florida were some tendencies that the Gators showed on offense when they got to a certain down and distance. Looking at the film from Tennessee’s game against Pitt, I think there are some things the Gators defense can key on as well.

For instance, when Tennessee was driving down 10-0, you presume Heupel knew his team needed to sustain the drive to allow their defense – worn out at that point – time to refill the gas tanks. That means you’re going to get their best plays on third and fourth downs. So what plays did they call?

This seems really simple. Tennessee had one-on-one coverage against their wide receiver (#4, Cedric Tillman). Tillman beats the Pitt defensive back towards the inside and it’s an easy pitch-and-catch for Tennessee QB Hendon Hooker.

Later in that same drive, Tennessee was facing a fourth-and-3 and here’s the play they ran.

It’s the same slant to Tillman. But this time, Pitt runs its linebacker over towards the sideline and nearly into the passing lane. The DB does a better job in coverage and they’re able to knock the ball down.

This is an opportunity for Florida. If this is what the Vols consider a bread and butter play and the Gators linebacker or STAR can read it and cut underneath, this could turn into a pick-6 pretty easily. Additionally, I’d expect Jason Marshall to be matched up against Tillman (he’s banged up, but listed as starting on Tennessee’s depth chart) and he’ll need to be up tight in these situations.

The tendencies for the Vols become even more stark when you look at the throwing frequency chart against Pitt.

This chart shows that Hooker threw short and right a ton. It also shows that he took a bunch of deep shots (7, to be exact) to the right side. The distribution of yardage by location looks very similar. Tennessee wants to go to its right.

This isn’t just a one-game phenomenon. If we look at the same chart for the Vols in all of its games against SEC opponents in 2021, here’s what we see.

It’s the exact same trend. Short and right is highly preferred. Deep shots only go to the outside. Basically nothing goes down the middle and certainly nothing is going deep down the middle. The Heupel offense lulls you to sleep by throwing screens and hitches and slants and then once it gets you to overcommit to defending those, takes its deep shot.

They hit three total deep shots against Pitt. One was a 32-yard TD toss to Bru McCoy. Another was a 61-yard pass to Tillman to the one-yard line that turned into a TD. The third was a jump ball to Tillman in overtime.

One thing you’ll notice about the deep shots is that they came on first-and-10, second-and-6, and second-and-13. That’s because on third down, you’re getting a slant to the outside right.

We’ll see if Patrick Toney and the Florida defense are ready for it.

The Quarterbacks

Hendon Hooker was good at Virginia Tech (QB Rating of 159.8). He’s been even better at Tennessee, with a QB rating of 179.1. That’s bordering on elite territory.

He also is a running threat – though not as much as I might have thought – averaging 3.9 yards per carry over 435 carries. He can get a first down if you give him an opportunity and Tennessee does design runs for him, but Hooker can do much more damage in the pocket.

Anthony Richardson is the complete opposite.

Last season he had a QB rating of 144.1 in 64 throws, which is about average. But he was dynamic on the ground, totaling 401 yards on just 51 carries (7.9 yards per rush). That continued against Utah (QB rating of 129.6, 9.6 yards per rush on 11 carries) and so it looked like Florida would get much what they got out of AR last year, just all game long.

But against Kentucky (QB rating 62.9) and South Florida (85.6), Richardson has struggled with accuracy and interceptions. He also has not brought any value in the running game (13 carries for 28 yards) and so Florida’s offense has been anemic.

Hooker is the better player by just about every metric. His Yards Above Replacement (YAR) – my proprietary stat that takes into account a QBs running and throwing – had him at 1.55 last year, which is very good but not quite elite. His YAR for 2022 so far is at 1.52, so right in-line with what you would expect.

Richardson’s YAR this year is abysmal (-1.14) and is third from the bottom in the SEC. But his YAR in 2021 was 2.51, which indicates that AR has a higher gear than Hooker but is obviously much more inconsistent.

And that’s where I think the comparison starts to get interesting. If we look at Predicted Points Added (PPA) – a measure of points added (or lost) given the outcome of a given play – here’s what we see.

Hooker had a fantastic game against Akron, but the Zips beat Saint Francis 30-23 in overtime and lost 52-0 to Michigan State. They’re a bad team. Other than that, Richardson has the highest performance (Utah) of the QBs. But he also then has the two lowest performances of the two QBs as well.

This is why Vols fans aren’t crowing about winning this game yet. Richardson has the ability to be the best QB on the field….but he also has the ability to be the absolute worst.

But there’s one other thing to consider: Pressure.

At least against Pitt, Tennessee defensive coordinator Tim Banks decided to bring pressure in key situations. He did that in two ways and had mixed results.

On this play, Tennessee brings its slot corner on a blitz. But it isn’t a pure blitz as the Vols still only rush four men. Instead, they drop two linebackers into zone on the right hand side. They know that on fourth-and-3, Slovis is likely going to have a quick read. He double clutches because the linebackers get in his way and before he can come back to the tight end who’s open on the left side, he gets drilled from behind.

This is a great defensive play call if the linebackers can get in the way of the quick throw. Most plays involve a QB reading right to left. The blitzing player is coming from his blind side. I suspect Richardson may struggle with this sort of look should Tennessee choose to run it, particularly in shorter-yardage situations unless Napier and Co. have prepared him for the look.

But if Tennessee gets greedy trying to get pressure, Richardson may be able to make them pay.

On this play, Tennessee brings its safety on a blitz from the left side. This means that the other safety drops towards the middle of the field. Slovis immediately recognizes that this means he has a linebacker on his tight end running a wheel route down the field. Again, the read starts right to left but the blitz can’t get home because Slovis doesn’t double clutch.

Note though that Slovis got rocked on both of these plays. This has been the thing that has confused me about the commentary around Richardson running the ball. I think it’s much more likely Richardson gets hurt on a play like this than one when he’s running around and able to protect himself.

Regardless, the plays I’ve diagrammed show that these sorts of plays provide opportunities for big plays but also opportunities for catastrophic failures. And the opportunity for failures is where I start to get nervous because Richardson has been really bad against pressure.

Thus far in 2022, Richardson has completed 27 percent of his throws for 2.5 yards per attempt when under pressure. That isn’t just Kentucky either. He was 1-5 against Utah and 0-5 against USF.

Woof.

But give him time and Richardson’s numbers are greatly improved. In those circumstances, he is 35-55 (64%) and averaging 6.7 yards per attempt. Add 60-70 rushing yards and that’s a good outing.

This actually gives me more hope than I had immediately following the USF game because when not pressured AR was 16-19 for 153 yards against Utah and 10-13 for 111 yards against USF sandwiched around 9-23 for 104 yards against Kentucky. That means that while the overall QB ratings in the Kentucky and USF games looked similar, but he was much better against the Bulls.

Richardson’s inaccuracy against pressure aren’t new. He was 5-17 for 142 yards and 3 INTs last season in such situations, but he did hit two explosives and averaged 28 yards per completion. He hasn’t hit those yet this year, but based on the Pitt film, Tennessee is going to give him an opportunity.

We’ll see if he can take advantage.

Takeaway

I’ve outlined some ways in which I think Tennessee might be able to be exploited. But let’s be honest, this just hasn’t been a very good Florida team the past two weeks. That starts at the QB position, where the Gators would be 3-0 with a close win over Kentucky and a sizable win over USF with just average play from the position.

At least against the Wildcats you could point to the defensive improvement, but with the way the Bulls just ran over the Gators, I don’t have a lot of confidence when we look at the statistics in aggregate.

Florida is going to want to run the ball. Thus far in 2022, Tennessee has been strong (19th) in yards per rush allowed. Yes, that is against some cupcakes, but Florida just had a cupcake come to town and got dominated up-front by USF.

Coming into the year, I would have said that Florida had an advantage over Tennessee on defense because last year’s unit was better and Todd Grantham was gone. But through three games thus far, that just hasn’t been the case.

Not only has Florida’s defense been poor against the run (104th, 5.3 yards per rush) but it’s only been average (38th, 6.4 yards per pass) against the pass. The result is that one major advantage seems to have evaporated.

And then if you go to the offensive side of the ball, the gap is enormous. Tennessee has been better this year (12th overall in yards per play) and 44 percent better than last season according to predicted points added (PPA) on offense. Florida has been average on offense (35th in yards per play) but that is all due to a running game that is better than last year. And even with that, the Gators offense has been 40 percent worse than 2021 according to PPA.

So what we have is a Vols defense that has vastly outperformed Florida’s defense, a Vols offense that has vastly outperformed Florida’s offense and Florida going into Neyland Stadium as 10.5 point underdogs.

What’ll it take for Florida to come out on top? Ghosts.

It’ll take the Gators linebackers stepping up with Ventrell Miller gone. It’ll take multiple turnovers forced by the defense, likely at least one leading directly to a TD. It’ll take a special teams blunder by Tennessee at some point, whether it’s a blocked punt or field goal.

And it’s going to take Anthony Richardson figuring out how to not just turn the ship around, but to bail out the water that’s gathered on the decks of the S.S. Richardson. That means Heisman-level play.

Vols fans are being cautious, at least publicly. On this week’s Stand Up & Holler, Tennessee grad and host of That SEC Podcast Michael Bratton said he expected Richardson to play the game of his life. Before we went on the air, I asked whether he was ready to exorcise some demons or get a giant kick in the groin because there’s really no in-between for Tennessee.

But any Gators fan who tells you they’re confident going into this one isn’t being honest. The film says Tennessee wins. The stats say Tennessee wins. The only thing going against them is that they do seem to have some obvious tendencies on both sides of the ball pointed out here. And they have to deal with the ghosts of past defeats that have defined the program really since Steve Spurrier came to town.

Those ghosts do mean something. And if the game is tight, maybe Florida has an advantage. But ask any Gator fan whether they’d rather have Tennessee’s statistical profile or rely on voodoo and you’ll know why I’m picking the Vols.

Tennessee (-10.5) wins, 34-20.

Picks this year: 2-1 straight up, 2-1 against the spread