Fixing the Gators Defense

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It’s not a secret that Florida’s defense isn’t good. On the most recent episode of Stand Up & Holler, I gave the unit a first trimester grade of “F”.

My colleague Nick Knudsen had them at a C-minus, but the reason I have them further than that is because the level of ineptitude of the defense so far in 2022 has me making solid comparisons to Vanderbilt.

Currently the Gators rank 74th in the country in points per game allowed against FBS opponents. But that is actually outperforming their 103rd place ranking in yards per play allowed. It’s no surprise that the Gators are bad against the run, ranking 113th in the country. After all, the Gators weren’t very good against the run last year or in 2020 either. But what has been surprising is how bad the Gators have been against the pass (86th, 7.9 yards per attempt).

Don’t like yards per play metrics? Well, the Gators currently rank 14th in the SEC in Predicted Points Added (PPA), an advanced statistic that takes down and distance into account. Yes, you read that right. The Gators’ defense thus far isn’t just compared to, but has actually been worse than, Vanderbilt.

I get the excuse that Utah, Kentucky and Tennessee are good teams. But there are two problems with that argument.

First, even though Florida couldn’t stop them, USF currently ranks 108th in the country on offense at 4.4 yards per play. The Gators gave up 5.4 yards per play to the Bulls. Utah ranks 36th at 6.1 yards per play and Florida gave up 6.3 yards per play to the Utes. Even Tennessee – vaunted offense that it is – is averaging 7.2 yards per play thus far in 2022. Florida gave up 8.2 yards per play to the Vols.

The result is that in three of four games, the defense has been awful. And even though the statistical profile of the defense looked better against Kentucky, Billy Napier was so afraid of it that he went for two fourth downs in his own territory with a QB who was really struggling rather than punting and trying to get the ball back in the traditional way.

Obviously, we’re looking for improvement with the unit. But the struggles thus far really force us to ask the question, what’s wrong and then how do you fix it?

What’s Wrong?

Whenever you’re this bad, it isn’t just one thing. But when trying to figure out what to do with any problem, the first thing you have to do is to identify what is going wrong. That’s where looking at some advanced stats can help identify where to focus.

Despite what seems like big play after big play, Florida’s defense actually ranks 6th in the SEC in explosive plays. The culprit there is the running game a little bit more than the passing game, but the point is that explosives aren’t what’s killing the Gators.

Instead, what we see is that Florida’s defense is dead last in the SEC in predicted points added (PPA) both overall and against the run. They’re not great against the pass, but they’re not Vanderbilt either. The same applies if we look at success rate, where the Gators defense is ranked 14th in the SEC overall and against the run. Here, they’re worse (12th) against the pass but again, it is the run defense that stands out.

That tracks when we look at where Florida’s defense stands this year versus last year when we look at the types of plays given up. Through 4 games in 2022, Florida’s defense is surrendering 3.2 more plays on average per game between 10-19 yards than they did in 2021 (which remember, wasn’t a great defense). 20-plus yards plays are almost identical this season (9.5 per game in 2022 vs. 8.8 in 2021).

Again, this supports that explosives aren’t necessarily the problem with the Gators defense.

The interesting thing is that last season, the Gators surrendered a play in that 10-19 yard range 5.7 percent of the time on the ground and 6.5 percent of the time through the air. This year, those percentages have increased to 6.9 percent on the ground and 9.4 percent through the air.

So while both units have been worse than last year – and the run defense was bad last year – the real differentiator this year has been through the air.

So that’s the problem to address that will have the biggest bang for the staff’s buck: 10-19 yard completions through the air.

Examples

So now we know what we want to fix. But why are those passes open and completing at a higher clip than last year? Let’s look at some of the plays that fit that definition against Tennessee.

This is a great example of a player being tentative who doesn’t need to be, which allows a short gain to turn into a larger one. Avery Helm (#24) is the corner on the outside at the top of the screen. You can see that the Gators have three defenders (noted with the X’s) and there are only two Tennessee receivers. Helm has help deep.

But at the snap, he immediately turns his hips and drops into coverage. He does this way too early given the help he has from the safety over the top. That allows the Tennessee receiver to run a hitch with 5-yards of separation between himself and Helm. It also allows him to beat Helm towards the inside and turn a 5-yard gain into a 13-yard gain.

This ended up a huge play for Florida, but only because Ventrell Miller caused the turnover. Without that, it’s an easy first down and an example of the type of play that has plagued the Florida defense.

So Patrick Toney switched to man-to-man on the first play on the next drive, and that didn’t work either.

We know this is man-to-man because of the pre-snap alignment. There’s one deep safety and unless the linebackers drop at the snap, he’s the only player who can help in coverage. That means that a linebacker has to take the running back out of the backfield.

This is a tough play for the linebacker, even if he’s in perfect position. But what I want to note is that cornerback Jadarrius Perkins (#27, circled) plays this perfectly. His job is to take on his man and redirect the running back towards the middle of the field and his help. But the problem is…there isn’t any help.

This is a youthful mistake. Shemar James (#6) doesn’t realize the running back is his responsibility and so doesn’t get out there to help.

So Toney went back to the zone again, again to no avail.

I actually think this is a pretty good play by Antwaun Powell-Ryland (#52). He doesn’t get to the ball, but he knows he has deep help and can be aggressive (remember the earlier play where that didn’t happen). Trey Dean (#0) is in good position, but unlike the previous play, he doesn’t redirect the Tennessee receiver to the inside. Instead, he gets beat to the outside, forcing his help (Amari Burney, #2) to take a wider angle to push the receiver out further downfield.

So back to man-to-man.

On this play, both linebackers blitz but are unable to get home. That means Tre’Vez Johnson (#16) is in one-on-one coverage against Jalin Hyatt (#11). This is a mismatch, but Johnson plays his technique correctly. Because he has safety help towards the middle of the field, he plays with his hips open to funnel Hyatt that way.

Johnson just gets beat. This happens, but you’d like him to get beat by less than 3 yards given that he was shading the receiver to go over the middle and that’s where the receiver went. Still, you’re going to give up these sorts of completions from time-to-time if you play man coverage.

So how about playing with a safety deep but man under coverage?

On this play, Devin Moore (#28) is playing man coverage with deep safety help. He plays up on the receiver (correct). He plays the receiver aggressively off the line of scrimmage (correct). He allows the receiver to get to the outside after catching the ball (incorrect) and so gets no help making the tackle. Instead of an 8-yard gain, it turns into a 16-yard gain.

So how about baiting Tennessee QB Hendon Hooker into throwing into coverage?

On this play just before the snap, Florida safety Rashad Torrence (#22) runs up to the line of scrimmage. Kamari Wilson (#5) drops into the middle of the field. I think the goal here was to get Hooker to throw to his two receivers up top where Wilson could then help.

But instead, Hooker just calmly waits for his tight end to beat Torrence and when linebacker Avery Burney (#2) doesn’t get enough depth to disrupt the throw, the result is a wide open tight end for a big gain.

So how about some zone and man on the same play?

This is a completely busted coverage. Corner Jason Marshall (#3) and linebacker Amari Burney (#2) both take the wide receiver going over the middle. Neither of them picks up running back Jabari Small (#2) who is wide open. Easy touchdown.

How to Fix It?

Okay, so now we’ve seen the plays. What does Florida do to fix it? Unfortunately, that isn’t an easy answer as Patrick Toney threw just about everything he could at the Vols and none of it worked.

But that’s not entirely true. Some of it worked. For example, when he dropped Powell-Ryland on a zone-blitz, he got exactly what he wanted and Powell-Ryland and Trey Dean weren’t able to make the tackle. The same is true when he played man-under coverage and Devin Moore was unable to make the tackle as well. These are coachable moments where if the players improve and execute the scheme, they should be okay moving forward.

The place where the Gators probably aren’t going to get any better is the situations I showed where they were in man coverage. In those circumstance, the defenders just got torched, particularly the safeties. And while I only showed one miscommunication where Florida had two defenders with one playing man and the other zone, I didn’t show the two biggest coverage busts of the game which were likely caused by the exact same issue.

I know as a defensive coordinator that you want to be multiple. I know that you want to be able to bring players from any place at any time. But it’s also pretty clear that Florida’s defenders are getting confused out there with the switching back and forth.

The defensive line is a problem too. There wasn’t any pressure on any of those plays shown above, even when Florida blitzed. They did get home a couple of times, but if they don’t get there the defenders just can’t stay with the opposition right now.

Of course, this isn’t new for Gators fans. The 2007 Florida defense really struggled as then defensive coordinator Charlie Strong worked freshmen Major Wright, Joe Haden and Ahmad Black into the lineup. The struggles those guys had in 2007 clearly helped build the lock-down secondary in 2008, along with the additions of Janoris Jenkins and Will Hill.

The same could apply here. Clearly some changes are being made prior to playing Eastern Washington. Jaydon Hill is going to start at corner. Justus Boone is starting at defensive end. Kamari Wilson is starting at safety. But the idea that those changes are going to make that big of a difference this season is likely wishful thinking.

But I’m not sure that’s the question Billy Napier and Patrick Toney should be asking. Instead, I think they  need to consider whether they want to go through these growing pains and play their entire defense? Or whether they going to pare it down and eliminate situations where their players may end up confused?

I wrote a piece two weeks ago called “Fixing Anthony Richardson” where I walked away encouraged because he was making the right read and just not executing the throws. That’s not what I’m seeing on the defensive side of the ball.

There is a different mistake being made by a different player on each play. Sometimes it’s a physical mistake (i.e. getting beat). Sometimes it’s a mental one (i.e. not knowing the coverage, not redirecting the opponent correctly). I suspect this won’t matter much against Eastern Washington on Sunday.

But Florida has eight more games to figure out who can start to win the physical matchups and perhaps, more importantly, who can execute the scheme correctly. But is that the goal? Because I do think simplifying things and playing a more zone-heavy scheme could improve the results this year.

I’m just not sure fixing the defense this year should be the goal.