Streaking Gators take on Commodores

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Florida looks to extend its SEC winning streak to three games and bump its record to 7-4 against Vanderbilt. The Commodores are coming off its first SEC win in 27 tries over a Kentucky team that beat Florida in the Swamp earlier this year.

We shouldn’t be worried, should we?

On its face, that’s an inherently stupid question. The Commodores come into the game ranked 124th in yards per play allowed vs. FBS opponents and 71st in yards per play gained, both inferior to Florida (112th and 27th). But those numbers aren’t so far apart that the Commodores couldn’t stay in this one if Florida turns the ball over a bunch.

I have to admit I didn’t watch anything but the last drive for Vandy against Kentucky and assumed turnovers was how they stayed in that game. But they physically beat down the Wildcats, allowing only 322 total yards (vs. 448 themselves) and actually turning the ball over twice compared to once for Kentucky.

So, that brings me back to the question I asked up above…..should we be worried?

Quarterbacks

Interestingly, I think the answer to that question likely rests on the shoulders of Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea.

Both Florida and Vanderbilt’s defenses have been bad this year, but the Gators clearly have an advantage on the offensive side of the ball. That means Lea has to figure out a way to get his offense to keep up.

Lea has yet to name a QB for the game, but he has insisted that true freshman A.J. Swann is his QB if healthy. Swann is a 4-star commit (402nd nationally) out of Canton, GA. In his senior year of high school, he completed 62.2 percent of his throws for an average of 7.5 yards per attempt. That’s an okay profile, but not one of a star.

Indeed, Vanderbilt hasn’t received great play from Swann so far. His overall line (57% completion, 6.6 yards per attempt, 128.9 QB rating) is all below average. If you use my Yards Above Replacement (YAR) metric – designed to evaluate QBs for their running and passing ability – Swann is decidedly below average with a YAR of -1.74. This is because he has 18 rushes for -55 yards, indicating he’s taking a bunch of sacks.

The guy who lead the victory over Kentucky last week was backup QB Mike Wright. Wright started the season as the starter but was benched after a poor outing against Wake Forest where Swann played really well.

Wright hasn’t fared much better through the air than Swann (57% completion, 7.0 yards per attempt, 136.2 QB rating), but has added a ton of value with his legs, rushing for 454 yards on 55 carries (8.3 yards per attempt). That helps boost his YAR to 1.05, or what I would consider a really good QB performance.

You can make an argument (and it’s a fair argument) that Swann’s main playing time has come against Alabama, Ole Miss, Georgia, Missouri and South Carolina while Wright’s has come against Kentucky, Hawaii and Elon (with 30 throws combined vs. Missouri and South Carolina). But the problem with that is that Swann had a negative YAR in his last five starts before his injury and had three games with a QB rating below 90.5.

This shouldn’t be unexpected. In Wright’s senior year of high school, he completed 64.3 percent of his throws for 9.1 yards per attempt, significantly better than Swann. He also ran for 716 yards on 94 carries. His recruiting profile isn’t much worse than Swann’s (3-star, 520th nationally), but he did commit to the previous regime, which often makes a difference.

Florida has struggled with dual-threat QBs in 2022 so far. Utah’s Cam Rising ran for 91 yards. USF’s Gerry Bohanon ran for 102. Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker ran for 112 and LSU’s Jayden Daniels ran for 44. The fact that Lea is considering anyone other than Wright just completely baffles me.

On the other side, Florida’s Anthony Richardson is an enigma.

Through the first five games of the season, he turned the ball over 7 times and the offense averaged 23.4 points per game. Over the last four games, he’s committed zero turnovers and the offense has scored 33.5 points per game. And that change is real.

SEC Stat Cat (www.secstatcat.com) has a stat they track called interceptable percentage (INTA). Essentially, it’s the percentage of balls that are thrown that could be intercepted. For the first five games of the season, Richardson’s INTA was at 10.37%, which is astronomically high. He actually got lucky, in that only 4.4% of his throws were picked, but he was putting it out there a lot.

But over the past four games, Richardson’s INTA has dropped to 3.3%. So not only has he not thrown any interceptions in that time, the defense has had far fewer opportunities to pick off passes than previously.

Other than that though, I’m not seeing a whole lot of development on a game-to-game basis. You can see that when looking at AR’s YAR and how it ping-pongs between good and bad from week to week.

Yes, the absolutely terrible Kentucky game is a distant memory. But look at the performances after that. It alternates between good and bad every week, and has even alternated between halves. Last week against South Carolina, AR had a YAR of 1.70 in the first half and -3.27 in the second half. His QB rating in the game of 117.4 is well below average.

The optimist says that this is great because a fantastic game is coming on Saturday. Of course, I kind of want Richardson to save his fantastic game for the week after because that’s when Florida is probably going to need it.

Regardless, whether Florida has a distinct advantage at quarterback is predicated on one of two things. First, the good Anthony Richardson from the Utah, Tennessee, LSU or Texas A&M games can show up. Or second, Clark Lea can decide to start A.J. Swann.

Defenses (sorta)

As hard as it may be to believe, Vanderbilt’s defense is worse than Florida, and by a significant margin.

Both teams give up way too many plays in the 10-19 and 20-29 yard range. In the first category, Vandy beats Florida (94 to 109) and they tie in the second (35 to 35). But from there, Vanderbilt pulls away, having surrendered 25 30-plus yard plays to 15 for the Gators

That’s how you end up with defenses that essentially have the same success rates against (46% for Vandy, 45% for Florida), but a Vanderbilt defense that is significantly worse by Predicted Points Added (PPA, 0.285 to 0.219 and lower is better). The lion’s share of the PPA difference comes from Vandy’s futility against the pass, with a PPA of 0.480 (compared to 0.253 for Florida).

Florida is more evenly distributed, with a PPA of 0.206 on the ground as well, owing in-part to the futility I detailed up above against rushing QBs. But…..Florida’s PPA on the ground just two weeks ago was at 0.348.

I detailed adjustments Florida made in coverage against Texas A&M in my recap article, but the big difference in this defense in the last two weeks has been the following:

• 3Q vs. A&M: 1.3 yds/rush
• 4Q vs. A&M: 0.9 yds/rush
• 1Q vs. USCe: 1.2 yds/rush
• 2Q vs. USCe: 1.9 yds/rush
• 3Q vs. USCe: 4.5 yds/rush
• 4Q vs. USCe: -3.5 yds/rush

All told, the Gators have surrendered 55 yards on 34 carries (1.6 yards per rush) over the last six quarters. With that has come the ability for the linebackers and safeties to do their jobs rather than worry about having to plus holes in run support.

Vanderbilt isn’t a team that worries you through the air (94th in yards per play), so you would expect Florida to be able to focus on stopping the run once again. This is another reason I hope Lea plays Swann. Haynes King has 83 yards rushing on 29 carries this season and Spencer Rattler has rushed 55 times for 8 yards.

Without having to worry about the threat of the QB run, Florida has dominated. They can continue that against Swann. They’ll have to adjust against Wright.

Takeaway

I’ve done all I can here to build up Vanderbilt into a formidable opponent, but the reality is, they’re just really not. They’re going to come in riding high after the win against Kentucky, but Florida is just the better team.

That becomes clear when you look at a plot of win percentage vs. PPA Differential (Offense minus Defense) for the SEC (plus Florida State).

Florida is still in the bottom tier of the SEC, but Vanderbilt is absolutely dead last. Florida played Missouri pretty close, but that was with Anthony Richardson turning the ball over twice. The Gators also struggled to beat A&M, at least in the first half. But the new Gators who showed up in the second half dispatched A&M easily.

So what we have is a Gators team that is starting to play better on the side of the ball that has held it back all year. We have a Vanderbilt team that struggles on defense against both the run and the pass (though more against the pass). And we have a Florida team that has Montrell Johnson, Trevor Etienne and Richardson to run the ball and set up some deep shots against a Commodores defense that gives them up.

Yes, the game starts at 11am. Yes, the forecast calls for 40 degree weather at kickoff. Yes, Florida has historically struggled with early road starts in cold weather.

But c’mon folks. This is Vanderbilt. They are getting better under Lea, but they aren’t in the same class as Florida right now.

Johnson and Etienne run wild. Richardson alternates back to one of his good games. And Florida’s defense gives up more than it has in the last two games, but is able to force some punts as well.

Florida (-14) wins, 38-23.

Picks this year: 7-2, 4-5 ATS