Encouraging signs in the 2023 Spring Game
Breaking down the QB play and defensive improvement

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Judging by comments I’ve seen from folks who watched Florida’s spring game on Thursday night, most were not impressed. To be sure, the quarterbacks struggled, but I guess that was pretty much in-line with my expectations. But there were other things, little things, that should bring some level of encouragement.

We have to start every spring game recap with the same caveat. The offensive sets are limited and the defensive schemes are usually fairly vanilla, but there are always things to look for. That’s particularly true when we’re talking about a program trying to find its next QB post-Anthony Richardson.

And after a 10-7 win by the Orange team on a last-second field goal by Trey Smack, the fundamental question that is always a fundamental question of Spring Games has come roaring to the forefront.

Has the defense taken major strides in just a few months? Or are we about to suffer through a Nussmeierian offense in 2023?

Quarterbacks

Statistically, the quarterback performances don’t look all that bad.

Max Brown – who is clearly third on the depth chart – went 1-4 for 15 yards with zero TDs or INTs, though he did have one drive that was stalled after Xzavier Henderson dropped a slant that would’ve been a first down.

Presumed starter Graham Mertz finished 18-29 for 244 yards with a TD and zero INTs. That’s 8.4 yards per attempt and a QB rating of 144.1. That’s also pretty much in-line with what we should expect from Mertz, who had a QB rating last season of 135.0 and averaged 7.5 yards per throw.

Jack Miller’s numbers were slightly worse, as he finished 10-20 for 144 yards with a TD and zero INTs. That’s 7.2 yards per attempt and a QB rating of 127.0. Again, that shouldn’t be a surprise as that’s commensurate with Miller’s career college QB rating (121.1) and yards per attempt (7.8), albeit in only 36 throws.

This is clearly a battle of Mertz vs. Miller as we head out of spring camp.

The defense wreaked havoc on the QBs all night long, but Miller was able to make a few plays with his legs to offset that pressure (6 rushes for 3 yards) while Mertz contributed nothing in that area (7 rushes for -27 yards).

The result is that while Mertz definitely performed better through the air (aided by two big plays by Marcus Burke and Ricky Pearsall), based on my Yards Above Replacement (YAR) stat, they basically graded out the exact same. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I actually expect Miller to be better because of his ability on the ground.

That’s because I would use the same critique for each QB through the air and it only takes one word to summarize: late.

That’s a problem for each QB for different reasons. For Mertz, this will be his fourth season as the primary starter. Even while learning a new offense, the ball shouldn’t be getting out late consistently. For Miller, the ball getting out late was something I highlighted in last year’s spring game. To see that again be a consistent thread throughout the game indicates that we haven’t gotten to a point where we’ll see a major leap forward from him just yet.

Here are a couple of examples.

On this play, Mertz has a really nice pocket. The Florida defense is playing a middle of the field open (MOFO) defense, meaning that’s where Florida should want to attack. Slot receiver Thai Chiaokhia-Bowman (#16) has his defender (#23 Jaydon Hill) on his hip as he heads into his break across the middle. It’s not wide open, but if Mertz lets this ball go and throws it semi-accurately, it’s either a completion with lots of yards after the catch, or Hill is making a diving attempt to knock the ball down.

Instead, Mertz holds the ball and is then forced to scramble as a very nice pocket formed by the offensive line starts to collapse. Because Mertz doesn’t let the ball go within the framework of the offensive scheme, he is forced to make a more difficult throw later on.

Even on plays we might deem successful, this was an issue.

The broadcast had a great All-22 type view for this big play to Pearsall. What we see is that the Gators offense has two receivers up at the top of the screen and the defense only has two defensive backs to cover that. The deep safety is positioned towards the field side (bottom of the screen), giving help to the two defensive backs on that side.

Mertz said in the post-game interview that this was a 4-verticals concept. Receiver Ricky Pearsall (#1) beats corner Jalen Kimber (#8) right off the line, so much so that he’s already a yard past Kimber as he reached his own 46-yard line (circled). That moment is when you want to launch the throw, as a good throw should be a TD and a bad throw gets you a pass interference penalty.

But Mertz double-clutches. He doesn’t let the ball go until Pearsall is at the opponents 38-yard line, 16 yards past when he was originally open. The ball is caught for a huge gain, but it ends up caught in traffic. I actually think the inside receiver should have stayed more to the inside to free up space for Pearsall, but the reason there are three defenders around Pearsall when he catches the ball is because it came out late, and being late will eventually cause turnovers in the SEC.

This was really a place where Miller could have differentiated himself, but unfortunately, he had the same issue.

On this play, Miller made a really nice throw to Marcus Burke (#88) for a touchdown. Everybody’s happy, right? Well, defensive coordinator Austin Armstrong sent the slot corner on a blitz while spinning the boundary safety over to pick up the receiver. This is a difficult thing to read if the defense times it perfectly right at the snap, but the defense cheats and starts moving before the ball is snapped.

Miller’s first read is to his right, but there are four defenders for two receivers. He needs to come back to his left immediately because there has to be a numbers advantage out there. He should also know he has a numbers advantage because of the blitz coming from the slot corner.

What that ends up doing is putting the safety in one-on-one coverage against Burke building up a huge head of steam. Burke completely turns the safety around (as he should) and is open within the play design right away. But Miller keeps looking right, eventually getting flushed from the pocket. Burke is so wide open that he sees him later, but this is one of those throws (across your body back towards the field of play) that announcers are always warning QBs about.

So what did the QBs do well? They were excellent when they anticipated what the defense would do and were correct.

Mertz said in the post-game presser that he expected Armstrong to bring the house on this TD pass to Kahleil Jackson (#22). Armstrong did just that, blitzing both the linebacker and the safety. The play call (double slants) takes advantage of the wide-open middle of the field. Mertz did a nice job of getting the ball out right on time and hits Jackson right in stride. Easy touchdown.

Miller had his moments too.

This is the flood concept that is a staple of the Napier offense. It consists of rolling the QB out and bringing three receivers into play, one each at a short, medium and long depth. If the defense can’t get pressure, there should always be a place for the QB to throw the ball.

Miller shows his elusiveness and ability to throw on the run here. But he also makes the correct read, eschewing the short receiver (double covered) and the long receiver (blanketed by the defensive back) in favor of the medium receiver (Caleb Douglas, #12).

Miller throws the ball slightly behind Douglas, but it still turns into his biggest play of the night because Douglas was so open that the defensive back couldn’t catch up.

Billy Napier was asked earlier in the week about whether either QB had separated himself to be the starter. Napier declined to answer the question, but given what we saw in this game, I think the answer is likely “no.” It’s not that either Mertz or Miller were terrible, but they both had similar issues that prevented them from sustaining drives.

Defense

The complexities of spring scrimmages is that you never know whether a defense excels because they are good or the offense is bad. They made a point on the broadcast to talk about how Anthony Richardson had lit things up at last year’s spring game, but what they didn’t mention was that Miller had almost the exact same line last year as this year (13-23 for 121 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT).

So has the defense improved?

Well, the first thing to say about things is that it certainly wasn’t vanilla. As I highlighted above, Austin Armstrong had his defense making post-snap adjustments and sending blitzes from multiple places. That forced the QBs to make reads you don’t always see in a spring game and I do think is a harbinger of the aggressiveness we’re going to see in 2023 from Armstrong.

So what can we glean from this performance? I think we have to be careful drawing too many conclusions, but I do think there is one we can draw from this performance: Florida is way more fundamentally sound than they were a year ago.

Just outside the red zone, you kind of want your opponent to run the ball. The defense is set up to get just that, as it has five defenders in the box, meaning if the offensive line can get a hat-on-a-hat, the running back should be able to get to the safeties quickly.

But watch the play of linebacker Scooby Williams (#17, circled). He comes in and takes on Richie Leonard (#67), but does so in a way that Leonard does not “block him whole.” That means that he is able to take on Leonard with his left shoulder while keeping his right shoulder clean. The result is that he’s able to shed Leonard and take on Etienne in the hole.

Now Etienne blasts him in the hole and drives him back, but Leonard is an experienced offensive lineman that Williams beat on this rep. If Florida can continue to show this sort of discipline at the linebacker position in the running game, they’ll greatly improve from last year (98th in yards per rush allowed).

Here’s another simple example.

There’s a lot of window dressing going on right in front of defensive end Justus Boone (#12). First, you have Kahleil Jackson (#22) motioning in and out of the backfield. Then you have tight end Arlis Boardingham (#81) pulling across the formation, slowing down like he might block and then going out into the flat. The right tackle blocks down, indicating a running play may be coming. And Miller has the ability to keep the ball when he meshes with the running back after the snap.

But Boone keeps his position, not committing to either the back or the QB. I think if Miller had handed the ball off to Montrell Johnson (#2), Boone would have been able to chase him down. Instead, Miller keeps the ball and Boone chases him down, forcing an errant throw.

Both of these things seem really simple (and they are), but they were not things that the Florida defense was doing consistently last year. When you hear players talking about how they know what they’re doing in year two of the defense, this is the kind of thing they’re talking about.

The sacks are great and it’s easy to pay attention to them. And certainly pressure is an indicator that a defense is being successful over the long-haul. But a big part of building that success is doing the little things that we saw much more consistently in this game.

Takeaway

I actually come away from this game more encouraged than you might think.

Both Mertz and Miller are serviceable QBs who have limitations. That isn’t going to be good enough to be a top-tier SEC offense, but so long as we set that as our expectations, we shouldn’t be that disappointed. I don’t think the things we’re seeing are fixable over a summer and fall, so that means that if there’s an upgrade at the position in the transfer portal this spring, you need to go get that player. I suspect Napier sees that too and so will be aggressive there.

But the thing that really held Florida back last season was its defense.

The Gators were 105th in yards per play allowed and 87th in points per game allowed. They gave up an average of 42.5 points per game to Tennessee, LSU, Georgia and Florida State. You’re not going to win a lot of games being that bad on the defensive side of the ball.

For all of the complaints about Anthony Richardson’s turnovers and inconsistencies (many of them warranted), the reality is that with just a serviceable defense, Florida wins at least 8 games last year.

And that’s why I come out of this spring game encouraged. Guys like Manny Nunnery and Caleb Banks flashed. Des Watson looks to be down some pounds and was taking on double teams inside. Florida – a team that wants and needs to run the ball – struggled to run the ball consistently.

Could some of that be due to the offensive line? Sure. But there were way worse offensive lines that put up stats against this defense last year. And it’s not a coincidence that the two worst teams in the SEC East running the ball (Kentucky and South Carolina) are the two offenses that the defense actually did okay against in 2022.

I don’t think this is going to be a great Florida defense. But a game manager at QB and a better-than-average SEC defense is still going to be a 7 or 8-win team. Given the reinforcements that are coming when looking at the 2024 recruiting class (including the addition of another top-50 recruit in safety Xavier Filsaime during the spring game), that should give us reason for hope and patience for the Napier era.

Because that’s what ran out for Muschamp, McElwain and Mullen. It became clear that there was very little hope for a turnaround because recruiting had gone stagnant and we weren’t seeing significant progress on the field. The program just wasn’t headed in the right direction. And without that, both hope and patience goes away.

Napier didn’t do himself a lot of favors with a 6-7 opening campaign and a second recruiting class ranked 14th nationally. But the momentum he has in recruiting now – especially at QB with DJ Lagway and Austin Simmons – combined with what looks to be progress on the defensive side of the ball suggests that he should be able to earn some of that patience back from the fans.

It’s frustrating going into a season knowing you’re not a championship contender. But that’s where we find ourselves heading out of spring camp of 2023. There is a ton of work to do, but I come out of this one with a different feeling than I had coming in.

It feels like we may finally be headed in the right direction.