Florida overpowers McNeese State

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Florida’s win over McNeese State was expected, but you can’t take wins for granted when you’re on a four-game losing streak.

After dropping games to Vanderbilt, FSU, Oregon State and Utah, Florida needed a “W” and was able to get it against the Cowboys on Saturday night in the Swamp. The fact that it was a 49-7 win and featured Florida flexing its identity as a running team was just an added bonus.

On episodes of last week’s Gators Breakdown and Stand Up & Holler, I opined that Billy Napier had withdrawn from his bank of trust with the Gator fanbase, not because he lost to Utah, but because his value proposition has always been operational excellence and the Utah game was anything but. Many of those issues were fixed against McNeese (not all of them), which is a welcome sight.

We all know – Napier more than anyone – that a win over McNeese is just a small deposit back into that trust bank and that next week’s tilt against Tennessee is an opportunity to get it back in the black. But you can’t win that one without winning this one, so let’s take a look at where Florida showed real improvement and what it means moving forward into next week.

Defense

Because McNeese State’s seven points came after a turnover deep in Florida territory and against a bunch of Gator backups, this is ostensibly a shutout for the Gators.

The caveat of the opponent certainly applies, but it’s not as thought Florida’s defense has been lights out against FCS opponents recently. In 2021, Florida gave up 52 points, 530 yards and 6.2 yards per play against Samford. Last year, the Gators gave up 17 points, 411 yards and 4.8 yards per play against Eastern Washington.

This year, they gave up 7 points, 112 yards and 2.8 yards per play against McNeese State. So when we somewhat control for opponent quality, Florida showed significant improvement from the past two seasons.

This performance actually compares favorably to the Gators performance in 2019 against Tennessee Martin (there weren’t any FCS opponents in 2020 because of COVID-19). In that game, the Gators pitched a shutout, gave up 194 yards and 3.9 yards per play. That 2019 squad was a pretty good unit.

The nits to pick are that the Gators once again failed to create any turnovers. That puts Florida at a minus-2 turnover margin for the year, which may be a harbinger of bad things to come.

And in my small preview at the end of my Ode to Chris Leak, the forgotten Swamp King, I had three things listed that I wanted to see against McNeese State. One was that the Gators would create a bunch of havoc up-front. The Gators dominated the game, but they only had 2 sacks and 5 TFL, after McNeese State gave up 7 sacks last week.

Still, things appear to be heading in the right direction. That doesn’t mean they’re at the destination, but after a 2022 season where we kept looking for improvement and just never saw it, we should all welcome what we saw this week against McNeese State.

Offense

One of the other keys I had in my game preview was that Florida needed to “Feed #2, Feed #7” as Nick Knudsen is always keen to point out.

Florida certainly did feed those two, as Montrell Johnson finished the game with 15 carries for 119 yards, Trevon Etienne finished with 11 rushes for 84 yards and Treyaun Webb got in on the act with 14 rushes for 71 yards. Those three combined for 5 touchdowns as well.

Overall, the Gators ran for 327 yards on 51 carries (6.4 yards per rush) and were even more efficient when they had their horses in the game (Johnson and Etienne averaged 7.8 yards per rush). Given what we saw last week with those two not really even getting a chance, this was a welcome sight.

It was really a tale of two halves for Graham Mertz. He was ultra efficient (9-12) in the first half, but he averaged just 6.9 yards per throw. Because he doesn’t run the ball much (3 rushes for 8 yards), Florida was able to move the ball down the field but did so with only one explosive play; a 22-yard run for Etienne.

The second half was a completely different story. While Mertz was only in there for two drives, he threw the ball 6 times and averaged 22 yards per attempt. That raised his Yards Above Replacement – my proprietary stat that factors in a QBs passing and rushing efficiency – to 3.24, or Heisman range. The problem is that his YAR was below average in the first half (-0.50).

So the question to ask is whether the Mertz we saw on the first few drives – conservative, dumping the ball off and missing a couple of easy throws downfield – is the guy we’re going to see, or whether the Mertz in the second half is that guy. I think it’s more likely to be the first guy but we’ll see what the carry over from this one is to the game next week against Tennessee.

When you run for over 300 yards and don’t give up a sack, you have to give credit to the offensive line. The first rush of the night got stuffed and I do have to say I was a little bit worried at that sight. But from that point on, Florida relied on its far physical superiority and just ran right over McNeese.

Special Teams

This was the final thing I pointed towards in my preview earlier this week. Florida’s special teams were so bad against Utah, significant improvement was necessary.

This is still a work in progress. Florida missed its first PAT attempt after the snap-holder exchange was botched. This just can’t happen given how often this is practiced and how easy it is to execute. You can’t just give away points in most games. Fortunately for Florida, they could give them away in this one, but this is going to come back and bit them soon if they don’t clean things up.

The Gators didn’t make any special plays on special teams in this one, but other than the PAT, they didn’t have any big gaffes either. I’m not sure we should be handing out trophies for not screwing things up, but considering what we saw last week, that is progress.

I went to grad school at Virginia Tech, and one of the highlights of my time there was the electricity that went through Lane Stadium whenever there was a punt or field goal attempt. The faithful in Blacksburg had gotten used to “Beamer Ball” and how big-time plays on special teams could swing games. Florida fans are certainly familiar, given one of the most important games in the history of the program (2006 South Carolina) featured a blocked PAT and a blocked field goal.

We’re not even close to that with this team or this program and that’s disappointing.

Takeaway

This is exactly what Florida was supposed to do.

You’re supposed to beat up on McNeese State. You’re supposed to dominate up-front on both sides of the ball. You’re supposed to essentially put the game out of reach after the first quarter and then just run out the clock. The Gators did all of those things.

The defense looks to be better than the past two seasons, even if it’s not perfect. How much better is a question we’ll have answered next week. The offense looks fairly pedestrian, given the lack of big plays against an overmatched opponent. I think we’ll see that next week as well.

But in the big picture, the loss to Utah looks far less overwhelming than it did just a week ago. The LSU loss to Florida State, the Texas A&M loss to Miami and the Alabama loss to Texas means that three other SEC teams also have out of conference losses just like Florida. Nothing has been decided in the conference yet and the SEC gauntlet may not be quite as intimidating as it has been in years past.

Georgia put 31 on Ball State in the second quarter today, but that was after a 0-0 first quarter that had many of us tweeting about how much we love Bulldog’s OC Mike Bobo. That marks the second straight week that Georgia has struggled early in a game. At least right now, they’re not as good as they were last season.

And if you look at Volunteers QB Joe Milton’s stats against Virginia and Austin Peay, and there is reason to believe that Florida won’t be at as big of a disadvantage as we might have thought coming into the season when the Vols come into the Swamp.

My point is not that Florida is great (I’m pretty sure they’re not). But I’m not sure you’re going to have to be great to get to 7 or 8 wins this year. The question is how good are you going to have to be, and is Florida going to be able to get there? The win over McNeese is a necessary step for Florida go get there, but it’s just a small deposit in the trust bank that still has that giant hangover from the Utah withdrawal.

But Billy Napier and his team get a chance to make a major deposit next week against Tennessee.