Crunching the Numbers: Florida Gators vs. LSU Tigers

After any loss, I am afraid to check the message boards or the old Twitter machine; but,

I want to applaud the Gator Nation – this is the most tame I have seen the Florida Gators fans collective in many, many years. In fact, although they lost, most of the conversations have been about a lot of the positives, how close the Gators got to beating one of the top teams in the country, how the Gators belong in the national conversation, and how Jim McElwain is so far ahead of where he should be at this point in his tenure

The game on Saturday was a roller coaster and as I said on Twitter during the game, I was wrong because I counted out the Gators during a valley. While I predicted the Gators to win in this column last week, once they were down 21-7 and could not move the ball I counted them out. I thought they would lose badly, like 45-7, because that is what the old Gators would have done. But they fought back and showed me that Jim McElwain isn’t just a great “Xs and Os” coach, he knows how to keep them motivated when the going gets tough – and that is not just something you coach on the sideline, that is something you prepare your players for mentally and he deserves a ton of credit because never once could you look at the Gators sideline and see them down-and-out.

While the Gators played far from a perfect game and made a lot of mistakes that likely cost them a win, they played well enough to show you that they are still improving as a team, but that their margin of error is so small they need to make sure every play is executed nearly flawlessly.

Let’s look at where Florida is after the LSU game.

Offense

I need to get a few things off my chest about the Gators offense, so I am going to reverse the order that I normally do this and talk about a few negatives before I talk about the positives because I think they are so astronomically important.

• Florida has got to figure out their run game. Let’s look at their rush numbers: 111^th in rushing yards per game (126.71), 115^th in yards per rush attempt (115), 111^th in rushing first downs (6.57), and most importantly, they are getting stuffed at the line (or behind) on 19.9% of the time. This number is a mixture of offensive line, who is only opening more than five yards (doing their job, according to FootballStudyHall) on runs only about 32% of the time, which is rather low, and the scheming with the running backs. I know Florida has a patchwork offensive line, and I do not expect the world out of them, but Florida has got to figure out a way to get the ball moving on the ground. I postulated yesterday that the best way to help Treon Harris move into the starting role is by improving the run offense. Further, I would like to see the Gators utilize outside runs, sweeps, and reverses because they cannot seem to open the holes on the offensive line needed in a north-south run attack, similar to what you saw on Jordan Scarlett’s fourth down run for a touchdown. We are seven weeks into the season and the Gators still do not have a rushing attack – worrisome.
• I am going to opine on it again because I think after seven weeks they should be faster, but Florida is still only getting a play off ever 28:51 seconds. Are they purposefully running slowly because they are trying to keep a young team from becoming overloaded? The problem wasn’t necessarily last week when they were trying to control the clock against Missouri, it hurts them when they are down by 14 points and cannot move quickly because they are not used to it or don’t know how to call a real hurry-up offense when its not a two-minute drill. If I am the Gators, I take this bye week and focus on figuring out how to get it down one to two more seconds because that could mean five to six more plays per game, which could have given them a better chance at tying the game. Florida ranks 98^th in the country in pace of play – do better.

But now for the positives (I told you they were coming).

• I give the Florida coaching staff an A+ in their game plan for Treon Harris. The Gators did well moving the ball through the air in a mixture of long passes (the one area that Harris excels dramatically over Grier in), as well as, medium range passes in open space that allowed talented players like Jake McGee, Antonio Callaway, and Demarcus Robinson to make plays. After switching quarterbacks, one that hasn’t had major minutes in five games, allowed the Gators to stay at similar numbers in percentage of plays that resulted in a first down or touchdown (32.63%), completion percentage (64%), pass efficiency (148.63), passing yards (249.57), passing first downs (11.71), and the list goes on. Harris was not perfect, but he did a heckuva job with the game plan given to him.
• The Gators are not turning the ball over on offense at the quarterback position, which is exactly what they need. They have a touchdown to interception ratio of 4.67, which among the best in the country and the number has risen every week since week two, and they only average 0.43 interceptions per game, which compared to last years 1.17.

Defense

Again lets start with the bad…

• What the heck happened at the end of first quarter and during the entire second quarter?
• During the first half, the Gators allowed LSU to average 9.92 yards on first down.
• During the second quarter, LSU had the ball four times and scored touchdowns on all four on drives of 88, 67, 58, and 75 yards on an average drive of 3:07 on 6.25 plays per drive.
• Brandon Harris had more passing yards in the first half than they allowed four teams to have this season.
• And, of course, Leonard Fournette did what he does and did it against Florida all throughout the first half, where he had 100 yards. Prior to the game against LSU, Florida was only allowing 99.17 yards per GAME – that number is now up to 116.57.
• Finally, what the heck is up with Florida’s zone defense? More numbers next week, but Florida cannot figure out how to run a good passing zone defense, probably because Marcus Maye is out in passing downs and he becomes a major liability. But Florida has got to figure it out because teams are torching them in zone read. More stats on this next week.
• #DBU? The Gators defensive backs had every single statistic that measures overall pass defense at least nine rankings in every category, which is very hard to do seven games into the season. Instead of talking, get back to fundamentals.

But it wasn’t all that bad.

• Florida’s pass defense was Jekyll and Hyde on defense against LSU. After letting up 189 yards in the air in the first half, they only allowed 13 in the second half. While their average yards per play dropped from 10.48 to 7.05, which is not great, but a stellar improvement.
• Florida still ranks great in percentage of opponent plays that end in a turnover, sack, or tackle for loss at 19.4% (10^th in the country).
• Florida still ranks as the eighth best defense in the country when factoring in strength of schedule (17^th when not factoring it in).

Special Teams

 Two big shout-outs again this week.

• Punter Johnny Townsend ranks 19^th in the country in yards per punt with 44.33 and teams only average 4.57 yards in punt return average. However, the number I want to highlight is the number of punts that land within the 20-yard line or that are fair caught: 59%. That number has climbed drastically over the last few weeks from 45.8% to 54.5% to 59% over the last weeks. Finally, he only has two touchbacks on the season.
• Antonio Callaway is a weapon on special teams and ranks 15^th in the country in punt return average, which is the second highest for a freshman in the country and ranks third in the country with one punt returned for a touchdown.

Looking Forward

Normally, I would write about the Gators next game, but since they have a bye week, I wanted to let you know that next week will be a mid-year review of the numbers with a bunch of graphs and fun visual stuff. I have already started to work on it, I am excited to share it with you.