There was one thing that made sense about the Florida Gators’ blowout loss to Missouri: the motivation and cohesion just didn’t seem to be there from many of the players.
It’s natural to have disruptions when a head coach is fired, particularly with a surprisingly quick ouster as Jim McElwain’s was. For a historical comparison, I’m far from the only person who thinks UF would’ve beaten Georgia in 2004 had Ron Zook not been fired that week.
Beyond that, the Gators were attending their furthest possible conference road game. Last year’s team came out and laid a big ol’ egg in another distant SEC game in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Long travel seems to be an issue in this era of UF football.
Making matters worse, it was an 11 a.m. kickoff local time. It’s not like this in every league, but in the SEC, the noon Eastern/11:00 Central time slot is when teams are most likely to come out flat. The old curse of Jefferson Pilot was in no small part related to those games being noon kicks.
So really, the Gators had a few things potentially lined up against them. Beyond those factors, David Reese covered the unpleasant aspects of the rest of the motivation problem. I do want to take issue with one thing he said, though:
“[The coaches] … gave us a real good gameplan to do what we had to do.”
I’m not so sure. There were plenty of baffling decisions that went into this game.
First up, offense. This was Malik Zaire’s first shot at the starting job, but it took over a quarter to get into the plays that are particularly suited to him. Some of that delay was from the defense not getting off the field, but much of it was the plays called.
The Gators went three-and-out on the first drive. The initial play was bubble screen to Brandon Powell that lost three yards because Tyrie Cleveland missed his block. Granted it was from a spread formation, which were fairly rare in the Feleipe Franks offense, but quick passes to Powell were not uncommon.
Second down was a hackneyed zone right run for Lamical Perine, the kind they predictably run when they’re concerned about being stuck in third-and-long. Then, in the third-and-long they were hoping to avoid, Zaire sat in the pocket and shopped among three downfield routes. He targeted Freddie Swain, but Swain stumbled on his break to the sideline. The second drive consisted of seven handoffs, a failed screen, and Zaire hitting a short crossing route from the pocket.
In 12 snaps, there were no zone read plays, no quarterback draws, and no moving the pocket. They did absolutely nothing that they wouldn’t have done with Franks.
The first play of the second quarter was a bootleg rollout for Zaire on which he found Dre Massey for a 38-yard catch-and-run. The second play was a six-yard keeper for Zaire on a zone read. The plays that take advantage of his unique skillset started working, but we didn’t get to see them until the game was more than a fourth of the way through.
On defense, they couldn’t figure out how to stop the run. A lot of it was Mizzou’s spread sets forcing the Gators into nickel, and UF’s defensive backs just aren’t good in run support. Some of it was the linebackers’ general lack of pass coverage ability. There are only so many ways to scheme around those deficiencies.
However, they frequently failed to set the edge against the rush, a problem that has persisted all year. Drew Lock also got some cheap yards on runs no different than Danny Etling did a month ago for LSU.
On special teams, Randy Shannon made a very curious decision. UF hadn’t allowed a kickoff return all year because Eddy Piñeiro had booted them all deep in the end zone or out of bounds. Shannon had him kick them short in this game instead, hoping to pin the Tigers back inside the 25 rather than give them that yard line with a touchback.
Given how poor Florida’s punt coverage has been this year, this made no sense. Predictably, Mizzou running back Larry Rountree averaged 33 yards per kickoff return and brought all three he fielded past the 30-yard-line.
(Edited to add: I missed that Shannon said in his postgame comments that he hadn’t instructed Piñeiro to kick them short. Mea culpa. I regret the error.)
Shannon’s reputation from Miami for being a conservative head coach reared its head too. Down 14-0 in the second quarter with his defense showing no signs of being able to stop the Tigers, he chose to kick a field goal from 4th & 1 at the Mizzou 21-yard-line. He also chose to kick down 28-6 from the MU 7-yard-line in the third quarter. Rather than adapt to the conditions of the game, he stuck to the ancient conventional wisdom of kick early, go for it late.
It’s entirely possible that the players will come out better ready to go next weekend after having more time to process the coaching change. I certainly hope they do. Firing McElwain didn’t fix anything coaching-wise, though, and it appears that phase of the game will continue to be what it’s been until this season comes to a close.