Crunching the Numbers: Florida Gators Season in Review

The Florida Gators season on offense was a tale of two halves – a team with a competent offense and a team that struggled to move the ball – a tale that filled the Gators with so much hope at the beginning of the season, only to limp to the finish line behind two straight losses. Now, do not get me wrong, the Gators overachieved. Yes, Jim McElwain, your SEC Coach of the Year, took a team of players that went 7-5 last year, to a 10-3 record with a win over a top-5 team, an SEC East Championship, and a birth in a Bowl game (that matters) on New Years Day. And boy, that defense was damn good.

Throughout the season, we have tracked the Florida Gators offensive struggles, defensive highlights, place kicking blunders, and punting wonders – and I hope you’ve enjoyed the articles this season.

While there is no need to repeat what I have been writing the last 13 weeks, lets take a look at the season in nine charts.

Offense

As we have talked about all year, the offense struggled mightily behind Treon Harris and seemed to excel under Will Grier – although not perfect. Three simple graphs and one chart below illustrate the difference between Will Grier’s offense and Treon Harris’ offense based on national offensive rank.

The numbers are quite clear here. After Harris took over in week seven, the numbers start to get worse for the Gators entire offense. They scored less points and had fewer touchdowns/first downs as a percentage or plays – and it is noticeable with the change of quarterback.

The numbers are clear here. Treon Harris took over for Will Grier in week seven full-time. After a great game against LSU and above-average game against Georgia, Harris’ numbers stumbled to the end. The Gators ranked above the top-50 in all major passing categories until numbers started to get worse over the last five games – where Harris passed for less than 200 yards in four of those games.

Here is how the Gators offense compares to last season, in a vacuum, based on national rank. As you can see, the Gators were doing much better in the first half of the season, as you can expect, with their major deficiencies being in rushing offense and red zone offense. But at the end of the season, the Gators couldn’t keep their passing offense going, which meant that teams were stacking the box and their rushing offense stalled even more.

Red Zone Struggles

But it wasn’t just lack of productivity in moving the ball, it was more about not being able to score points when they were in the red zone. Last season, the Gators ranked 11^th in the country in red zone conversions, but this season, the Gators finished 123^rd in the country, converting just 33-of-48 attempts, while making only five field goals.

Scoring

In the graph below, you will see that when the Gators are on the field no one scores! The Gators offense struggled toward the end of the season, as you all know. In fact, the Gators averaged only 12 points per game in the last five games and scored less than 10 points in two games in a six game stretch for the first time since 2011 – an offense not worth emulating. But, again, I am not going to beat a dead horse on offense.

The Gators, defense, as well, was not allowing teams to score on them. This season, the Gators held give teams to 10 points or less – something they have not done since 2009.

With an offense as poor as the Gators became, the fact that the defense was holding opponents to so few points is astounding.

 Defense

 Although the numbers show how dominant the Gators defense was this season, if they had a more successful offense they likely would be ranked even higher in many of these statistics because as they say “sometimes the best defense is a good offense.” When you look at the numbers, in my opinion, the Gators had likely their best defense since 2009 and maybe in history.

If you look at the graphs below, the Gators ranked in the top 20 in the three most important statistics in limiting opponents from moving and scoring, including the most important statistic of “percentage of plays with a turnover, sack, or tackle for loss.”

Further, you can see that teams had very limited success in rushing and pass completion yards.

Finally, you can see just how dominant the Gators pass rush was below.

#DBU?

This past offseason, there was an incredibly annoying debate about which college football program was “Defensive Back University” or “DBU” on Twitter with LSU, Florida, FSU, and others chiming in.

While no defensive backfield is perfect, especially in college, the Gators do have a case this year to say that their defensive backs were the best in the country this year, with the numbers below, as well as, Vernon Hargreaves, Jalen Tabor, and Marcus Maye earning All-American Honors.