PD’s Postulations: Thoughts on the Missouri Game

Well that sure was a fun day. How often do we get to watch Florida beat the ever-loving sugar out of an SEC East rival, see Tennessee get shellacked and embarrassed at home on the CBS game of the week, watch Georgia get humiliated at home by losing to Vanderbilt – the only SEC road win in their coach’s Vandy career (and get to be reminded all day by the networks that it hasn’t happened since 2006…which is not that long ago for what is such a huge upset), enjoy Miami losing two in a row, FSU struggling mightily to eke out a win against a terrible ACC bottom feeder, see Notre Dame lose, and celebrate the Gators vaulting into first place all alone atop the Eastern division?

Not very often.

And now with a bye week, Florida fans can enjoy being number one in the East for at least two more weeks. So drink it in and enjoy the moment. We haven’t been in this position for a long time, where we can kick back and relax and just enjoy being in first place. True, we led the East much of the way last year, but after we lost our quarterback and our offense went MIA, there was never a moment’s rest. Any team could have knocked us off our perch – and almost did. Even Vandy. Heck, even after clinching the East, Florida Atlantic nearly beat us, and of course there were no more wins in the three games after that.

But this year, right now, we get two weeks to beam a little, to bow out our chests and remember how it used to be pretty much all the time in Gator Nation…and hopefully will be again all the time, very soon. When play resumes in two weeks, we face a schedule wherein thanks to hurricanes Matthew and Alleva, Florida will face 5-straight teams in 5-straight weeks, all of which we can beat, and all of which can beat us (well, maybe South Carolina can’t). There will be no restful Friday nights, no peaceful easy feeling at kickoff and no guarantee that we will hold that top spot for another day. But right now, we’ve got two weeks on Easy Street.

So enjoy it. And I mean REALLY enjoy it. Don’t worry about upcoming games, injuries, the relative strength of remaining schedules between Florida and Tennessee, etc. Just enjoy yourselves. Completely. Lounge about. Eat what you like. Watch Deadpool a few dozen times. Relax.

 

Getting Offensive

So the offense held the ball for nearly 37 minutes and only scored 19 points. Against a defense that was giving up 23 points per game coming in. Not the most explosive day on that side of the ball. But the offense did move up and down the field all day, often at will, and put itself in position to score 30 points. That’s including a fumble on the goal line, a missed field goal that was a chip shot for Eddy Pineiro, and a foregone extra point: 11 points left on the field that we had in pocket but simply abandoned. Even with the slow start, that puts a far better shine on the apple. Overall, if we wouldn’t have flooded the field with third stringers and walk-ons for most of the fourth quarter, the score would have been 54-7.

When you add the fact that it was raining pretty steadily in the early stages of the game and the ball was wet for most of the day, and Florida’s starting quarterback was slinging a soggy pill while playing his first game in nearly a month with a bum leg and still-ailing throwing arm, even the 20 points we did score (ignoring that extra point opt-out) looks pretty good. 30 points without the two miscues looks downright stout. Then add the eight false start penalties for 40 yards – nearly half a football field – a virtual Chinese water torture of offensive obstruction, and it looks even better.

But points aside (we have the leisure to dismiss point suppression when we outscore the opposition without the offense on the field), the “O” was very productive. Running up 523 yards on an SEC opponent is nothing to sneeze at. And it was so well balanced, with 236 yards through the air and 287 on the ground. It really strikes up the cognitive dissonance when such a large portion of the fans find nothing but fault in the performance. It can’t be based on the whole, so I assume it revolves around the pieces. So let’s look at them.

The offensive line’s eight false start infractions were about as glaring as it can get in signaling a bad day for that unit, but I am pretty sure after the lecture for drawing out the yellow laundry, the coaching staff is going to be handing out a few attaboys. When you pave the way for two different runners to break the century mark and you give up just one sack in 38 passing attempts (and frankly, that one was on the quarterback), against a defensive line as strong as Missouri’s, you’re doing some work. Nobody was going to practice posing next to the Jacob’s Blocking Trophy after Saturday’s game, but it was an improvement over most of the outings this year and certainly many years past. And I would lay decent odds that the false start penalties, while a problem, will be disciplined a little differently this week. I think they were actually responding to coaching. One of the problems with the line this year has been their slow footwork. They have not fired out of their stance fast enough to effectively engage their blocks for most of the year, and I think that may have been a major item of focus this week. So much so that they got ahead of the game. Often. Usually when you get a lot of false starts, it is because the line is having a difficult time containing one or more defensive linemen who are beating them off the ball, and the quarterback and running backs are getting beat up in the backfield. However, as noted above, only one sack and nearly 300 yards on the ground would indicate that this was not the driving force. Even after having so many flags dropped, the line – especially David Sharpe, guilty of half of them and appearing to jump a millisecond early on almost every snap of the game – stuck with their plan of perfectly timing their fire outs, erring on the early side.

So the line actually had one of their better days in my opinion. The running backs obviously tore the place up. Perine and Scarlett topping the century mark was special, but Mark Thompson probably showed the biggest improvement of the stable, hitting the holes with a decisiveness that he has been lacking all year, no doubt accounting for his 6.5 yards per carry.

So then there are the receivers and quarterback. Having already touched on Luke Del Rio’s mountain of limiting circumstances (and even given his temporary and permanent limitations, he is undefeated as a Gators starter), let’s look at the catchers. Del Rio spread the ball around nicely to nine different receivers, however the problem with respect to this unit is that only four of those nine were receivers – and only three of them caught a pass for positive yardage. Tyrie Cleveland had three big catches and sits perched on the bubble for his big breakout game (which just might happen against Georgia), and Brandon Powell had a modest day with four catches for ten yards apiece. Then there was Antonio Callaway, who continues his enigmatic step-back season. He again seemed a little lost, a little bored and a little unfocused both running routes and signaling fair catches (I would say returning punts and kicks, but he doesn’t really do that anymore, save the occasional onsides kick). One of the reasons the offense has failed to maximize output in the last 2.5 games is the quarterbacks missing a lot of open receivers; however, the receivers have not been running the best routes nor have they done much after the catch. Callaway in particular needs to stop taking the Franco Harris route out of bounds nearly every time he touches the ball. He is an explosive weapon with the ball in his hands, but he has been playing this year like his powder is wet. And overall the receivers need to get a lot more aggressive on jump balls and other 50/50 balls. Unless Tim Tebow takes a break from saving lives in the Mets’ instructional league and possesses the body one of our current signal callers, there are likely to be a few more 50/50 balls emerging from the Florida pocket this year. Our receivers need to play defensive back on bad passes and muscle any simultaneous catch away from the defenders. And if a pass isn’t settling perfectly between the numbers, they have to go up and get the dang ball.

So there is my small grievance on the offense this week. Del Rio needs to get more confident stepping into throws and onto his healing knee, and receivers need to get energized, aggressive and more precise in their routes. Do that and continue to improve on the offensive line (much faster pace, if you please), and nitpicking about the final margin of victory won’t be much of a problem anymore.

And just so I don’t end this section on a down note, it is worth pointing out that the 523 yards on offense was the Gators’ second game of 500+ yards (to go with the 564 logged against Kentucky). The last time Florida had two games of 500+ yards of offense against SEC schools in the same season was 2008, when they racked 519 on South Carolina and 514 against Arkansas – both surpassed by the two games this year. The Gators also won their most recent national title that year, not for nothing. And on the individual kudos scorecard, Lamical Perine’s second 100-yard game of the year put him in some very rare company. Here are the only other Gators to ever log multiple 100-yard games as true freshmen: Jeff Demps, Fred Taylor, Errict Rhett, Neal Anderson, Tony Green and Emmitt Smith. That’s four members of the UF Athletic Hall of Fame, two members of the Florida-Georgia Hall of Fame, one member of the NFL Hall of Fame, the all-time NFL rushing leader, and winners of three national titles and three Super Bowls. And as Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade said, Perine’s just gettin’ warmed up!

 

Defensively Speaking

It’s difficult to say anything about this defense that hasn’t already been said many times over, so I will just shower you with statistics for a few minutes. Despite emptying the bench in the fourth quarter, allowing a theretofore strangled Missouri offense to move like a hot knife through butter (and wreck the statistical domination for the day), Florida still leads the SEC in nearly all the major defensive categories: scoring defense, total defense, passing defense, passing efficiency defense, red zone defense, third down defense and of course interceptions. And even after a rare week with no sacks, the Gators still sit third in the league in quarterback drops. Florida also leads the nation in passing efficiency defense, is second in scoring defense and passing defense, and is third in the country in total defense and red zone defense, while also representing in the top-10 in third down defense and interceptions (despite missing a game from the schedule – picks are ranked by totals, not per game averages, like sacks).

Florida established itself on defense from the first snap and never relented until the game was all over except for the celebrating. In the first half, Missouri had nine offensive possessions. Those possessions ended in seven 3-and-outs and two pick-sixes. Last week the defense said they were lacking energy because they knew they were playing Vanderbilt…they were clearly very energized Saturday.

Despite the late surrendering of real estate to Missouri, the Gators still held the Tigers to just 98 yards passing, good enough for a Florida season low so far. Quite a feat considering Missouri entered the game leading the conference in passing yards per game. Included in that pass defense were the two immediately famous back-to-back pick-sixes. This was only the fifth time since Florida’s maiden national championship voyage in 1996 that the Gator defense returned two interceptions for touchdowns in the same game, but it was the first time since 1994 that they turned the trick against an SEC foe. I am sure all of you who were around back then remember that day well. It was a cool fall evening in Gainesville when the Georgia Bulldogs visited the Swamp for the first time since 1931. Darren Hambrick and James Bates both took Eric Zeier passes to the end zone, nearly outscoring the Dawg offense by themselves, en route to a 52-14 shellacking of the hated rivals. This of course served as the perfect prelude to the 1995 game when Florida became the first and only visiting school to ever top the 50-point mark in Athens, because – as The Old Ball Coach said after the game – he wanted the Gators to be the first to ever “hang half a hundred on the Dawgs between the hedges”.

And here’s an easy one: guess who Florida plays next.

 

Ain’t That a Kick

It’s not often you see an onsides kick returned for a touchdown. I and many of you saw it Saturday for the second week in a row (last week the deed was done against South Carolina by Georgia…did I mention that we play them next?). Callaway’s return for a touchdown may have been unorthodox, but it has become commonplace at Florida. This marked the twelfth season in a row in which Florida has had either a punt or kickoff returned for a score. That is the longest streak in the nation, matched only by Kansas State (Oklahoma State could join them if they notch one this year).

And after talking so much about the offense and defense, I would be remiss not to mention our kicker, Eddie Pineiro. While he did miss one field goal on the day – a rather short one by his standards – he knocked home two more 3-pointers. That’s more than we would have hoped for in half a season last year. He also nailed his second field goal of over 50 yards on the year. That hasn’t happened at Florida since Caleb Sturgis dropped two of them between the uprights in 2012. And Eddie still has half the season left to top that mark. He also leads the SEC in field goals of 40 yards or longer. This is why we signed him. This is exactly what we needed him so desperately to do this year. To put it lightly, he has not disappointed.

And for the rest of Gator Nation, the next two weeks won’t disappoint either. The lead up to The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party is always one of the year’s finest treats. I will be bringing you periodic intel from deep in enemy territory, mostly in the form of fan and local media perspectives, which is always fun when dealing with fans who are fond of getting on their hands and knees and barking like rabid dogs. Until then, remember that every day is a gift; that’s why they call it the present.

David Parker
One of the original columnists when Gator Country first premiered, David “PD” Parker has been following and writing about the Gators since the eighties. From his years of regular contributions as a member of Gator Country to his weekly columns as a partner of the popular defunct niche website Gator Gurus, PD has become known in Gator Nation for his analysis, insight and humor on all things Gator.