Yesterday, Ethan delivered Gator Country’s spring practice preview of the wide receiver position. It’s a good summary of where the position stands today.
What I want to do is give you some perspective on how the position will change going forward.
Allow me a brief digression; it will tie back in, I promise. When Dan Mullen’s staff arrived in 2018, they changed the base defense from a 4-3 front under the old regime to a nickel base defense. There’s a lot of discussion you could do about whether it was a true 3-3-5 set or if it was closer to a 4-2-5, but regardless, it employed two of the newer specialty positions: the edge rushing outside linebacker (Buck) and the hybrid nickel corner/safety (Star).
The upshot was that for the next four years, UF only employed two traditional linebackers at any given time outside of goal line sets. For that reason, the staff recruited fewer inside linebackers and loaded up on Bucks. How well they did with that transition could — and will — be its own study, but the personnel numbers needed to change because the scheme did.
There are some hints that the same thing may be going on with Billy Napier’s new offense and the pass catching positions.
To be clear, there’s only so much you should take away from the numbers in a transitional class. Coaches get what they can get, and they often sign imbalanced classes for that reason.
However, Napier signed as many true wide receivers (one, Caleb Douglas) as primarily blocking tight ends (one, Hayden Hansen). Unless you’re going with decades-old pro set offenses, which Napier is not, then the latter is like the fullback of the present day offense. Napier added a flex receiver/tight end hybrid player as well (Arlis Boardingham), so we’ll see where and how he ends up developing.
Napier’s offense is a power-based spread. Mullen’s offense was also a power-based spread, but the two are fairly distinct from each other.
Mullen’s base set is one running back, one tight end, and three receivers. He stuck to it almost exclusively despite the potential mismatches of having two tight ends, one being Kyle Pitts, in 2020. He stuck to it almost exclusively despite having ridiculous depth at running back in 2021. That grouping was his thing.
Mullen’s best offense as head coach was in 2020, but the 2021 attack was much more his comfort zone. He liked his power running, and using the quarterback as a ball carrier to gain a potential numbers advantage at the point of attack has always been the key to his scheme.
Napier is not afraid to have his signal caller tote the rock, but it’s not the cornerstone of the philosophy as it is for Mullen. Both coaches had three-headed running back platoons last year. Taking out sacks, Emory Jones ran about 30% more than the busiest running back, Dameon Pierce. This, despite Anthony Richardson getting a measurable (if small) amount of the quarterback workload. Napier’s quarterback Levi Lewis ran the ball about 25% fewer times than the third-place tailback, again excluding sacks from carry counts.
Hence, Napier uses two tight end sets a lot more than Mullen does in order to run the ball. And because a running back will be doing most of the running, there will be a tailback out there. Since there is only room in the formation for five players outside of linemen and the quarterback, that means UF will be using a lot more sets with only two wide receivers.
That’s not to say that the Gators will be downsizing the position, necessarily. There will be times to go four or five wide, and while one of them probably will be a flex tight end, you still want the three or four true receivers out there to be of top quality.
Plus if you look at Alabama, which runs a more similar offense to what Napier will do than Mullen’s scheme, it had ten scholarship receivers last year. That’s the same number as UF did.
But when you look at the usage patterns, the difference really comes out. Bama’s offense lost something big when John Metchie got hurt late last year. Then when Jameson Williams went down in the national title game, the Tide really had a hard time moving the ball. The younger guys, while talented, simply weren’t nearly as ready. They had far fewer meaningful snaps under the belts than Williams, Metchie, and Slade Bolden did, and it showed.
It’s a far cry from Mullen’s Florida offenses, which went as deep at receiver as the roster allowed. For instance it took losing the top four receiving targets, including Pitts, in the Cotton Bowl for the 2020 Gators to look as functionally degraded as the Alabama attack did after losing just its top two.
I don’t know how exactly the new staff will handle development. Napier has a pedigree as a wide receivers coach, so he probably will put a strong emphasis on good play there.
However, it’s still the case that Napier’s offense doesn’t need as many game-ready receivers as Mullen’s does. I’m sure he’d like to find a good portal option after the spring, should one appear. UF only has nine scholarship receivers at present. That figure includes Douglas, who won’t enroll until summer, and Jordan Pouncey, who didn’t play significant snaps at Texas and hasn’t yet in multiple years in Gainesville. On top of that, Trent Whittemore has had bad injury luck so far in his career.
However if the Gators can’t find a new potential contributor, it could still work out — at least as long as Whittemore stays healthy. There wasn’t an obvious game breaker last year, but Ja’Quavion Fraziars from 2020 and both 2021 signees Marcus Burke and Daejon Reynolds all were well regarded as prospects and got good practice reviews while not getting many game opportunities. There likely is enough quality, even if the quantity is low.
If guys start getting hurt then it’s going to be really uncomfortable numbers-wise. That’ll happen in some spots in transitional years. However tight it gets, it’ll be less of a concern than it would’ve been in a Mullen-led offense.
You can’t win titles in today’s game without a good passing attack, and a good passing attack requires good receivers. Napier’s new scheme just doesn’t need quite as many game-ready options as Mullen’s did. It’s one of the places where the changeover on that side of the ball will be most apparent.