I loved listening to the Car Talk radio show back in the day when it was releasing new episodes. I wasn’t a gearhead, but the hosts were funny and the editing kept things brisk. I still have a book of their puzzlers that I got for some birthday or another.
I still remember some of their best bits. The funny fake names in the credits (e.g., show statistician Marge Inovera) were a joy. Click and Clack, being proud Italian-Americans, would occasionally recommend lubricating parts with oil from Filippo Berio. And when they reached the end of their troubleshooting abilities and all seemed hopeless, they’d tell customers to go to the nearest auto shop and look for something with “miracle” on the label.
I had been using the term “miraculous” and “miracle worker” and similar about Phil Trautwein’s job with this year’s Gator offensive line. Through four games, a unit that Jon Sumrall had sounded alarm bells about publicly during the spring and summer had looked above average. Not great, or world beaters, but above average. Given the baseline expectations and the head coach’s offseason fretting.
Then the last two games happened, and I’m more looking to AutoZone than to Trautwein for miracles.
To be clear, I’m not blaming the former Gator great. There’s only so much he can do with what he’s got, and his track record at Penn State was sterling. Then again, the two guys he brought with him from PSU either don’t play (Eagan Boyer) or have been a clear weak link the past two weeks (TJ Shanahan), so he’s perhaps not completely blameless.
Florida has also been on a cycle of peak-experience lines giving way to inexperienced ones. It began with Dan Mullen’s first year in 2018 giving way to the worst UF offensive line of my lifetime in 2019. Then in 2022 Billy Napier’s first line was pretty good and stocked well with players including an All-American he brought from Louisiana. The ’23 line left a lot to be desired.
Now it’s happened again where last year’s offensive line had three seniors, including an All-American center. This year’s has one returning starter, one returning part-time starter at a different position, and three transfers. Among the transfers are a guy who couldn’t nail down a starting job at two different P4 schools (Shanahan), and a sophomore who reclassified up a year such that he’s still only 18-years-old now (Emeka Ugorji).
So there’s only so much that can be done to break such a cycle in one year, even with the new transfer and NIL rules. There is a limited number of quality linemen in the transfer portal in any season, so if Miami is going to pay Jordan Seaton approximately $TEXAS to play for them, then good luck finding a starting tackle.
Michael Lewis’s The Blind Side published 20 years ago, and it was a trailing indicator of how football teams had started to highly value offensive tackles. Nothing is new about offensive linemen in general being in high demand, and Sumrall and Dave Caldwell’s tack was to get younger guys who will be around for a couple years (best case scenario) rather than load up on old guys like Kentucky did. Well, Kentucky is now ranked in the mid-teens having defeated Lane Kiffin, and Florida is still developing its new guys. UK will have to replace some of those geezers next year, so we’ll see how well Will Stein runs on the transfer treadmill with linemen.
I’m going into this much detail because I think the line is the single biggest problem on the offense right now.
Jadan Baugh is a really good running back. He went for over 1,200 yards last year and exactly 600 yards in the first four games. He was doing “first since Emmitt” things. No one does that without being a top notch back. You can tell, because they were “first since Emmitt” things.
In the two games since getting to 600, he’s not yet gotten to 700. His 1.1 yards per carry against Missouri was lower than any game average 2019’s leading rusher Lamical Perine had behind that worst-of-my-lifetime offensive line.
Aaron Philo has been uneven as UF’s quarterback, making some great plays while also not seeing open receivers even in those first four games. He seems to have a habit of sometimes reading low-to-high, or at least deciding very early, perhaps even before the snap, to take a short route without checking to see if a longer one gets open.
I’ve watched some film review from good sources of the past two games, and it looks like he’s getting worse about this. I can’t blame him too much, because he’s been under pressure a lot more in those contests. He can’t trust the line to block for him on every play.
Buster Faulkner also appears to be coaching as though he can’t trust the line. His whole thing is supposed to be that everyone eligible should be an option the defense has to worry about on every play. They aren’t all really on every play, but it should look that way. Defenses have adjusted based on the early season film, and not having VB3 is a major disadvantage for him. Even I began to notice during the game that there were plays where only a single option was available, and I usually have to catch those type of things on a rewatch.
For example against South Carolina, on 3rd & goal from the 3-yard-line early in the second quarter, Philo rolled out on a play where literally the only pass target was Amir Jackson short. There were other receivers on that side, but they were blocking. Jackson was covered, so Philo tucked it and ran for no gain. UF had to settle for a field goal. The GNFP film study flagged a different play where three receivers to the wide side of the field were all single-covered with no safety help, but they all just blocked.
But again, the failures are a team effort. I have no idea what Faulkner was thinking asking Ugorji to block Dylan Stewart one-on-one on a slow developing long pass play. Carolina rushed only three, but they only needed one because Stewart got a sack by himself by blowing past the young right tackle. My son, who is in the second grade, was beginning to be able to tell by formation when a run was coming. If he can do that, so can defensive coordinators.
Without a good offensive line as a foundation, any offense suffers. VB3 coming back will help, but you really can’t operate without a line you can trust. Running backs can only do so much with no holes to run through, and neither the quarterback nor play caller can do their jobs without being concerned about protection breakdowns right now.
Until the staff finds a way to stabilize the line play and get it back up to at least average, it’s going to be a long season the rest of the way. A 4-0 start could turn into 4-5 in the blink of an eye in large part because the offensive line lost the plot. They have to get it better.