Advanced stats review of Florida’s close call in the SEC Championship Game

Florida held its own against Alabama better than most expected in the SEC Championship Game. The Gators came oh-so-close to pulling it off if not for a handful of plays and penalties, too. The numbers show Bama as having the better performance overall, but they also show it wasn’t a fluke that UF was in it at the end.

This review is based on Bill Connelly’s Five Factors of winning, and sacks are counted as pass plays. I excluded the one-play series at the end of the first half.

Explosiveness

Everyone has a different definition for what counts as an “explosive play”, but I go with runs of at least 12 yards and passes of at least 16 yards.

This counts as making Alabama’s offense work hard. The Tide’s longest play from scrimmage was a 31-yard pass to DeVonta Smith, which is the shortest longest-play-in-the-game they’ve had all year (though the only one longer than that against Arkansas was well into garbage time). Florida’s defense has been accused of playing too soft all season, but the reason they do it is to prevent big plays. When they’re not having complete busts, they usually pull it off.

This was the second-lowest explosive pass rate that Kyle Trask had this season, which shouldn’t be surprising given how good Alabama’s defense has been. He did have a pair of 50+ yard touchdown passes though, so he almost always made it count when the deep tosses were there.

The only explosive runs came from Emory Jones and Kadarius Toney and not the traditional handoff-based run game, which is to be expected for this year.

Efficiency

The main measure here is success rate. Watch this short video if you need to brush up on it.

The tradeoff for going big on preventing big plays is that you tend to let the opponent get more down-to-down success. Alabama did that with room to spare. The theory, I think, is that if you extend opponent drives, they’ll eventually make mistakes or just have 50-50 plays go against them such that it keeps them out of the end zone. Bama’s so good, though, that the theory just breaks against them.

UF, however, had a terrific game plan. The run was actually more efficient than the pass. That’s not to say that the Gators should’ve run the ball more; they shouldn’t have. It’s to say that the runs were well-placed and well-timed. With better blocking up front on those choice rushing plays, the constant complaint of the last two years, things could’ve gone even better.

UF weathered the early storm with timely third down play calls, and winning the third quarter by that much was the primary reason they were in it at the end.

Efficiency by Player

After a while, it felt like Jones was running a sprawlball-style passing attack that was the equivalent of modern basketball offenses that try to only shoot layups and threes. His touch on deep throws is truly special and the thing that makes him stand out. Beyond that, he has an unfairly talented arsenal to throw to and was passing against a defense committed to relatively soft coverage. He should’ve had a good game.

Trask cleaned things up considerably from last week and had one of his best games. In raw numbers terms, he’s done better. Adjusted for defense quality, he was absolutely terrific. The only potential ding on him was pocket awareness, but the offensive line is as big a culprit as any there.

When the going got tough, the target list shrank. Trask targeted at least nine guys in every prior game, but it was down to seven here, and Shorter barely made the list with his one target. Guys like Xzavier Henderson and non-Pitts tight ends played, but the passes went to the best playmakers.

I argued that Trask should’ve ran the ball more against LSU, but him having almost as many non-sack carries (ten) as the rest of the team combined (11) was not exactly what I had in mind. Still, he pulled off a 50% success rate, and that’s what UF needed from its run game. It didn’t have to be great, just situationally good.

Field Position

The fumble that gave Bama the ball at the UF 10-yard-line accounts for five of the ten yards of field position difference, and four more come from the Tide technically getting a new drive after Dean’s interception/fumble combo. Take out those turnover-driven field position advantages, and Bama gets to its own 26 for average starting field position. It goes back to its own 24 if you then take out the recovered onside kick at the end.

UF also had two drives that didn’t cross the 50-yard-line on account of Trask throwing TDs of 51 and 50 yards, respectively. Eliminate those drives from contention and the share of the Gators’ play in opponent territory goes up to 58.2%. It’s not quite up to Bama’s 63%, but it’s a lot closer.

The Tide did win this factor, but turnovers and Florida’s explosive passes are the reason why it wasn’t by a sliver.

Finishing Drives

A trip inside the 40 is a drive where the team has a first down at the opponent’s 40 or closer or where it scores from further out than that. A red zone trip is a drive with a first down at the opponent’s 20 or closer.

If Dan Mullen had run enough clock at the end of the first half to prevent Alabama from getting a score — and just the extra 18 seconds of play clock before Trask’s touchdown run might’ve been enough — then the teams would’ve had the same number of drives and points if the rest of the game played out identically. We’ll never know if it would have been exactly the same since coaches make different decisions in different game states, but as it was, Florida played Alabama evenly except for the last minute of the first half.

The teams effectively got points on all of their scoring opportunities. The only missed opportunity was Dean’s interception that Bama got back before the whistle blew.

Turnovers

Bama won this battle 2-1 with John Metchie’s hit wiping out Dean’s pick. That leaves the strip-sack of Trask the decider, though the UF defense held up and forced a field goal after it.

UF did force a turnover on downs in the third quarter, but the offense then ended up punting after four plays and a defensive penalty.

Overall

The teams’ explosive rates were about the same; one extra for Florida or one fewer for Alabama would’ve swung the lead the other way. The Tide was noticeably more efficient, but the Gators were above the threshold for keeping up. UF’s third down success rate, a.k.a. third down conversions, hitting 73% versus Bama’s 60% helped close the overall gap. Finishing drives was another draw; UF’s poor clock management just gifted Alabama an extra chance.

The Tide won turnovers by a smidge, and its edge in that factor helped it win field position.

In other words, this one was an honest close game. You might not guess that based on certain things like the Tide outgaining UF by 143 yards — but the different does drop a lot if, again, UF had run more clock at the end of the first half. Bama got a 78-yard drive after Trask’s touchdown plunge with 1:09 left to go, after all.

Alabama held a multiple-score lead for most of the second quarter and went to halftime up 35-17, so that helped it feel like UF was never totally in it. A 14-0 third quarter run erased that edge, as it was 35-31 heading into the final frame. It was probably too much to ask for Florida’s defense to get a third consecutive stop, though, and Trask’s lost fumble allowed the Tide to answer the Gators pulling within four with ten points instead of seven.

The Gators made too many mistakes with penalties, clock management, and turnovers to beat a team as good as Alabama. They also made enough great plays to make up for almost all of those mistakes.

I’m confident that UF was not at its ceiling for the Mullen era in 2020. The offense might have been about as good as it’s going to get, but as it was in the range of the 2007 and 2008 offenses Mullen coordinated, I think he can get to the same level again. The defense wasn’t near as good as it was even just last year. We know a Mullen-coached team can have a better defense because we’ve already seen it happen, and I bet he can do even better because the defense he left behind for Joe Moorhead at Mississippi State in 2018 was better than UF’s defense from last year.

If Mullen can manage to sync up a 2019-level defense (or better) with a 2020-level offense, he’ll have a legit national title contender capable of beating anyone. It’s up to him to make it happen.