Advanced stats review of Florida’s win over Kentucky

Last week’s win over Vandy generated a lot of talk about sleepwalking and sloppy play in a relatively down effort, but the win against Kentucky was actually that. The advanced stats review showed the internals of Gators-Commodores were still strong for UF. This one, less so.

This review is based on Bill Connelly’s Five Factors of winning, and sacks are counted as pass plays. I tossed out the one-play drive that killed the clock to end 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.

UF’s defense really did its job here. UK will get some big runs because it specializes in the ground game so much, but half of the explosive carries were either a novelty handoff to a wide receiver or Terry Wilson scrambling on a well-covered pass play. Those were indeed bad plays by the defense, but the Gators were good at limiting big gains for the standard Wildcat rushing attack.

This is the lowest explosive rate for the UF pass attack all year. The second-lowest was 25% against Arkansas, and UK dropped a ton of guys all game like the Razorbacks did. It’s the story of the two slow starts in a row: the defense limits big plays as much as possible and offensive execution on non-chunk plays determines the rest. Execution has been lower these two weeks, so UF has failed to run up big first half leads.

The two UF explosive runs were the fake punt and a play where Dameon Pierce cut back and ran away from where his offensive line was trying to block for him. It’s not a coincidence that such was the case.

Efficiency

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

The success rate figures are one of the main reasons why I say this game was the slog that Vandy wasn’t. The overall rate is the second-lowest the Gators have had all year, with only the Georgia defense doing better. The bottom-line number is still a bit above the national average of 42%, so it was still a good performance generally speaking. It’s just not the otherworldly rate that the Gators have been at most of the time.

The passing figure is what you’d want to see from the Gator defense, though it might be lower if, say, they’d covered the tight end at all on Kentucky’s fourth down conversion attempt on its opening drive.

UK needed a fourth down conversion on each of its first two drives to keep grinding clock early on. It wasn’t until the second quarter that its offense actually hit a higher gear. UF’s defense finding itself shows up in the third quarter, and garbage time accounts for most of the ‘Cats success in the fourth.

UF, meanwhile, had legit issues getting going after its opening drive thanks in part to penalties. The Gators’ second drive began with a false start and only moved the sticks thanks to converting a 3rd & 12. It ended in a lost fumble.

The third series ended with a punt due to a doomed run-run sequence on a first and second down, the kind that killed several possessions in the second half against Georgia. Then a 15-yard facemask penalty set back the fourth and final drive before the break.

Efficiency by Player

This is what an actual down game for 2020 Kyle Trask looks like: below 200 passing efficiency, under ten yards per attempt, and a mere 50% success rate on drop backs. He’s still really, really good y’all.

Wilson has not been the same since his injury. He can’t hit anything beyond about ten yards upfield and is basically an option quarterback trying to run a standard offense now.

Pitts remains a monster. UK was willing to have Florida throw to the backs and it never really burned them too badly. It’s nice to see Wells get some meaningful snaps the past couple weeks and mostly do well with them, him not knowing where the end line was last week aside.

Setting aside the two explosive runs, Pierce drops to six carries, 2.3 yards per rush, and a 0.0% success rate when taking a handoff and trying to follow his blocks. The run attack was real bad in this one.

Field Position

Florida had a pair of drives start inside its own 20; Kentucky had two start within its own ten. Turnovers made the average starting position look a lot more normal.

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.

This was a weird game because for as few plays as the teams ran — UK held an edge there of 62-57, which doesn’t even combine for 120 total — there were a lot of possessions. A number of quick punt or turnover drives is the reason there.

This is easily Florida’s worst points per drive figure, with the 3.14 against Georgia the next-lowest. Even if you throw out the final drive — it was in garbage time, yes, but Florida was actively trying to move the ball and ended on Kentucky’s 1-yard-line — it’s still the lowest at an even 3.00 points per drive.

Getting just 27 points off of seven scoring opportunities is bad for this year’s offense. Well, it’s really more like six, since one of the blown opportunities was that game-ending drive.

A missed field goal then becomes the only failure to get points, but even so three of the six not getting in the end zone is subpar by the Gators’ 2020 standard. A sack and penalty led to one other field goal attempt, and a baffling sequence of play calls led to the final try from Evan McPherson.

Turnovers

Florida won the turnover battle 3-2, but it’s arguable how many of these made a difference. Each team had a short-field touchdown off of a giveaway. UF stopped UK on downs in four plays after its second turnover, and the Wildcats’ final turnovers were picks after the game was already decided.

Overall

I tried to caution folks that UF wouldn’t beat Kentucky as bad as Alabama did (63-3), and I was right. It was an easy prediction to make. The final score against the Tide screamed “the worst the Wildcats will play all year”, and indeed they performed better in Gainesville than in Tuscaloosa.

It’s becoming clear, though, that teams are figuring out how to slow Florida’s offense. Not stop, mind you. UK gave up slightly more yards per play (7.33) than Arkansas did (7.14). But slow it, yes.

Step one: take advantage of soft scheming from the Gator defense and keep the Trask and the offense off the field. South Carolina and Texas A&M did that, and Kentucky was well-suited to do the same. For a half, anyway.

Step two: drop a ton of players in coverage early. For whatever reason, the Gators start slowly if the intermediate and longer passes aren’t there. Yeah, UF scored on its first drive, but that was because Pitts beat a guy one-on-one for a long score. Prior to that, the only good play by success rate on the series was the fake punt.

If you take out the fake punt, which isn’t a normal offensive play, and Pitts smoking Kelvin Joseph, which is a normal offensive play made by an abnormally good tight end, UF’s first half success rate is a poor 31.6%. It’s only that high because UK allowed a bunch of short completions to Nay’Quan Wright to start the Gators’ fourth drive; minus the two big plays the success rate was a dismal 23.1% on the first three series.

Step three: pressure Trask in obvious passing situations. Attack the right side of the offensive line, specifically. Trask is making decreasingly few bad decisions — he hasn’t had one of his previously characteristic shoulda-been-a-pick throws in weeks — so getting in his face is the best way to lower his level of play once he’s gotten used to the defense always dropping seven or more.

How can UF strike back? It can fight (1) by getting more stops in fewer plays. That seems unlikely because the defense still cannot get lined up on time and/or everyone on the same page every play. First quarters are particularly bad; second halves have been better.

It can fight (2) by either building in more stuff to punish deep blankets or having a functional run game. UF did the former against Georgia with all the running back passes and the latter against Arkansas and Vandy. It did neither against Kentucky. The running back passes against the Wildcats were almost all harmless dump-offs, and, well, you saw the rushing stats above.

Fighting (3) requires better play from the offensive line, as does the run portion of (2). Jean Delance is not performing at an SEC level. Stewart Reese has been up-and-down, probably due at least in part to him dealing with injuries. The line is a bigger issue than I have space for here, but there are only two more games to figure it out before Atlanta.

We’re approaching “this team is what it is” territory, and it’ll sink or swim with the guys we’ve seen all year doing what they’ve done all year. I have a hunch they’ll look better this weekend because it won’t be another blasted noon kickoff time.

Regardless, the Gators can play a lot better than they did against UK. We all know that because because we’ve seen them do it. It’s time to see them do it again.