Not a lot of information has escaped Florida’s relatively locked down spring practice other than from press conferences and Instagram streams, but one thing that has come out is that a good number of players are getting looks on the offensive line. Who is getting the majority of snaps, and where? That’s proprietary information it seems, though a few guesses aren’t hard to make.
It would take a lot for Richard Gouraige not to start at left tackle this year. Stewart Reese will probably start somewhere as a sixth-year senior; non-quarterbacks don’t often get press availability if they’re not on the depth chart’s top line. Ethan White likewise is a good bet after winning a starting job late in 2019 and playing some when healthy late in 2020.
There does need to be competition, though, because offensive line was a major issue the past couple of years. At least, that’s the general belief among UF’s observers. There is a counterargument that, while the Gators just couldn’t run in 2019, they more chose not to in 2020. Having a pocket-bound eventual Heisman finalist at quarterback throwing to the likes of Kyle Pitts, Kadarius Toney, and Trevon Grimes is a strong incentive to pass a lot, after all.
Here is what we can say about the line over the last two years and what the future needs to hold.
It really was that bad in 2019
Football Outsiders produces some offensive line stats. They necessarily are somewhat tenuous and made of judgment calls because of how interconnected football activities are, and linemen don’t generally touch the ball after the snap unless something has gone wrong.
You don’t need me to explain what the various measures mean to see how things went wrong in 2019. Four of the six stats related to rushing saw UF ranked in the triple digits nationally. One of the exceptions was stuff rate, the proportion of rushing plays that went for no gain or a loss. In that category, Florida was only 97th in the country. The one triumph was UF being 20th in line yards in passing situations. When the team wouldn’t have been expected to run, it ran well. So… yay?
By comparison, Florida was in the top 20 in four of the six rushing categories in 2018. Rushing on passing downs was an exception at 27th. Power success rate, which is about converting 3rd or 4th down with one or two yards to go, was 45th. On the whole, though, the Gators were fine at rushing in Dan Mullen’s first year. The run game really did fall far, far off a cliff in his second.
But last year? The stats rebounded. Four of the categories were nearly identical to the 2018 measures. Line yards on passing downs was noticeably lower, but power success rate was considerably higher. In fact, Florida was 12th in the country in that measure last year. To be sure, they did do a lot of throwing on 3rd or 4th down with two or fewer yards to go. If I’ve got my numbers straight, I think we’re talking about them converting 16-of-19 power rushes in non-garbage time situations. Still, they could largely do it when they wanted to.
There is real evidence to back up the idea that they could run the ball a lot better in 2020 than in 2019 despite losing Lamical Perine to the NFL. That’s clearing a low bar for sure, but the line did improve at run blocking. It’s just that the ROI on passing was tremendously high with how well Kyle Trask was playing, so it made sense to throw a lot.
What about sacks?
There is a growing consensus in the NFL that sacks are a quarterback stat. Which is to say, they have more to do with how well a quarterback deals with pressure than about how well the line pass blocks.
That line of thinking is solid on the pro level, where the distance between the best and worst offensive lines is not tremendously far. It is probably not as true on the college level where there can be a wide chasm between good and bad lines. There also can be a wide chasm between how well quarterbacks with varying degrees of experience deal with pressure in college, so it may be hard to separate it all out.
The 2018 line led the country in sack rate on passing downs, which are defined as 2nd & 7 or more yards to go and 3rd or 4th down and 5 or more yards to go. Just 0.9% of drop backs in those situations ended with Feleipe Franks in the dirt. On standard downs the picture wasn’t as rosy at a sack rate of 5.8%, which was 79th in the country.
The next season, as you’d expect, saw a rise in passing downs sack rate. The line was not very good, and Trask was starting for the first time since he was a freshman in high school. It went all the way up to 7.6%, which was 65th nationally. However on standard downs, the sack rate fell to 4.4%. To the extent the line improved over the prior year at anything, it was pass blocking when the down and distance didn’t tip the offense’s hand.
In 2020 Trask proved adept at adjusting in the pocket, avoiding pressure, and getting rid of the ball when he needed to. The team’s sack rate on passing downs fell to 2.6%, not as good as 2018 but a heck of a lot better than the prior year. That figure was 8th in the country, with only Texas A&M and the Washington schools ahead of UF among Power 5 teams.
Standard downs sack rate was almost unchanged at 4.8%. I checked, and most of the standard downs sacks came on 1st & 10 specifically. I’d have to go to the film to see if there was a common thread, but it should make some sense. When later downs are standard downs, the distance is shorter and therefore quicker passes can get the job done.
Outlook
Let’s not forget that there was some real disruption last season. Ethan White was taking snaps at center in fall camp, and all expectations were that he would start there. Him being there meant Brett Heggie would’ve been at guard, which probably would’ve pushed Richard Gouraige out to left tackle with Stone Forsythe at right tackle. Presumably Reese would’ve been the other guard. Jean Delance would’ve been a backup, and fan frustration with his play is not something I need to recap here. That plan ended when White sustained an injury in the preseason.
We got to see something close to that in the LSU game, with a line of Gouraige-White-Heggie-Reese-Forsythe getting some play. That combination allowed pressure that led to a pair of sacks, the first an intentional grounding flag on Trask, in the red zone late with Florida trailing 34-31. The Gators had to settle for a field goal, and you know what happened after that. Merely changing up the lineup wouldn’t fix everything.
Part of the problem, though, was that those guys simply hadn’t played much in that configuration. Offensive line is one place where it greatly matters that guys don’t just get reps, but that they get reps together. Forsythe and Gouraige worked together on the left side in picking up things like stunts than Reese and Delance did on the other, and Reese of course had very little time to get used to his teammates as a summer grad transfer with a disrupted offseason due to COVID.
I expect to see better things from Reese this year since he’ll actually have more time to get used to playing and communicating with his teammates. Plus, the seemingly open competition that comes from actually having spring practice should help prevent the coaches defaulting to experience. It might not stop it entirely, but a younger guy has a better chance at surpassing his elder if he can prove it near-daily for weeks in the spring session.
The change at quarterback also bodes well for improvements. Emory Jones has been above six yards per carry in each of the past two years even without adjusting for the few sacks he’s taken, and mobile quarterbacks do tend to take fewer of them. I don’t know that UF has a nation-leading line in the offing, but getting back to 2018 levels is probably doable.
Ultimately it’ll come down to coaching and execution, but the 2021 offensive line has a real chance to be the best unit in three seasons. For Florida to avoid a speed-bump of a year, it’ll need to be.