FILM ROOM: Bama Post-Mortem 1st half Offense

Man, that was painful. One of the fun parts about writing these columns is getting to tear into game film each week and pick apart every play our Gators ran that week. This week’s film with the multitude of executional problems and missed assighments is just plain tough to watch, though. Tough to watch, but necessary to identify exactly what is going on with this Gator offense. This week’s column is going to be a little different as a result.

Rather than simply break into a play and analyze it from a conceptual standpoint, we’re going to break into ALL of them. That’s right, below you’ll find that I’ve listed every single offensive play the Gators ran in the first half, broken down by down and distance, play concept, etc., along with the result and my comment. I’ve listed the progression for each passing play, which route was thrown to, and whether it was the correct decision. So without further adieu, let’s take a look at the raw data.

So that is it, every play in the first half.  It’s a lot of data, so let’s focus our efforts to break this down.  One of the obvious problems in the game was execution from our quarterback, so let’s highlight and look at only those plays where Jeff Driskel either carried out his assignment correctly, made the correct read and throw, etc, along with those plays where he made an incorrect throw, failed to recognize and check out of an obvious blitz, made a bad throw, etc.  We’ll remove all plays where he either handed off or missed assignment from another player resulted in Jeff not being able to carry out his duties (i.e. a missed rusher by the offensive line).

Plus plays in green, minus plays in red. First thing you’ll notice is the minuses outnumber the plusses 12-9. The second thing you’ll notice is Jeff really didn’t ever seem to get going and string any sort of consistency together, despite getting fairly good protection and receivers finding open grass. It may be stating the obvious, but this is not the type of pattern you like to see in your quarterback at this level. What’s even more disturbing is these missteps were occurring not just in the passing game, but in the run game where Jeff has typically shined. Let’s isolate those before we move to the passes.

Of note, out of 17 designed rushes in the first half, 4 of them are busted because of a blown QB responsibility. One is one in by a bad read, one a missed blitz pickup, and a third by Jeff not following his blocking scheme. This is a disturbing trend as outside of a true option offense, a quarterback should really only be a factor in the run game when the situation dictates there are easy and uncontested yards to be had, either by read or by designed call. What this shows is that Jeff is reaching outside of the design of the play in half of the plays above (Q-power at 12:09 and zone read at 5:24, both Q1). Of the remaining two, the missed handoff is an executional error that happens even to the best QBs on occasion. The missed corner blitz on the Q-counter is rather baffling, as I think the entire stadium saw it except for Jeff, and that play should have been checked out of. Again, the inconsistency shows.

Now let’s move on to the passing plays. Out of 18 designed passes, Jeff was responsible for 8 minus plays.

Note that of the 8 above, 3 were true bad reads by JD within the concept of the play.  The remaining 5 were more mechanical in nature with accuracy problems resulting.  On deep throws, Jeff has a tendency to release the ball low rather than strive for full extension, which results in a lower trajectory and overthrows. This was the case on 3 of the above throws. Another of the above was related to Jeff feeling pressure prematurely and not setting his feet, while the final was a rushed throw on a bubble screen that, again, was footwork related.

So what we’re seeing here is a variety of both mental and mechanical errors by the quarterback in both the run and the pass that directly resulted in over a third (12/35) of the Florida first half plays being unsuccessful. Even given the quality of our opponent, that isn’t the type of performance an SEC team should expect out of an experienced quarterback.  Bottom line: Jeff needs to improve, fast, or the Gators must begin to look in another direction for their signal caller, as Jeff’s experience clearly is not giving him an edge in game situations.

On the positive side, looking through the plays above, you’ve got to hand it to the offensive line for doing a relatively good job at keeping the pocket clean and giving the quarterback and running backs a chance to do their job, especially given the shuffling due to a couple of dings.  While the line had players that got beat a couple of times (which is going to happen), the lack of mental mistakes in pass protection and run blocking needs attention called to it.  Against a talented and multiple front 7, the Gator offensive line was successful opening holes using both zone and gap schemes, and kept Jeff Driskel upright using primarily 5 man zone protection with a little bit of 6 and 7 man. This is certainly progress from the last couple of years and shows what a difference Mike Summers and Kurt Roper are making in coaching up our bigs and putting them in position to succeed.

Another interesting development is that I believe we are seeing some impact on our playbook from former UF signal caller and current Wide Receiver coach Chris Leak. One of Chris’ favorite pass plays under Larry Fedora was the scat concept. Fedora still runs the play and it’s a call you’ll see from him a full third of the time on third down. We saw this play against Alabama with 1:28 to go in the first quarter on 2^nd and 13.  Unfortunately the play went for an incompletion due to a bad throw, but it’s another versatile triangle stretch that fits well with what Kurt Roper likes to do..

Fedora typically ran it as a double scat to both sides, while Roper has combined it with a stick to the strong side. The play and the read are the same, with the same triangle stretch; the only real difference is who is running the flat and who is running the stick/scat route.

We’ll look at Fedora’s play below, then look at how Roper draws it up:

Fedora’s version works like this: the QB keys off the middle of the field.  If the defense shows split safeties immediately post snap (middle of field open), the QB will read the 3 receiver side.  If the defense shows a single high safety (middle of field closed) immediately post snap, the quarterback will read the weak side.  Either way, the quarterback will work the scat to the swing.  Against press man, the weakside swing will turn into a wheel, and against a favorable look on the strong side, the quarterback will throw the fade.  Pretty simple read with a triangle on the strong side and a horizontal stretch on the weakside.

The scat receivers are really what make this play go, though.  They’ll line up no more than 6 yards from the tackles and work under the linebackers. If the linebacker on their side widens, they’ll sit down, if the linebacker walls them off, they’ll work back outside. If the linebacker blitzes, they become hot and will immediately turn and look for the ball and then get upfield if the QB throws it. If not, the receiver continues his route.

As you can see, it’s a very versatile concept with answers against a lot of different defensive responses.  Roper’s variation is equally versatile.

By replacing the scat route with the stick route, you still get a triangle stretch and have a versatile route with the B-position running the stick, with the exact same read.  The difference is you have the faster receiver running the flat with the ability to turn it upfield and the bigger Burton running the positional snag route where he can use his larger frame to his advantage.  Same concept, but different window dressing, and equally effective.  In the case of this play, Robinson was open for the scat when the corner came off him to follow Jones, but Driskel threw inside towards the closing linebacker instead of outside where Robinson could turn upfield and make a play happen.  It’s these little things that are the difference between a completed pass with the receiver having room to run and a short gain or incompletion.

As I watched this first half, the one thing I took away was that offensively, the 2014 Gators are not a bad team.  The offensive line is solid, the backs are seeing and finding holes, and the receivers are finding open space.  The team is going to continue to be hindered, though, by the level of play at the quarterback position unless things change in a hurry.  At this point I have my doubts that the necessary improvement will occur with Jeff Driskel at the helm.  This offense is about as quarterback-friendly and intuitive as it gets, and watching the tape it is obvious that Jeff still has trouble grasping it, despite the high hopes for him going into the season.

I hope he proves me wrong.