Florida’s win over Missouri was arguably the team’s best overall performance of the year. The offense may have hit higher highs, but the defense easily had its top outing of 2020. Add it all up and it was a stellar win for the Gators.
I put together a film study video for the win, but I’ll elaborate in text on some of the things I saw from UF.
Defense
The first thing I addressed was some of the soft coverage that we’ve seen from the Gators at times. Specifically, I looked at a couple of plays where Rashad Torrence had to cover Mizzou wide receiver Jalen Knox.
Each time, Torrence gave a cushion of more than five yards at the snap. I’m not surprised that he wasn’t up in press coverage because he’s a safety, not a corner. You’d more expect to see tight coverage from a guy like Kaiir Elam, not Torrence.
In the first instance, Knox starts on the left and cuts right to the middle of the field. He was in such a place that he could’ve cut either way, so Torrence had to lay off a little before going all-out after the receiver. If it was a double-move situation or Knox faked one way before going the other, Torrence would’ve been toast had he gone too quickly to Knox. A seam route from the tight end obstructed Brad Stewart’s path to help, and Knox picked up more than ten yards by using the space in the middle to avoid the two defenders.
On the second play, Knox began on the right side of the formation and cut to the right on an out route. Torrence was able to jump on the play sooner because the sideline hemmed Knox in. There was no space to move horizontally and avoid the defender, and Torrence makes a good one-on-one tackle to keep the play to a mere three-yard gain.
As with so many things in football, there are good and bad times to employ any strategy. Off coverage worked well in the latter play and less well in the former.
Next up, I highlighted the return of Kyree Campbell. The biggest place he showed up was in stopping the run. He can hold his own against double teams and beat single blocks from offensive linemen. He and Tedarrell Slaton were monsters at plugging gaps on runs and giving Mizzou no room to maneuver in a lot of places. Along with good play from defensive end and Buck linebackers staying at home and setting the edge, the two of them in the middle makes it far harder to run against the Gator defense.
Finally, I went over some third down stops. The Tigers were a mere 3/15 on third down conversions, easily the lowest conversion rate on the season for any Florida opponent. A common theme of the stops I went over was hassling the quarterback.
It’s amazing how much better pass coverage looks when Jeremiah Moon is playing spy and sacking the quarterback when he tries to escape a collapsing pocket, or when Brenton Cox and Gervon Dexter are bearing down on the passer at the same time. Everything starts up front. Better line play makes things easier for the other levels of the defense.
Offense
Missouri frustrated Florida in the red zone early on, forcing a pair of first quarter field goal attempts. I started the offense section with the second frustrated red zone trip, as each play had something different going on with it.
On first down, Missouri bet the farm on Florida passing and rushed three while dropping eight. As you may have heard about from coverage of Mike Leach’s Mississippi State, it’s hard to find open receivers when the defense drops eight players into coverage. Kyle Trask tried to force one into Kyle Pitts, but a defender could jump the route and break it up knowing he had help everywhere.
On second down, UF motioned Trent Whittemore from right to left, and I think the play was supposed to be a quick pass out to him. Missouri saw it coming. It had a guy shadowing Whittemore on the motion — one who multiple Gators tried to pick but couldn’t without drawing an obvious flag — and the edge rusher on the left held back and hung out in the throwing lane before trying to get after the passer. With Whittemore covered high and low, Trask rolled right and threw it away.
On third down, DE Trajan Jeffcoat blew past Jean Delance and flushed Trask. Trask managed to avoid a sack by getting back to the line of scrimmage, but he never had a shot on the play. All three were good strategy, efforts, or both by the Mizzou defense, but as the game went on, Dan Mullen found better ways to attack the Tigers.
From there, I highlighted ways in which Florida caught Mizzou sleeping plus some ways that Mullen employed Pitts. The former were cases of the Tigers not covering running backs in the pass game or respecting Trask in the run game. I, too, was not expecting to see Trask run Tim Tebow’s old QB Power game twice on one drive, but leaving Malik Davis and Dameon Pierce entirely uncovered is less understandable.
Not surprisingly, I found an instance of Trask using Pitts as something of a security blanket when an unblocked blitzer came after him. Trask had to unload it before Pitts even made his cut, but he trusted that his tight end’s physical advantage would win the play. It did, and Florida moved the sticks.
Mullen also continues to clear out one side of the field for Pitts in some key situations. Mullen used to employ half-field clear outs for TE Jordan Thomas at Mississippi State, and he’s continued to do it with Pitts at Florida. If you’ve got someone the size of a tight end who can beat a defender one-on-one, there’s no reason not to keep doing it as long as defenses refuse to send linebacker or safety help.
Ultimately I think Missouri is a little better of a team than South Carolina is but roughly in the same tier within the conference. Georgia, even with its recent offensive struggles, is in a completely different category. The film on the Mizzou game was encouraging, but Florida has to build on it if it wants the breakthrough win in Jacksonville.