Florida Gators vs. Towson Tigers advanced stats review

In some ways, Florida handled its business better against Towson than it did against its prior FCS opponent UT-Martin. In some ways, it didn’t. The latter makes sense considering the Tigers are one of the top ranked outfits in the lower division while the SkyHawks are more middle-of-the-pack down there.

Let’s pop the hood on this game and see how the internals look beyond the 38-0 final score. This review is based on Bill Connelly’s Five Factors of winning, and sacks are counted as pass plays. I have thrown out the short drives at the ends of each half that only functioned to run out the clock.

Explosiveness

Everyone has a different definition for what counts as an “explosive play”, but I go with runs of at least ten yards and passes of at least 20 yards.

You don’t like to see that high of an explosive rushing rate for an FCS opponent. If there’s an ameliorating factor, it’s that three of the four came from quarterback Tom Flacco. Two of those three came on the first drive of the game before the defense was able to get a good handle on him. Jeremiah Moon in particular struggled to gauge Flacco’s speed and agility on that series. Once the defense got a bead on Flacco, the big run plays largely dried up.

Meanwhile, all three of Florida’s primary running backs managed at least one explosive carry for the first time this year. All of them also had at least one carry for a loss, so no, the rushing attack did not get fixed in this one.

Efficiency

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

There isn’t much to complain about here for the offense, as it managed a rushing success rate above the 30s for only the second time this season (43% is the national average). The level of opponent counts, though, since both of those times were against FCS teams.

The efficiency rates for Towson don’t tell the whole story. The Tigers had only a 17.4% success rate on first down, but they were 50% on both second and third down. Part of the discrepancy is from Towson running on first down more of the time (47.8%) than it did on second (30.0%) or third down (35.7%) and being more efficient with the pass than the run.

It obviously doesn’t explain all or even most of the difference. For whatever reason, some combination of Towson being good at counterpunching after first down stuffs and the Florida defense being less effective after those first down stuffs was in play on Saturday.

Towson was able to get some chunk plays, and you can clearly see that in the first quarter figure. Despite only one in three plays being a success, the Tigers were able to grind out a 12-play drive that probably would’ve got some points had Flacco not simply dropped a snap at the end.

Flacco ran for gains of 22, nine, and 11 yards and had an 11-yard completion for four successes. Otherwise, Towson had a net of zero yards on the other eight plays. The Florida defense was stifling when it was dialed in and let the Tigers gain too many yards when it wasn’t.

Efficiency by Player

Both Gator quarterbacks had good days through the air, and it was nice to see Jones get a chance to run the full offense for the first time since the Idaho game late last year. Flacco was pesky, but the final passing numbers don’t look that good for him. The run game was where he was most effective, going for 8.3 yards per carry with a 66.7% success rate on six non-sack rushes.

You want to talk balance? Here’s balance. The yards per target rates are down a bit from last week since Towson was giving the short game and Dan Mullen was using more passes as run substitutes than against Tennessee. If the goal was to emphasize the point that defenses will have to account for everyone — and that probably was a message that Mullen wanted to send to future opponents with this week’s game tape — then it was mission accomplished.

It’s easy to look at this and say that Pierce should get more carries than Perine going forward, but that doesn’t account for the blocking deficiencies that are still holding Perine back. Pierce does appear to have more burst, though.

The most distinctive thing about this list is the number of names on it. Sure, it includes some reserves like Clement and Wright who won’t get any carries against the major opponents. However three different receivers are on here, and two of them got more than one carry. I would bet Mullen did that to send a message to Auburn’s defense that it will have to honor jet sweep motion even with Kadarius Toney out and during times when Copeland, the designated Toney fill-in, is not on the field.

Field Position

Turnovers meant that the Gators won the average starting position battle, but some big plays enabled Towson to spend a comparable amount of time on the plus side of the field. The UF defense has been a bit bend-but-don’t-break with CJ Henderson and Jabari Zuniga out, but it still broke a few times here and there.

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.

As Mullen himself said in his halftime TV interview, Florida was lucky to blank the Tigers in the first half. They made their own luck later, snuffing out Towson’s only red zone trip with a field goal block.

The Gators were mostly great at turning their drives into points. Their scoring per series rate is even noticeably higher than it was against UT-Martin.

Set aside the late drive that ended on a turnover on downs with the backups in for a moment. The only drives that failed to get into the end zone were a field goal and a punt. Both of those drives stalled out because of Trask taking a sack. He didn’t get the ball out fast enough and fumbled while getting hit on 3rd & 7 right before the field goal, and he lost six yards on a sack on 2nd & 5 two plays before the punt.

On the former Chris Bleich blowing his block didn’t help, but Trask needs to better understand how much time he has to get the ball out with a defender bearing down on him. This was a guy going straight at him from the front too, not someone coming from his blind side or something.

On the latter play, Trask didn’t feel pressure from the edges until it was too late. There was plenty of room to step up in the pocket thanks to the two tackles guiding the rushers deep into the backfield as they’re supposed to, but he experiences indecision and doesn’t try stepping up until it’s too late.

As I discussed last week, Trask needs game reps to get these kinds of things down. There’s no substitute for doing it for real instead of in practice where he can’t really get hit. Until he develops that feel, he’s going to keep taking too many sacks.

Turnovers

Florida won this easily with a pair of picks and a recovered fumble. The fumble was entirely unforced, but you don’t turn that down when offered. The blocked field goal try is kind of like a turnover too. And Bleich, for all his struggles that sent him to the bench, did recover Trask’s fumble.

Overall

For a final tuneup before the critical October stretch of games, this one worked out well. The offense mostly flowed freely, and the defense picked up a second shutout. Again, Flacco’s fumble and the missed field goal helped with the latter, but it’s the first time the Gators have had two shutouts in a season since 2012 when they went 11-1 in the regular season.

Something had to give with the offensive line; the only question was whether Richard Gouraige would send Bleich or Jean Delance to the bench. It ended up being Bleich, and things didn’t get better immediately.

Pierce’s one rush for a loss came on the first drive with Gouraige at left guard and Brett Heggie at right guard, though it happened because Delance didn’t get off a double team quickly enough to pick up a linebacker plugging a gap. It wasn’t a fancy or confusing blitz; it was just a guy doing a standard job of filling a running lane. Plus on the third down after Trask’s second sack, Perine takes a loss on a third down draw in large part because an edge rusher split the double team offered by Gouraige and Stone Forsythe. Mullen has blamed communication problems for some of the OL struggles, and there they were again.

Making one substitution couldn’t and didn’t fix all the problems. Once Gouraige went in, Bleich never came back even when the reserve line played the final drive. We’ll have to see what the depth chart says, but it appears that move is going to remain for now.

But it’s important not to lose sight of the bottom line that Florida was able to cruise to a shutout win. The offense put some things on tape for Auburn to worry about and maybe overthink, while the defense was able to get that shutout while offering a ton of playing time to a lot of true freshmen.

We’ve barely seen any of the full-strength Gators outside the sloppy opener against Miami. The defense should tighten up with Henderson and Zuniga returning this week, and anyway it has played a lot of young guys throughout the blowout wins. The offense has found its way even without Toney as guys like Trask and Pitts come into their own.

With apologies to Kentucky, the preseason is over. Game on.