Florida shouldn’t hold anything back against LSU

LSU is a sinking ship by now in the 2020 season.

Ed Orgeron accidentally picked the absolute worst time to switch away from Dave Aranda’s 3-4 defense to a 4-3, and Bo Pelini has not been up to the task of guiding that transition without spring practice. The offense hasn’t been the same without the Joes, and a high amount of attrition first to the NFL Draft and now to opt outs has left the team a shell of its former self.

A team that is ranked No. 6 and has designs on beating Alabama should have no trouble with what LSU is now, especially with the game being at home.

That same team, bearing the same rank and goal, has faced another such sinking ship recently, and it didn’t completely go in the “no trouble” bucket. Not two weeks away from the head Commodore getting fired, a winless Vandy led 10-7 after one quarter. The Gators still largely cruised to a 38-17 win, but they fell ten points short of covering the spread.

I don’t know what Dan Mullen’s full plan has been these last three weeks playing overmatched opponents on the way to Atlanta. The Gators have one more, and it’s an overmatched opponent that looks about ready to check out for the year.

If UF can get things in gear before the second quarter, it could win this one going away. I think it would do the team a lot of good to throttle the Tigers from the jump, and here’s why.

Help Kyle Trask’s Heisman campaign

I don’t think individual awards are something a coach should go for generally, but by all accounts Trask’s teammates love him and would share in the joy of a Heisman win for him. Coaching up another winner would be a terrific career accomplishment for Mullen and help in recruiting. Most coaches never get one Heisman recipient; a select few ever get a second.

LSU should provide the opportunity for Trask to light it up. Looking at long passing plays, the Tigers are a mess. They’re in the middle of the SEC pack in their rate of allowing passes of 10+ yards, but go longer than that, and they sink to the bottom.

LSU is 14th in allowing passes of 20+ yards at 16.3% of opponent throws. In other words, about one in six opponent passes go at least 20 yards. Move back to 30+ yards, and LSU is still last at 9.3% of opponent throws. That’s almost one-in-ten. They’re also last at 40+ yards (6.2%). At 50+ yards, not only are the at the bottom, but their rate of 4.3% is more than double 13th-place South Carolina’s 2.1%.

Keep in mind those are the percentages of attempts, not completions.

The Tigers are not quite last again but towards the bottom at 53.2% of completions going for 10+ yards, but 27.3% go for 20+ (next-lowest in the SEC is 21.8%). A healthy 15.6% of opponent completions go for 30+ yards (11.4%), 10.4% go for 40+ yards (6.3%), and 7.1% go for 50+ yards (3.1%). To put that last number in perspective, Trask has to get to just 22 pass completions for him to become more likely to have multiple passes of 50+ yards than not if he performs as an average LSU opposing quarterback has (note: he’s better than that). His fewest on the season is 21, which has happened three times (South Carolina, Missouri, Kentucky).

Shredding LSU won’t win Trask the Heisman any more than it did for Mac Jones or Devonta Smith last week, but it will keep him at the top of the hunt heading into the SEC Championship Game.

Get ready for life after Trask

Trask has accepted a Senior Bowl invitation and will participate in Senior Day tomorrow. I take that to mean he won’t be back in 2021, and his likely draft stock says he should go play on Sundays. That means the future rests in Emory Jones’s hands, and his number will be up in not too many games from now.

Jones has thrown a pass in just four games this year. His high in attempts was seven against Arkansas. In the last three weeks, he’s attempted one against Vandy, four against Kentucky, and none against Tennessee.

Next year will be Jones’s fourth in the program, so it’s not like he’ll be green in terms of the college experience. What he doesn’t have is extended time running the offense. Even when he goes into games, he’s generally doing a lot of run stuff to kill clock rather than execute a full offense to get him ready.

This weekend is probably the last chance to get him any real seasoning. He may have a run package for the Alabama game and anything that comes after, but Florida probably won’t run up a big lead in those games to allow Jones to just run the offense.

The sooner UF builds a giant margin against LSU, the more snaps Jones will have to help get him ready for next year. If Florida is unable to get off to a good start and doesn’t pull away until late, it’ll ruin this final opportunity for Jones.

Have some real fun

This year’s UF is close to as good as it gets for college football in a particular way. I really mean that.

If there’s one big lesson the Urban Meyer years taught us, it’s how expectations shape perceptions of teams. The 2006 team was supposed to be good but not national-championship good. Its ride to 13-1 was bumpy but exciting. The 2008 team was picked No. 1 preseason by some outlets, but it wasn’t near a consensus top choice. After it caught fire at halftime of the Arkansas game, it was a thrilling ride the rest of the way to 13-1.

In 2009, Florida was everyone’s No. 1 team heading in. The trouble began in Week 3 when Florida couldn’t beat Tennessee and offseason smack talk champion Lane Kiffin by enough points. The Gators slogged to a 23-13 win, and it was a new thing every week thereafter. It was another 13-1 campaign, but it was utter misery in comparison to the prior two.

Florida was the SEC media’s pick to win the East this year, but that was as far as things got. While they may still top out at SEC East champ, they’ve been better than all but the most optimistic fans had foreseen.

This is the fun part of the climb, when the team is surprising everyone to the upside. It isn’t as good as taking the trophies home — and to be clear, these Gators can still do that — but it’s a more free feeling than when big expectations are a counterweight.

At their best the Gators are a fun team, when Trask is hitting Kyle Pitts and Kadarius Toney for big gains and the defensive front is overwhelming offensive lines. I want to see them let it rip and not worry about holding things back for Alabama. I’m about 99% sure Mullen has been doing that, but neither LSU’s offense nor defense is all that similar to the Tide’s. The Tiger offense is much closer to Bama’s style than the defense is, but combatting it will still be different because of the drastic difference in quality of players.

Unless whoever UF plays after Atlanta lays a total egg, this week is the last chance we’ll have to see this team just go out there and have some fun. They probably could use it after how grueling this year has been. Programs are preemptively declining bowls right now because it’s been hard and they’re ready to be done. Florida won’t do that because it has too much to play for, but the Gator players are feeling it as much as anyone else is right now.

So I say hit the gas from the start. Don’t try to establish the run early like you did last week. Don’t throw a bunch of screens trying to set something up for later like you did against Vandy. Throw it into where the teeth of the defense would be if it had them and try to see if you can score four times in the first quarter.

Instead of coasting to the finish, make it a three-hour party in the Swamp for everyone’s sake.