Much has been made of the Gators’ offensive transformation this season, including on this website. It is pretty remarkable that they rank third in the nation in rushing a season after leading the nation in passing and having no semblance of a running game.
But is it possible that they’ve become too much of a running team to the point where defenses don’t have to respect their passing attack?
UF ranks just ninth in the SEC in passing (216.8 yards per game). Emory Jones’ longest completion so far this season went for just 35 yards, and that was against a terrible South Florida defense. He’s rarely thrown the ball more than 20 yards down the field in their three SEC games, including zero attempts against Kentucky, according to @SEC_StatCat on Twitter.
Jones has been accurate this season, completing 68.9 percent of his passes, the fifth-highest mark in the SEC. He’s delivered accurate deep balls when he’s thrown them; he just hasn’t done it much.
Kentucky was able to take advantage of the Gators’ lack of a vertical passing game. They weren’t too concerned about getting beat over the top, so they played closer to the line of scrimmage to minimize the run after catch on the short throws and slow down the running game.
Their strategy worked, as they held the Gators to just 13 points and less than 400 yards of offense.
The Gators, though, aren’t concerned about the offense’s balance moving forward. They believe that they can do whatever it takes to score points and win games. They need to play better in certain areas, but the passing game hasn’t reached a crisis level yet.
“I don’t feel like we’re under any stress of whether we’ll become one-dimensional in a game,” offensive lineman Stewart Reese said. “I feel like if we need to throw it, we’ll throw it. If we need to run it, we’ll run it. It’s just a matter of what the defense that we’re facing opens up to what opportunities we’re presented with.
“The plan’s not going to change. We’re still going to continue to work and do the things that we do. So, I don’t think it’s a matter of the plan changing. I feel like it’s more working to execute better and play better as a team.”
While Jones threw some interceptions on deep passes against Florida Atlantic and South Florida, coach Dan Mullen insists that he still trusts Jones to throw the ball deep down the field. The lack of a vertical passing game is a product of the way defenses are playing them and the reads that Jones has made and not the result of a shift in play-calling strategy.
“[The Wildcats] were playing a lot of one-high [safety] deep soft coverage,” Mullen said. “So, schematically, they’re just bailing everybody really deep, so you’re not going to just launch it into coverage downfield.”
Jones echoed Mullen’s comments and said that he would love to create more big plays in the passing game. At the same time, he’s not going to let their lack of explosiveness to start the season pressure him into throwing balls up for grabs deep down the field just so he can say that he did it.
“I learned to take what the defense is giving me,” Jones said. “It might have been a couple of times I could have took some shots or risked some things, but I’ve learned throughout the year [that] I don’t always need to force things when it’s not there or it’s not given to me. So, it’s not that we’re not calling deep shots. It’s not that we’re not calling deep plays or passes or anything like that.
“Sometimes, I have to work out the defense, and, if the defense is dropping all the way back, I can’t just force myself to throw a deep ball just because everybody wants me to or because we haven’t done that a lot this season. I’m just doing everything that I’m supposed to do and just trying to move the ball down the field and score touchdowns.”
Don’t just take the offensive players’ word for it, either. Starting STAR Tre’Vez Johnson has practiced and scrimmaged against this offense since January. He knows that they’re capable of being an effective downfield passing team; they just haven’t shown it yet.
“They can do it all,” Johnson said. “I don’t see any problems with the offense or nothing they got going on. I know they’re going to get everything figured out and do what they do, and then we’re going to focus on beating Vanderbilt this week.”
Perhaps this will be the week that the deep passing game springs to life.