From the outside, it looks like the Gators have a good old-fashioned quarterback controversy on their hands after their 35-14 defeat of Florida Atlantic on Saturday night.
Starter Emory Jones struggled mightily in the passing game, completing 17 of 27 passes for just 113 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. He nearly threw one or two more interceptions, and he missed several open targets. A mix-up with head coach Dan Mullen resulted in him running the wrong play on fourth-and-goal and the Gators coming away with no points.
Backup Anthony Richardson, meanwhile, only completed three of his eight passes for 40 yards, but he didn’t put the ball in harm’s way. He turned in one of the best rushing games by a quarterback in school history, racking up 160 yards on seven carries.
With the competition only going to get stiffer from here on out, it’s fair to wonder if the Gators would be better off going with a special athlete like Richardson at quarterback and letting him grow as a passer as he gains experience.
However, Mullen made it clear after the game that all of that talk is going on outside of the program. Inside, the players and coaches are confident in Jones as their starter. They’ve seen enough out of him in practice to believe that Saturday’s poor outing was an aberration.
“[It] was great for Emory to get that experience as the starter right now, for his first game out there,” Mullen said. “He missed some reads, too, but I think you see both of them have the ability to make explosive plays. The nice thing is I’m pretty confident with both the quarterbacks. Obviously, Emory is our starter, but, as you get the experience, you roll the guys through. We did that tonight, and it was great to see them both make some really explosive plays.”
Jones’ experience and knowledge of the offense are factors that keep him firmly entrenched in the starting role for now. He’s in his fourth year in the system, while Richardson is in his second. Jones’ familiarity with the offense allows Mullen to utilize his entire playbook, while he has to scale things back for Richardson.
“His decision-making and getting us through every part of the game [are why we’re confident],” Mullen said. “Obviously, when you look at what happened, and, with Anthony coming in, [he] did some nice things. You’ve got to run the whole offense, and Anthony’s really growing with that and growing with situations. So, I think he’ll continue to grow with situations as we move forward, and Emory’s going to continue to grow.”
Jones said that the outside noise surrounding his job security is anticipated. Richardson played well, and he did not. He will not let the criticism affect him, though.
“That’s expected,” Jones said. “He went out there and did his thing. He played good. I’m happy for him. But I’m not really worried about that. I’ve just got to focus on next week.
“I don’t really feel that good about [my first start], honestly. I definitely have to play better, and, just overall, we want to play better. We’ve just got to get back in the lab and try to get better every week.”
Jones’ night started out fairly well. He connected with Jacob Copeland over the middle of the field to convert a third-and-9 on the opening drive. He then completed passes of 10 yards to Rick Wells, one yard to Ja’Markis Weston and seven yards to Weston to put the Gators on the FAU 4-yard line. On second-and-goal, he pitched the ball to Dameon Pierce on an option play for the first score of the game.
Jones completed three of his four passes for 23 yards on their second possession. He also scrambled for 23 yards on third-and-7 to extend the drive. He found Wells for a 9-yard touchdown pass on a screen play to make it 14-0 late in the first quarter.
However, Jones doesn’t think he played as well in the first quarter as the stats indicate. He knows that he’s capable of much more.
“I feel like I still made a lot of mistakes early in the game that you probably couldn’t see when you’re watching the game,” he said. “I missed too many throws that I never do. It’s me getting more comfortable, just being out there, actually being excited. Got to lock in and get better every week.”
As was the plan entering the game, Richardson took over for the third series. He and running back Demarkcus Bowman marched the Gators down into the red zone. On third-and-7 at the FAU 12, Mullen opted to insert Jones back into the game. Jones took the snap, stared down a receiver running a corner route and threw into double coverage for an easy interception for Diashun Moss.
Jones had running back Nay’Quan Wright wide open underneath, but he never looked his way.
On the next drive, an 18-yard completion from Jones to Trent Whittemore and a 21-yard run by Malik Davis once again put the Gators on the cusp of points.
Mullen opted to go for it on fourth-and-goal from the 4. Jones took the snap and ran directly into the teeth of the FAU defense for an easy stop. After the game, Mullen said that Jones had gotten the wrong signal from the sideline. He thinks that’s something that Jones will clean up with more experience as the starter.
“That’s an experience deal in a first start right there,” he said. “He’s sitting out there and saying, ‘I’ve got to make plays. You called this, and I’ve got to make a play,’ and he got the wrong signal from the sidelines. In that situation, [if] it doesn’t seem right, he’s got to take a timeout for us and say, ‘This doesn’t seem right. Just let me just make sure and fix errors that come from the sideline.’”
On their first drive of the second half, Jones completed three of four passes for 21 yards. Pierce finished it off with his second touchdown run of the game to make it 21-0.
Late in the third quarter, Jones tried to complete a pass to Wells on a deep crossing route. However, Wells didn’t create a ton of separation from Teja Young and Jones’ pass hung in the air way too long, which resulted in an easy interception for Young.
Jones said that his interceptions were a combination of physical and mental mistakes. There wasn’t one thing that he could put his finger on as being the primary problem.
“It’s a mixture of both, a mixture of seeing the defense for what it is and just making decisions right then,” he said. “When you’re second-guessing yourself or not really sure what’s going to happen on that play, you lose rhythm. It happens to everybody. Just got to get more comfortable with being in the game every play.”
While Jones’ performance nosedived after the first quarter, Mullen was pleased with the attitude he showed on the sideline.
“The good thing is coming off the field, you’re like, ‘Hey, what’d you see?’ And he knows what the issue was. ‘Hey, I missed this. Hey, I missed that,’ and that’s what you want from the quarterback. It’s not like he was kind of looking like he had a confused look on his face. That’s what you want so we can get it cleaned up.”
Richardson reentered for the final three possessions of the night and led the Gators to a pair of touchdowns.
On the first drive, he scrambled for 26 yards and completed a deep ball to Weston down the left sideline for 36 yards. Davis scored on a 1-yard plunge two plays later.
On the second play of UF’s next series, Richardson pulled the ball away from running back Lorenzo Lingard on a read-option play. He beat the FAU defense to the sideline and looked like he was fired out of a cannon on his way to a 73-yard touchdown run.
Richardson added 33 more rushing yards on the final drive of the night, including an 11-yard jaunt on a broken play that saw him juke one defender, run through an arm tackle attempt and leap over a guy.
“He did some good things,” Mullen said. “Yeah, he’s exciting with the ball in his hand, isn’t he? Running around making some plays.
“I think he’s going to be a great player for us, and I think you saw that tonight, his athleticism. He’s a special guy with the ball in his hand.”
He indeed is a special talent, but he won’t be the starting quarterback for the foreseeable future. This is still Jones’ team, and his teammates still trust in him.
“I talked to him after the game, and I told him, ‘I believe in you no matter what happens,’” Davis said. “Everyone on the team believes in him. We definitely know what he’s capable of.”
Jones is capable of much, much more. Richardson is, too, for that matter, as he overthrew a couple of open receivers on deep balls.
Mullen isn’t going to make a drastic move anytime soon, but he wants to see their plethora of mistakes at the quarterback position get cleaned up next week at South Florida.
“We missed a couple little reads, and we missed some reads that we shouldn’t miss, a couple of checks,” Mullen said. “That type of deal is stuff that we’ve got to get cleaned up and stuff that you haven’t seen a ton in practice, but, all the sudden, it’s different. The difference between practice and a game, in practice, quarterbacks start scrambling, we blow the play dead. Well, we saw tonight those are big, explosive-hit plays.
“In practice, though, you don’t hit the quarterback and you see them and they get used to certain kind of looks and making certain reads. Well now, you get into a game, you’re playing a different defense, you’ve got to be able to adjust and take what the defense gives you. I think we missed some of those throws tonight.”