Florida’s offense exploded onto the scene under head coach Jon Sumrall and offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner. The Gators scored the most points (214) and had the second-largest scoring differential (+123) of any Florida team through its head coach’s first four games.
The Gators entered their Week 5 contest against Missouri having scored 52 points against Ole Miss, tying for the most points Florida has scored against a top-five team since beating Florida State in the 1996 national championship game. That season also marked the last time the Gators eclipsed 50 points in three of their first four games.
Florida’s offense had looked nearly unstoppable through the first four games. That came to a screeching halt against Missouri, as the Tigers’ defense stifled the Gators and held them to just 17 points and 325 yards, with roughly 29% of those yards and seven points coming in garbage time.
So what went wrong?
For starters, Florida’s prolific rushing offense was held to just 42 yards on 1.7 yards per carry. The Gators played from behind for much of the game, something they hadn’t had to do to this point, and their offense looked different as a result.
“We’re not built for that right now,” offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner said of playing from behind. “We were off schedule all day, no rhythm.”
Due to the lack of a ground game, Florida faced 10 third downs of nine yards or more. The Gators were constantly behind the chains as they couldn’t win on first or second down. This forced Florida into more of a deep drop-back passing offense, once again, something the Gators hadn’t had to do through the first four games.
“Nobody wants to sit back and drop back, you know, 20 times a game,” Faulkner said. “That’s the toughest thing to do; that’s the toughest thing to do in this league with defensive lines that you’re going to play.”
“We want to be able to throw the football, right? But we want to be able to do it on our terms: on schedule, play-action pass, naked boot. All those different things that you want to be able to do,” Faulkner added. “And we also want to be able to drop-back pass and throw [the] football, right? Just not as often as we had to on Saturday.”
The third and longs created huge problems for Florida in pass protection. Missouri had three sacks and generated 17 pressures in the game.
“We were off schedule all day, and that makes it hard for any offensive line,” Faulkner said. “They get a chance to pin their ears back and go. You know, credit to those guys over on the other sideline. They did a heckuva job. Outplayed us, outcoached us in every way, shape and form. So we’ve just got to be better in all facets.”
It wasn’t just the lack of a running game that got Florida’s offense out of rhythm. The Gators had four offensive penalties: a false start, a holding call, a blindside block that wiped away a first-down catch and an illegal formation that negated a 21-yard catch.
Florida will look to bounce back against South Carolina in Week 6. Faulkner knows the Gators need to avoid putting themselves in third-and-long situations to give the offense the best chance to succeed. That starts with staying ahead of schedule and winning on first and second down to create more manageable third downs.
“We’ve got to know our deficiencies. We got to play more to our strengths, and the bottom line is, for now ’till the end of time, we have to do a much better job staying on schedule,” Faulkner said. “Staying ahead of the chains, whether that’s pass, run, screen, whatever that looks like. We’ve got to be better at that. And when we do that, I think you’ll see, hopefully, it looks like the first four weeks.”