I know there were at least a few Gator fans who weren’t super happy to see Anthony Richardson take the field after halftime against Eastern Washington. On top of his past injury history, he’d come off the field once already against the Eagles. UF was up 35-3 at intermission. Why risk it?
Well, a different way to think about it would be more like a pitch count than a time count. Not including the kneel down to kill the clock, Florida ran all of 20 plays in the first half. And with Richardson coming out for five plays, he only got 15 snaps to run the offense against EWU.
If UF had run a more common number of plays before the half, say 33 or so, then you wouldn’t think a thing of it if he completed the entire half. Some folks probably still would’ve liked to see him rest the second half, but even if he missed the same five plays, that’s still 28 plays. It’s a baker’s dozen more than he actually did before the break.
The plan was probably to give AR one more drive and then congratulate him on a job well done. It turned into two more drives thanks to Richardson’s heat-check pick on the first play out of halftime, but he still got just 28 plays in. It’s the same amount as in the hypothetical above.
The Eastern Washington game was the second time this season that UF had an unusually low number of plays run. They ran 50 against the Eagles two weeks after only running 48 against South Florida. Subtract end-of-half kneel downs and it was 49 versus EWU and 45 against USF.
Is this something to worry about? Why has Florida’s offense gotten such low snap counts twice already?
The answer is that, as always, context is key. The same thing actually happened in the last transitional season.
Back in 2018, Florida had a surplus of skill position players that needed feeding. There was the three-headed running back rotation of Jordan Scarlett, Lamical Perine, and Dameon Pierce, plus Feleipe Franks was going to get a lot more carries in Dan Mullen’s offense than he did in Jim McElwain’s. Malik Davis also contributed for a short bit before getting hurt for the season for the second straight year.
Out wide you had new transfers Van Jefferson and Trevon Grimes added to a receiver room with Kadarius Toney, Tyrie Cleveland, Josh Hammond, and Freddie Swain. Five different tight ends also caught passes that year, and Perine averaged a catch a game out of the backfield.
There was some amount of angst at the time about rotations, especially with three tailbacks splitting carries at most times. The offense had a hard time getting into a rhythm early in the year especially.
Part of the problem was they only ran 44 plays in Week 3 against Colorado State and 53 in Week 4 at Tennessee. When you’re dividing usage among that many players, it’s nearly impossible to do well with that few snaps to work with.
Against the Rams, Florida had two non-offensive scores: a blocked punt recovery by Cleveland and a long punt return by Swain. Those plays are great for momentum and a team’s chances to win, but they effectively take possessions away from the offense. The Gators also had two field goals off of turnovers where they didn’t get a first down and a one-play touchdown drive. That’s how you blow out an opponent 48-10 while running 44 plays.
Against the Vols, it was more of the same. UF had two short-field touchdowns early, a one-play drive ended by a lost fumble, and three different one-play touchdown drives: a 65-yard Swain reception, a 19-yard run from Scarlett, and 47-yard carry by Pierce.
The Eastern Washington game was this kind of affair. Richardson hit Justin Shorter on a 75-yard bomb on the team’s first play, Ricky Pearsall later had his 76-yard touchdown run on a drive’s first play, and Richardson’s interception was also a first-play occurrence. Jalen Kitna at least had the patience to wait until the second play of a series to hit Caleb Douglas on a 62-yard scoring strike.
UF’s offense was just explosive all around on Sunday. Tossing out the kneel down, 18 of the 49 plays (36.7%) went for at least ten yards. And then 14 of those 18 went for at least 20 yards, or 29% of the 49 total snaps. When almost every third play goes for 20 yards, the offense will get off the field in a hurry.
The USF game is the more troubling instance. Florida did have a quick drive when, after some penalties, Montrell Johnson took it 62 yards to the house on the third official play of a series. Plus, the game-winning drive was just four plays on a short field following a turnover. Jalen Kimber also robbed the offense of a possession with a pick-six.
UF did have some of the happy instances of keeping the play count low, but the bigger problem was the defense not getting the Bulls off of the field. USF had a 12:48 advantage in time of possession, and it might’ve been bigger had the Gators not managed to run six minutes off the clock during an early 12 play, 88-yard touchdown drive. EWU enjoyed a nearly identical 12:38 time of possession advantage, so the raw TOP number won’t tell you much.
The Gators also ran a whopping 87 plays against Tennessee. They did so because they tried to keep the pace slow to keep UT from running away with the game. It was mission somewhat accomplished, but the defense allowed too many big plays to keep the point deficit from growing. The Vols’ fastest drive was a three play, 75-yard series that lasted just 42 seconds because of a 70-yard reception that started it off.
So no, Florida didn’t run a lot of plays against Eastern Washington. It was largely for a positive reason, though, much like the 2018 Colorado State and Tennessee games. The low play count against USF and high play count against Tennessee this year actually were worrisome, and combined they go to show that play count alone isn’t that great an indicator.