Saturday’s game against LSU was not statistically Florida’s worst third down defense performance in the past few years, but it might as well have been.
The worst by straight numbers was in 2020 against Texas A&M, where UF allowed 12-of-15 (80%) conversions. The three stops were from Brenton Cox hitting the quarterback as he threw to force an errant pass, a fumble recovery after the receiver had gained enough yards to move the sticks, and a setup for a 4th & 2 where A&M then ran for a 19-yard touchdown.
LSU went 8-of-12 on third down for a 66.7% conversion rate. Among the four non-conversions, two of them set the Tigers up on 4th & 1 (both of which they converted) and a third required a drop on what otherwise would’ve been a conversion. The final one came when LSU did a conservative QB draw on 3rd & 12 to avoid a turnover while setting up the game-clinching field goal. There wasn’t anything like Cox’s hit on Kellen Mond to wreck a play or, despite the yardage already picked up, UF stripping the ball from Ainias Smith.
I’m not going to run through every third down from Saturday; Will Miles has already catalogued them better than I could. I will, however, try to put the third down defense into some kind of perspective.
Where we are now
As you may have heard, Florida’s defense is last nationally in third down conversion rate at 52.6%. Their rate is buoyed slightly by only giving up 44.4% to Eastern Washington, though the Eagles were a perfect 4-for-4 after UF ran up a 52-3 lead. The Gators only allowed 4-of-14 (28.6%) before that, which is more than fine against an FCS opponent.
Anyway, if you take out FCS competition, UF is still last at 54.43%, though they’re virtually tied with No. 130 Arizona State’s 54.41% rate and not far from No. 129 Washington’s 54.22% rate.
The Gators have allowed more than 50% conversions five times in seven games this year. Only EWU at 44.4% and Kentucky with their future first round quarterback (insert laugh track here) at 30.8% haven’t converted at least half of their opportunities.
For perspective, the Gators allowed 50% conversions four times in the last coaching transitional year of 2018. They then allowed it three times each in 2019 and 2020, and, somehow, just once last year. Four of those 11 instances in the Todd Grantham era came against either Alabama or Georgia, and one bizarrely came in a shutout of Towson in ’19.
Even if UF solved enough of its issues to avoid allowing 50% conversions again this season, they’ve already allowed that rate the most times of any season since ’07. The previous high in that span was four in 2007, 2010, and 2018.
What this means
You should’ve picked up by now that third down conversion rate by itself is not the most informative stat. In 2019 the Gators allowed 53% conversions while allowing zero points to Towson but just 25% conversions while giving up 42 to LSU.
I bring those games up because they’re instructive as an extreme example. UF put the Tigers from Maryland into 15 third downs. They put the Tigers from Louisiana into just four third downs. Joe Burrow and friends were so efficient and explosive that they put up 42 points in 48 plays with 92% of those plays being either on first or second down.
This year’s defense is allowing 28.8 points per game, removing Anthony Richardson’s pick six against Kentucky from the team totals. Taking out non-offensive scores, the only similar showing in the last dozen seasons was allowing 28.5 per game against not just FBS but solely P5 competition in 2020. The 2022 defense is allowing 29.0 against P5 teams, if you’re curious.
The 2020 defense finished the season allowing 41.1% third down conversions, well below the present rates overall (52.6%), against FBS competition (54.4%), and against P5 competition (54.7%). If I did the math correctly, the 2020 defense allowed 2.39 points per drive while this year’s unit is allowing 2.95 per drive against FBS teams and 2.98 per drive against P5 teams.
This year’s rate is higher by a little over half a point, but it’s not a huge difference. This year’s defense is forcing far fewer punts than the 2020 unit did, which makes it allow touchdowns at a slightly higher rate and field goal attempts at a much higher rate, but it’s also stopping teams on fourth down more often. Opponents are going for more fourth downs, and the Gators are stuffing them at twice the rate as two years ago.
The 2022 defense is performing badly by program standards, but it’s not wholly unprecedented. It’s similar in range so far to the 2020 defense, which not coincidentally was the last time UF was light in depth at defensive tackle, had little quality depth at linebacker behind starters Ventrell Miller and Amari Burney, and saw defensive backs give receivers loads of space before and after snaps.
What can be done
UF can’t go get more defensive tackles or experienced linebackers. They’re really stuck in the latter department. Miller is by far the best run stopper, but he’s just as bad as ever in pass coverage. Shemar James is probably the best cover guy but isn’t a classic middle linebacker run stuffer. The rest of the options we’ve seen a lot of there either miss far too many tackles (Burney) or still look very raw (Scooby Williams).
They could try more options at defensive back, but it might continue be a mixed bag. Jaydon Hill has been a liability twice in three appearances back from injury but also was the defensive player of the game against Missouri. Jason Marshall has inexplicably regressed in production versus a year ago despite a major upgrade at corners coach. There are less experienced guys behind inconsistent veterans Trey Dean and Tre’Vez Johnson, but less experience typically means more variance.
They could simply get more aggressive in attacking quarterbacks on the theory that if they’re going to give up a bunch of conversions, they could at least get a few more third down sacks in the process. That could easily crank up the variance too.
Variance, meaning variability in outcome, is a key concept here. Take, for example, the No. 129 team in overall third down conversions defense, the Oregon Ducks.
Oregon is about two percentage points better on third down conversions than UF is both overall at 50.60% and against FBS competition at 52.73%. Yet, the Ducks are 5-1 and ranked No. 10 overall instead of 4-3 and unranked. Why?
The teams are mirror images of each other in consistency in a couple key ways. The Duck defense has had some bad showings — allowing 90% conversions to Georgia, 53% to BYU, and 59% to Arizona — but also some better ones: 38% to Eastern Washington, 42% to Washington State, and 31% to Stanford. It’s split between good and bad, whereas UF is 5/2 on bad showings to good ones (and 5/1 against FBS teams).
Oh, and think the issue is simply third and longs? Not so. Florida is allowing 30.8% conversions on 3rd & 7-9 to go and 44.4% on 3rd & 10+ to go. Oregon is allowing 53.8% on 3rd & 7-9 and 40.0% on 3rd & 10+ to go. Both teams are awful in those situations.
However, Oregon has been more consistent in scoring on offense. They managed just three against UGA and dropped 70 on EWU, but they’ve been in the 40s in the four games since. The offense scores enough to make the defense’s third down follies matter much less.
UF’s offense, meanwhile, has been all over the place. It was good against Utah, put up poor showings against UK and USF, fell behind the pace for most of the Tennessee game, and did enough while shooting itself in the foot with missed field goals against Missouri. The offense also did enough to beat LSU with anything but a horrific defensive performance, but the defense put in a horrific performance against what probably will end up LSU’s best offensive execution of the season.
There’s a lot more to it than that, like Brian Kelly flat out schooling Patrick Toney on Saturday in terms of play selection against tendency, but that does explain a lot of it. Florida’s defense has been consistently iffy, often needing opposing offenses to make mistakes just to get off themselves off the field. It can’t provide much support when the offense isn’t clicking.
There have been some in-season turnarounds already. Richardson was about as bad as could be for two games but hasn’t gone down that low since. He was later great against Tennessee and EWU, sufficient against Missouri, and fairly good in his first turnover-free game against LSU.
Also, the return game was a disaster for the first five games. Xzavier Henderson then had a 48-yard punt return against Mizzou and Trevor Etienne a 47-yard kickoff return against LSU. Plus, UF had no penalties on return plays in either of those contests.
I will not completely write off the defense just yet because there is still time yet to go in the season. I don’t expect them to turn into the 2009 unit by Thanksgiving or anything, but you never know when things will finally click.
The staff also has been willing to make adjustments in personnel. Desmond Watson moved up from backup to starter at nose tackle. Nay’Quan Wright was the starting running back at the beginning of the season, but he appears to be fourth in line now unless he had an injury we don’t know about. Etienne took over for Henderson on punt returns; Trey Smack took over kickoffs. I know a lot of fans have been frustrated about some potential moves that haven’t been made on defense, but I can’t remember seeing this much depth chart movement during a season other than due to injury.
When Alabama lost to UL-Monroe in 2007, it was in mid-November. The Tide finished the regular season 6-6 on a four-game losing streak. Kirby Smart took over a Georgia team that won ten games in 2015 and was a late-game escape against Nicholls State in Week 2 from likewise having a disastrous loss and a 6-6 regular season finish. Those Bulldogs barely beat a pre-breakthrough Mark Stoops Kentucky team and lost to an okay but not great Georgia Tech team in November.
That’s not to predict that Napier will be another Saban or Smart; we’re a long way from that. Rather, it’s to say that transitional years aren’t guaranteed to be good even when a great head coach is on the sideline. They aren’t even a lock to get visibly better from start to finish.
Florida has a lot of work to do this year, to be sure. They should beat Vanderbilt, but every other game is a potential loss. Missing a bowl would require dropping all tossup games from here on out, but sometimes you flip a coin and get tails four times in a row.
We’ll see what the extra week brings. It probably won’t bring a win on the immediate other side, but it can’t bring the same old things as the first half of the year unless UF wants to really flirt with missing the postseason. It’s times like these where Napier needs to really earn that $7 million a year he’d getting paid.