That sound you heard in Jacksonville Saturday was order being restored. For five long years there had been a disruption in the force. The Beast of the East was under a spell of deep and restless sleep. In the 23-year history of divisional play in the SEC, the Florida Gators had won the Eastern division 10 times, twice as many times as the second-best program, Tennessee (5), and 3 more than the best program from the West, Alabama (7). But for five long years the Gators have been absent from the SEC Championship Game, a contest that was more generally known as the Florida Gator Invitational. The absence has allowed Alabama to close to within one division title of the Gators’ stagnant record of 10, and allowed Georgia to tie Tennessee for second place among East teams.
From the inaugural title game in Birmingham to the Gators’ last appearance in 2009, Florida only went more than two consecutive years without an appearance once. And that was a 5-year stretch anchored by the 3-year Ron Zook error. Urban Meyer restored order to the East in 2006, but in 2010 threw it back into muddy turmoil and another 5-year absence from the game that had been the Gators’ birthright.
But all of that changed Saturday in Jacksonville. The Gators did not punch their ticket to Atlanta just yet, but the ticket has been printed with their name on it. And the only other team mathematically alive is Vanderbilt, and that is only because the team that was just blown out by Houston has only played 4 SEC games this year. Their fifth will be Saturday against Florida in Gainesville. Ticket, please.
The Defense Never Rests
How good has the Gator defense been this year? This is the second SEC game this year that the Gators would have won even if the offense got shutout. The defense out-scored Missouri 7-3 and the special teams out-scored Georgia 6-3. In the process, Florida joined Michigan as the only FBS team in the nation to hold an opponent to zero touchdowns in three different games this season. All three of Florida’s no-touchdown defensive efforts came in games away from The Swamp.
And this may have been the crowning performance of the season thus far. The Chomp defense only allowed 12 first downs, the fewest on the season (matching the Missouri game), and surrendered by far the smallest rushing total (77 yards) in conference play, and the second-fewest yards since holding the ECU Pirates to 39. The lowest total yards allowed since the season opener against patsy New Mexico State, Florida held an SEC opponent to under 260 total offensive yards for the third time in six games. Quite a nice recovery from giving up the largest total on the year in their last game against LSU. They also held Georgia to just 56 plays in the game, by far the low water mark against SEC competition and ECU. And finally, the 17% (2-for-12) third down completion percentage given up to UGA was the second-best effort behind the 7%, 1-for-14 effort against Missouri.
The one area in which the defense lacked for the second-straight game was penetration and presence in the backfield on both running and passing downs. After their first game without a sack against LSU, the Gators only notched one sack at the Cocktail Party. The defense had its least effective presence of the season in the opponent’s backfield, disrupting a season-low 16 plays, or just 28% of the Dawgs’ attempts. Since the Ole Miss game, when they disrupted 52% of the plays in the backfield, the Gator defense has seen that number decrease every game since (37%, 33% and 28%, respectively). However with the defensive backs rebounding from their horrendous night in Baton Rouge to have a stellar game against Georgia, backfield pass pressure was not badly needed. And the run defense was more effective plugging the gaps and stoning the Georgia running game at the line of scrimmage than they had been earlier in the season with all the backfield penetration. This might be cause for concern except that having to be mindful and contain-focused on a mobile quarterback, Leonard Fournette and then another running quarterback over those three games may have had a lot to do with a shift in defensive attack rather than straight drop off in production.
Treon Time Falls Back an Hour
We all know that Treon has struggled mightily in his first two starts after Will Grier’s suspension forced him into the starter’s role. But we also know that Treon does not have to play as well as Will was playing for this team to win and even to beat quality opponents. However, Treon will have to raise his level of play significantly if Florida is to have a chance to win against FSU and whoever the West sends to Atlanta to face them in the SEC title game.
Against LSU, I counted 17 called pass plays where Treon had his first read and sometimes second read open, had time and did not thrown to them. Most times it was clear he was looking at them, so he didn’t fail to see them. He just chose not to throw the ball. Those plays made up nearly 40% of the called pass plays against the Tigers. I point this out because finding and hitting open reads is the key to the success of a passing game. Without it, the offense will only move by the seat of its pants, with sporadic fits and broken plays. Missing or failing to throw to open receivers early in the progressions was probably the biggest factor in Jeff Driskel’s struggles the previous two seasons. We know that Jeff was given horrible coaching and had his mind pulled five different ways with every snap, but Treon is getting very good coaching from the Quarterback Whisperer and whatever overly conservative approach or shell shock he is carrying around is likely remnants of directives from the previous staff that he must now unlearn. But unlearn them he must, and fast.
Against Georgia, the number of open reads that Treon passed on dropped to six. However, there were only 24 called pass plays, compared to 46 against LSU, so the percentage of ignored open receivers as first or second reads was still pretty high at 25%. But that improvement was mitigated by the fact that 7 times he had an open receiver and time enough to throw but threw uncatchable passes. Against LSU, that only happened twice, and both of them on the next-to-last drive when Treon and the offense were at a very high stress level trying to come back and tie the game in the final minutes. Against Georgia, there was never a drive where the Gators were under stress or pressure to move the ball and score or else face a loss.
So against Georgia, Treon had combined 13 plays where he ignored open reads or missed open receivers that he did throw to. That accounted for 54% of the passing downs against Georgia. I also counted the good and bad plays from a coach’s evaluation perspective (i.e., a completion is not always a good pass but a great play by the receiver; a completion on a good pass or a long run at the end of a broken play is sometimes the result of a bad choice to ignore open reads they were supposed to throw to. Overall, Treon had 16 bad plays, or 67% of the called pass plays. Against LSU, just 59% of his passing downs were bad plays, though that is still a terrible number.
By comparison, in four SEC starts, Will Grier’s low water mark for bad plays was 26% against both Tennessee and Missouri (his best was against Ole Miss: 9%). Treon’s completion percentage against UGA was 42%, a full 11 percentage points below the next-worst completion percentage on the season…which was the 53% Treon registered against LSU in his previous start.
But I am not here to bury Caesar. I am here to praise him. Because despite his limitations, he was still able to improvise and make big plays happen in the last two games. He improved his touchdown drives from two against LSU to three against Georgia. Despite terrible completion percentages, he was able to hit some long pass plays, find the end zone through the air and convert some third downs with his arm or his legs. Despite how badly he played, he still found a way to absolutely destroy Georgia and come a batted pass away from taking undefeated and likely playoff-bound LSU to overtime in their own house at night. Just think of what he is capable of if he can become a little more decisive. If he can trust his arm enough to start throwing to his open reads on time instead of bailing from the pocket and trying to buy time to hit a more open broken route. If he can get back to doing the things he does well. If Nuss can tailor the offense a little more to his strengths without reinventing the wheel.
This team can win most of their remaining games with Treon playing just the way he is. They cannot count on beating any quality opponents with Treon playing the way he has the last two weeks. But the Gators can absolutely beat any team in the nation if Treon can use the next three games to improve his troubled areas enough to be serviceable. Because he has all the intangibles that a championship quarterback needs, and enough physical tools to put points on the board against anyone with the right play calls and the proper execution. Here’s where the Quarterback Whisperer shows us how he got that name.
Moving the Line
As poorly as Treon played, the running backs stepped up their game as well as we have seen all season. Florida backs led by Kelvin Taylor (125 yards) and Jordan Scarlett (95) combined 258 yards rushing, 5.4 yards per carry, two rushing touchdowns and 11 first downs gained on the ground, all season highs. Taylor’s 23-yard run was his second-longest of the season, while Scarlett’s 60-yard scamper was the longest run of the season for the whole team.
This would usually indicate that the offensive line had a banner day, but the unit actually did not play up to its usual level this year over the course of the entire game. They only got push or opened holes on 40% of the running plays, which would have been a season low if not for the horrible effort against LSU (22%). And on passing downs, they registered a season worst in keeping a clean pocket just 58% of the time. Nevertheless, as a unit you cannot ignore the ground production Saturday, or the fact that they are managing the dirty pockets much better than previous weeks. That is, what used to be sacks are now hurries, and they are working as a unit better in shifting rushers around the morphing pocket and knowing what the other guys around them are doing.
The Richt Stuff
Mark Richt has now been at Georgia so long that he just faced his fifth different Florida Gators head coach. That kind of longevity would usually signal that great things have happened at UGA, and the rapid turnover at Florida would signal that the program in Gainesville has been through a long stretch of misery. However, when you check the tale of the tape, you see that during Richt’s tenure, those five Florida coaches have combined to win 9 SEC titles and 3 national titles out of 4 trips to the national title game. Mark Richt meanwhile has populated the Jawja trophy case with just 2 SEC titles and a whopping zero national titles. Never even appeared in a national title game. And now it is all but assured that the new Gator head coach is taking his first-year club to the SEC title game as East champion, meaning that those 5 Gator coaches will have combined to win 11 SEC East titles, while Richt has won just 5.
Random Stats
*Cocktail Domination: This was the first year since the 2006 BCS national championship campaign that Florida held Georgia scoreless in the first half. The 20-0 halftime lead was Gators’ largest lead over Georgia at the break since the 1996 Bowl Alliance national championship campaign. It was also the first time Florida held Georgia without a touchdown since the 1984 New York Times and The Sporting News national championship campaign. I see a pattern developing.
*More to the pattern: The fumble at recovery in the end zone against Georgia was the first one for Florida since Wondy Pierre-Louis pulled it off in the SEC title game in the 2006 national championship campaign.
*The last two years have seen the Gators amass the two largest rushing totals against the Dawgs in the history of the series (258 in 2015, 418 in 2014). Meanwhile they held UGA to less than 100 yards for the first time since their bowl game at the end of the 2013 season.
*Kelvin Taylor became the first Gator to rush for over 100 yards against Georgia in two consecutive years since the 1996 national championship campaign. Adding his yardage as a freshman in 2013, Taylor has totaled 398 yards on the ground against the Dawgs. Get his plaque ready for the Florida-Georgia Hall of Fame.
*Saturday, Antonio Callaway became the first true freshman in Gator history with three consecutive 100-yard receiving games.
Final Argument
During Florida-Georgia week, “Run, Lindsay, Run!” has had more reruns than “Gilligan’s Island”. From the advent of SEC divisional play, the most popular rerun in the SEC championship game has been the Florida Gator going to Atlanta as the Beast of the East. That rerun went out of syndication for 5 years but it is now back by popular demand. It is how it should be. It is the feng shui of the SEC living room. Order has been restored. Restored to the Florida-Georgia series, restored to the SEC East and it is confirmed that whether the depth chart is ready to make it a slam dunk every week, order has been restored to the ranks of the national elite in college football.
And order is going to remain for a long, long time. And boy does it sound good!