By Will Miles
Covid-19 Hits the Gators
If the NFL has proven anything to us, it was that this was likely just a matter of time.
News broke out Tuesday that the Gators have had multiple players test positive for the coronavirus and are pausing team activities. At this writing, the exact number of players is unclear (somewhere between 6 and 19), but coming off of games in the NFL being moved, rescheduled and canceled, this was going to happen in the SEC at some point.
The fact that it happens after Dan Mullen spent his postgame press conference advocating for a fully packed Swamp after the loss to Texas A&M is certainly bad timing for Mullen.
I’m sure there will be people who use this time to take a shot at Mullen for what he said. That time may well come, but it’s not now. Instead, I hope we just wish the athletes who have the virus well. They are very likely to be asymptomatic, will recover and be back playing soon. But there’s always a risk that they will not.
It’s good to keep that in mind when we start talking about playing Saturday or what Mullen said.
Third and Grantham
Florida surrendered conversions on 34.8% of third downs in 2019. The Gators best performance this season against South Carolina allowed a 35.3% conversion rate. Against Ole Miss (64.3%) and Texas A&M (80%), the Gators were significantly worse.
Because sometimes third down stops end up in field goals or fourth down conversions (Florida opponents are 6 for 8 on 4th down), on opponent’s 46 third down opportunities, drives have only ended with good outcomes for Florida (punt, missed FG, 4th down stop) 26% of the time.
Quite obviously, that needs to get better.
But it’s not as if the Florida defense is uniquely bad on third down. The Gators are giving up 6.1 yards per play overall (would have tied for 96th overall last season). That after giving up only 4.8 yards per play last year.
Fans will focus in on the third-down troubles for Florida and say “same old Grantham” but this is something new, and uniquely bad. They aren’t just getting beat on third down. They’re getting beat on first and second down too.
Are Defenses Just Behind?
Perhaps all of this bad defense is just because that side of the ball is adjusting to the delays caused by Covid-19, right? Well, the answer here seems to be a resounding “no”.
In 2019, FBS teams gave up an average of 5.61 yards per play. In 2020 so far, the 76 teams that are playing at this time have given up an average of 5.46 yards per play. So defenses have actually been 2.6% better than they were the year prior.
This isn’t true in the SEC though, where defenses gave up an average of 5.39 yards per play in 2019 and are giving up an average of 5.78 in 2020, an increase of 7.3%.
I think this suggests that Covid-19 isn’t the reason we’re seeing a ton of points in the SEC. In fact, I think it suggests that defenses are just altogether worse in the SEC this season than they were last season, and by a significant margin. Mississippi, Texas A&M, LSU, Florida and even Alabama have struggled on that side of the ball thus far.
That’s not an excuse for the Gators defense thus far. Far from it. It’s meant to point out that the coronavirus isn’t a valid excuse and likely never was.
Pass Rush Absence
The Gators had zero sacks against Texas A&M on Saturday.
This has quickly become a theme. Let the QB sit in the pocket and pick apart the secondary without any stress.
The Gators barely pressured Mond. When they did, they actually forced him into inaccurate throws, but that was so few-and-far between that they made him look like an All-SEC QB. His QB Rating of 180.8 is his second highest single game QB rating in his entire career.
I picked Florida to win because I thought Mond would be the QB he’s always been: terrible on third downs and against blitz pressure. Instead, Florida’s defense turned him into a star, and most of that is tied to never putting him under any pressure.
Coverage
There’s no doubt that Florida’s pass coverage has left something to be desired thus far. But the lack of pass rush actually concerns me much more than the coverage.
C.J. Henderson was certainly the engine that drove the pass coverage last year, but Marco Wilson, Shawn Davis, Donovan Stiner, Kaiir Elam and Brad Stewart have all either underperformed this year or haven’t been available to play. I doubt that they continue to be that bad. At some point, their play will regress to the mean.
On the other side though, the most sacks Jeremiah Moon has had in a season is 3.0. That number is 4.5 for Zach Carter. It’s 1.5 (this year) for Brenton Cox. Jonathan Greenard was responsible for 20% of the sacks last season and it doesn’t look like there is anyone who can replace him.
So yes, Wilson and the rest of the secondary need to play better, but I think there’s a track record for them to do so. That track record doesn’t exist up front.
Changes?
That means I think the changes Florida needs to make are not on the back side of the defense, but on the front four.
I actually think that Cox, Slaton, Carter and Moon are the four best defensive linemen for the Gators. But I’m not sure they are the best four if they are playing out of position.
Cox has been playing defensive end when his skill set is probably more of a buck. Mohamoud Diabate is playing linebacker when his skill set is probably more of a buck. Zach Carter has been playing defensive tackle when he is much more of a true defensive end.
But that means you have three bucks and only one defensive tackle, so the question is, what do you do?
I think it’s going to be fascinating to see. The defensive line was unable to hold up against the run in the second half against Texas A&M. But the defensive line was also unable to get pressure on the QB. So do Mullen and Grantham decide to put more speed up-front and sacrifice against the run? Or do they decide to put more size up-front and sacrifice some pass rush?
I know what I’d do. I’d follow the NY Giants path to beating the Patriots in Super Bowl XLII. In that game, the Giants terrorized Tom Brady by sending Justin Tuck, Osi Umenyiora and Michael Strahan – all defensive ends – to go get Brady. Brady was uncomfortable the whole game and New England was unable to make the Giants pay by running the ball.
Florida could do the same thing by substituting Khris Bogle or Diabate in at defensive tackle for Carter or Slaton. You are absolutely giving up the ability to hold up in the running game. But the Gators didn’t do a very good job against the run against A&M anyway, so at least you’ll get to the QB.
No Room for Error
I saw on a message board a fan suggest that Florida should have just begun employing the onsides kick after scores in the second half against the Aggies. I have to admit that I wish I had thought to suggest the Kevin Kelley philosophy during the game.
Kelley is the coach for Pulaski Academy who never punts and always onside kicks. There is a statistical method to what seems like madness, and Dan Mullen might want to take a look at it.
When your defense is playing as poorly as the Gators defense has, there’s not much of a disadvantage to letting your opponent take over at midfield compared to kicking deep and having them take over at their own 20 or 30-yard line.
The upshot of recovering the onsides kick is that you get an extra possession for your offense. Essentially, it’s the exact same as getting a defensive stop, but you don’t have to rely on your defense to get it. It also allows your offense to have some room for error if it gets an extra possession or two throughout the game.
It’s an unconventional strategy, and I doubt that a Power-5 coach with a blueblood history is going to be the first to implement it at the NCAA level. But man, if there was ever a defense that might force someone’s hand, it’s this one.
Malik Davis fumble
The lack of room for error was on full display against Texas A&M.
Malik Davis fumbled near mid-field with 3:49 left. Not only did Florida give up the winning drive, but they also allowed Texas A&M to drive down for a chip-shot field goal and run out the entire clock.
Davis needs to hold on to that ball. But the fact that the offense isn’t really allowed to make even one mistake without it costing Florida the game is a problem.
I’ve seen on social media as fans have started to pick at the performances of the offense. No doubt, the three-and-out drive after the Aggies bulldozed down the field on mostly running plays was a huge problem considering the defense was completely gassed.
But the fact that Florida had eight possessions and converted those into five touchdowns and a field goal is really, really efficient. The fact that we’re asking them to convert absolutely every drive into points is a bigger problem than one three-and-out or a fumble.
Kyle Pitts injury
On the field goal drive, it really looked like Kyle Pitts was laboring.
Trask opened the drive by hitting Pitts for a 9-yard gain and then went back to him two plays later to put Florida deep into Texas A&M territory. But after both catches, Pitts looked like he was limping pretty considerably.
It does make you wonder whether that impacted him on the back shoulder throw where the ball just barely touched the ground after Pitts seemed to slip on the turf. Did the injury have something to do with that? I’m not sure even Pitts could tell you that definitively.
But it does point towards an area where Florida is going to have to pay some attention.
While Kyle Trask hit 11 different receivers against Ole Miss, 9 receivers against South Carolina and 8 receivers against A&M. Yet Kadarius Toney leads the team with 18 receptions followed by Pitts at 17. The next highest number is 8 (Malik Davis, Trevon Grimes).
That kind of work load is going to wear on both Pitts and Toney, especially considering Toney appears constitutionally unable to go out of bounds. I’m concerned that the offense – already operating with little margin for error – is going to struggle if it can’t lean on those two guys because one ends up out with an injury.
LSU Canceled
So the game against LSU has been canceled.
While I hate that it happened, from a human perspective, it’s pretty clear that it needed to happen. Without knowing where the disease started to proliferate and whether the spread has abated, the program needs time to assess. That’s especially true considering Nick Saban’s positive test at Alabama and the impact that the disease has on older coaches and staff.
From a game perspective, LSU really dodged a bullet.
The Tigers have a defense that can’t stop anybody, and starting QB Myles Brennan was doubtful to start after being injured in last week’s loss against Missouri. Brennan isn’t Joe Burrow, but he has basically been Kyle Trask from 2019 (QB Rating = 154.7).
By moving this game to December 12, Brennan will have the opportunity to heal. Of course, LSU may be 3-6 by the time this game comes around and maybe won’t be all that motivated to come out and play all that hard at the end of the season.
On the Florida side, this would be absolute torture if I were a defensive player. It would be bad enough having to hear the defense get denigrated constantly after the performance vs. Texas A&M. To have to wait another week – or potentially even two weeks – to get back out there would be a tough pill to swallow.
First priority, hopefully everyone recovers completely and there aren’t any major effects to the team from the disease. But from a game perspective, hopefully the defensive players have time to watch the film of its first three games in a way they wouldn’t normally have during the season.
And hopefully it ticks them off.