By Will Miles
LSU reaction
The fact that Florida lost to LSU isn’t the unforgiveable part of this game. It’s the fact that for the second year in a row, Florida was clearly the better, more talented team and yet found a way to screw it up.
From the missed extra point to the turnovers to the defense being unable to stop the run against a team that had been unable to run the ball against Central Michigan or McNeese, this was just a complete system failure for the Gators.
Last year Kyle Trask threw two interceptions and had a fumble that led directly to 13 points. In this one, Florida had four interceptions, two of which led to touchdowns indirectly and a pick-6 that led to another one directly. I don’t care how good of a team you are, you can’t spot the opposition 21 points and expect to come out on top all that often.
There was some good in the game. The Gators fought back at the half and look like they’ve found their QB of the future. But none of that makes this one sting any less. Florida went out and performed like it was an 11am road game, and by the time they woke up, it was too late.
That might be understandable considering most of the season goals were unachievable coming into the game, but it is certainly not the Gator Standard.
42 Points
When you score 42 points, you should win the game. That shouldn’t be a controversial statement. Yet Florida has now lost games where they scored 38, 34, 46 and now 42 points the last two seasons.
We saw cracks in the defense throughout the year. One of the reasons that people were upset about the Vanderbilt performance was that the game could have easily been 21-13 at the half instead of 21-0. Florida was the more talented team, but there were times when it didn’t look like the superior one, even against the Commodores.
The defense looked lost against LSU. After three straight three-and-outs, LSU adjusted and scored 6 TDs on 9 possessions from then on. Two of those punts also came after big plays were called back by penalty, so it was actually worse than that.
It felt like 2020 all over again. Last season, the defense couldn’t stop anyone consistently. It felt like it was always teetering on the edge of disaster. Then, in games against Texas A&M
Counter-productive
If you look up “Football for Dummies,” the first run play is a dive or power run. The second is a counter.
The counter is a staple of every offense. It is something that every player, at every level, has seen thousands of times. To be honest, that’s true about every run play and yet still some teams are able to run the ball because they are physically dominant up-front.
But LSU hasn’t shown any physical dominance up-front all season long. They came into the game having rushed for 499 yards in 6 games, and then ran for 220 yards in the second half alone. That means that the Gators inability to stop the counter comes down to technique and desire.
Both of those were on display as there is a chain reaction that has to happen to have a successful counter. The pulling guard has to kick out the defensive end. This happened repeatedly to Brenton Cox. The pulling tackle has to seal off the linebacker on the inside. This happened to Florida repeatedly, whether it was Ty’Ron Hopper, Mohamoud Diabate or Jeremiah Moon. Then, the tight end or fullback has to seal the safety to the outside. This happened repeatedly to Trey Dean. Also, the center, guard and tackle on the run-side have to seal the defensive linemen. This happened repeatedly to Gervon Dexter, Da’Quan Newkirk and Zachary Carter.
If any of those players had been able to seal the edge, get off his block, force the play out of the intended running lane or get penetration to disrupt the timing, the Gators would have gotten a stop. None of those things happened and so the Gators got dominated by a play that every single one of them would have learned in Pop Warner.
Todd Grantham
I’m not sure why Todd Grantham was brought back this season. The defense in 2020 was bad, and even if you compare his numbers from 2018 and 2019 – omitting the dumpster fire of 2020 – his numbers are basically just equivalent to Florida’s defenses from 2015-2017.
He has never been a difference maker no matter where he’s gone and now you’ve got players like Mohamoud Diabate saying things that make it pretty clear that the defense has lost faith in his ability to make adjustments.
Yet here we are, days after the game with no change made.
I’m not really a fan of change for change’s sake. But when you have leaders on the unit essentially blaming the coordinator after a loss like the one against LSU, what are you holding on to?
I don’t know Todd Grantham. He may be the nicest person in the world. Maybe his players love him. But he understood when he became a football coach that this is a results oriented business. The results are that Florida can’t be sure of winning a game even when the offense plays spectacularly.
The Gators didn’t lose the game solely because of their defense. You can’t lose the turnover battle 4-0 and expect to win many games, particularly not on the road in the SEC. But I’m not sure that Gators fans are all that interested in just seeing the Gators “not be responsible for losing” a game because of their defense. We want to see the Gators actually win a game because of the unit.
You could argue that happened twice in 2018, with wins over Mississippi State and LSU. It hasn’t happened since.
Anthony Richardson
Before the LSU game, you might have been able to argue that Anthony Richardson couldn’t get the job done against SEC competition. That’s a dumb argument after what we saw against FAU and USF, but you could have made the argument.
Before the LSU game, you might have been able to argue that Anthony Richardson couldn’t run the entire Florida offense. That one – since he’s a redshirt Freshman and Florida had to get Emory Jones ready to play – holds a little bit more water since we hadn’t seen him do it.
But after Saturday against LSU, you can’t make either of those arguments anymore. Pick a stat: QB rating, Yards Above Replacement (YAR), EPA per play, Yards per Attempt, Explosives, Yards per Rush. In all cases, Richardson was clearly the better QB on Saturday.
Do I think Emory Jones was the reason the Gators lost? No, I don’t. But had Florida pulled the game out in the fourth quarter rather than losing by a TD, would I have said he had a lot to do with Florida winning the game? Nope.
And so the QB decision really has the same feel as the decision on defense. Emory Jones may not cost you the game (though the interceptions are making things lean that way), but he isn’t winning you any games. Anthony Richardson may cost you the game by making mistakes a Freshman will make. But he’s also going to give you an opportunity to actually win games you otherwise would not.
That’s the difference. Richardson is going to make mistakes, same as any other QB. But he’s going to make some otherworldly plays as well. You might skate past South Carolina, Missouri, Samford and Florida State with Jones at QB, but you’re not going to skate past Georgia.
I doubt Richardson beats the Bulldogs. But he’s the shot.
Big takeaways
The Gators are 4-3. All the big-time goals are in the rear view mirror. But not all is lost.
2022 looms as a big year for Dan Mullen and the program. It’s no secret that his recruiting has been sub-elite. It’s also no secret that programs at that level of recruiting require elite QB play to succeed, especially in the SEC.
But one thing lost in all of the noise about Grantham is how young the defense really is. From the 2018 and 2019 classes, there are 8 players that I count as starters. I only count 2 on the defense (Kaiir Elam and Diabate). That means that the 2020 class is filling up the vast majority of the minutes on the defensive side of the ball while only having to supplement the offense (Josh Braun, Xzavier Henderson).
That makes me believe that a turnaround is possible next year. Guys like Tre’Vez Johnson, Mordecai McDaniel, Avery Helm, Rashad Torrence and Gervon Dexter are all starters. They are going to be experienced starters heading into next year.
And if the offense is as dynamic as it looked under Anthony Richardson last weekend, watch out.
Fan anger
If you survey Gators fans, you’ll always find people who want to fire the head coach. That was true before LSU and it was definitely true afterwards. But what you have always found is a contingent of Gator faithful who would say “I trust Mullen.”
That contingent is either gone, or really, really quiet this week.
I think that needs to be fixed and can be fixed, but one change has to be made. Richardson has to be the starting QB.
It’s not because I think Richardson will be a panacea for all that ills the Gators. It’s because I recognize that if Florida is going to build into anything significant next year or beyond, it is going to have to take a risk on the high-upside player, regardless of if there are deficiencies in his game.
You can make an argument that Richardson has to earn his spot. That he must not be showing what we’re seeing in games during practice. That Mullen makes his QBs earn their spot and holds them to a higher standard than other players. All that may be true.
But it doesn’t matter. He’s going to lose the fan base if we don’t know what AR can do by the end of the year. And I’m not talking about the fans who are already asking for major changes. I’m talking about the ones who still exist but are being quiet.
Turnovers
Obviously the Gators lost the turnover battle to LSU 4-0, but this is now a pattern. Florida has now turned the ball over 13 times, 12 on INTs. The result is that the Gators haven’t won the turnover battle once, have only broken even three times (Vandy, UK and FAU) and have lost the turnover battle four times.
You can’t talk about managing a game well and then throw it to the other side repeatedly. The hallmark of a game manager is a lack of interceptions. Say what you will about Feleipe Franks, but he only threw 6 INTs in 2018, and none during the 5-game winning streak at the end of the year.
Is every interception the QBs fault? No, that’s definitely not true. But when you have 9 in 7 games, I think the excuses start to run hollow.
Jones has now thrown an interception every 19.4 attempts, which is problematic. Richardson is much worse, having thrown one every 12.3 attempts. Both of them need to get better there.
The difference is nobody is talking about Richardson’s ability to manage a game unless they’re talking about why Jones is still out there. But against Alabama, Kentucky and LSU, Jones’ interceptions were keys to why those teams were able to jump out in-front of the Gators.
We can talk about defense and explosive plays and the running game and penalties and a whole host of other things that need to improve with this team. But if they don’t stop turning the ball over, none of it is going to matter.
One-score games
Florida is now 0-3 in one-score games after going 0-3 in one-score games in 2020. This comes after going 6-1 in one-score games in 2018 and 2019.
Results in one-score games typically even out over time. Jim McElwain was fantastic in one-score games in 2015 and 2016, going 7-1. It seemed like he has some magic fairy dust when the Gators won one-score games against Tennessee and Kentucky to start out 2017. Then, they immediately lost two straight against LSU and Texas A&M that led to McElwain’s departure.
Some of that one-score game luck is due to coaching. Decision-making at the end of the game determines whether you pull it out. Timeout usage in the SEC Championship Game last year and the end of the first half against Kentucky this year come to mind.
But sometimes, it is just luck. If you keep it close constantly, you’re going to win some and you’re going to lose some. The truly elite programs only get in that situation maybe once per year. If they lose it, they still have a shot at the playoff (see: Alabama’s 3-point loss to A&M).
The problem isn’t that Florida is losing those games (though obviously you’d like to win). The problem is that they’re in three games decided by one-score on a yearly basis at all.
Margin for error
This all goes back to the great article by David Wunderlich recently that talked about Mullen and his margin for error.
The reason the Gators are in close games constantly is that they seem to play down to their competition. But that’s what teams that don’t have a significant talent advantage do. Just look at Iowa against Purdue this past weekend. The Hawkeyes are clearly a better team, but they don’t have such a significant talent advantage that they can just show up and win.
The same applies to personality. You can be prickly like Bill Belichick if you win multiple Super Bowls or National Championships. But if you have won the SEC East only once in your four years, some level of outreach is necessary.
You can say that Anthony Richardson has a ton to learn and that he hasn’t shown it in practice, but you’ve purposefully kept the fans out of practice. Thus, we only know what we see in the games, which is that AR is lighting it up while Emory Jones has been pedestrian.
I don’t think it’s fair to Dan Mullen to only look at the last three games of 2020 and the first 7 of 2021 and grade him just on that. You have to also grade him on how in the world he got 10 wins out of that 2018 team and the 11 he got out of the 2019 team.
But you also can’t tell me that you get an “A” for going 2-7 against Georgia, Alabama and LSU. At best, that’s “C” work, which means you have limited margin for error moving forward.
Because a “C” isn’t good enough for the University of Florida.