By Will Miles
Mike White – Rasputin of Gator Basketball
Of course Mike White won unexpectedly against Tennessee and Georgia this past week after I wrote that his teams haven’t improved over the past four seasons.
My larger point still stands, that White’s teams have produced the following point differentials:
- 2018 – 6.6
- 2019 – 4.2
- 2020 – 5.9
- 2021 – 7.6 (thus far)
That 7.6 points per game differential in 2021 has been significantly boosted by the 26-point win over the Volunteers. The fact that Tennessee was the sixth ranked team in the country coming in and that Florida was missing not only Keyontae Johnson, but also Colin Castleton and Scottie Lewis, for that contest made the win even more perplexing.
The Gators then did what they were supposed to do by defeating an inferior Georgia Bulldogs team on the road 92-84. That doesn’t sound like much, but Florida was 1-3 on the road coming into the game, with a bad loss to Mississippi State prior to the win against Tennessee.
If this play continues, Mike White might just prove me wrong. The point of what I wrote last week was that he needs a point differential of around 12.0 points per game for the team to realistically have a shot at the Final Four and probably around 10.0 points per game to have a shot at going deep into the tournament.
To hit 10.0, the Gators will have to outscore its opponents by 12.3 points per game moving forward. That would mean that for the second half of the season, the Gators would have to play at a level commensurate with a legitimate Final Four contender.
They’ve just beaten Tennessee and Georgia by an average of 17 points. We’ll see if they can keep that up.
Jules Montinar Hire
I have no idea whether Jules Montinar is going to be a good hire for Dan Mullen and Todd Grantham.
I know that Montinar was the recruiting coordinator and quarterback’s coach at USF last season. Prior to that, he was a defensive quality control assistant at Georgia and does have experience on the Alabama staff under Nick Saban from 2012-2013.
But to measure recruiting, you typically look at how a program improves under a coach who’s put in charge. One year at USF just isn’t much of a sample size to make that determination. Prior to Montinar’s arrival (under new head coach Jeff Scott), USF ranked 78th nationally in recruiting in 2019 with 22 commits, zero 4 or 5-stars and 19 3-stars. 247Sports had the Bulls average player ranking at 83.31.
It’s not unusual for schools to take a step back in recruiting when there is a transition to a new coaching staff, and that happened to the Bulls too, as they ranked 109th nationally in the 2020 cycle, but that was largely because they only had 15 signees and relied heavily on transfers to fill out the roster. This is evidenced by the 247Sports average player ranking of 83.13, virtually identical to the previous staff.
The almost completed 2021 cycle tells a positive story for Montinar as the Bulls have improved in every category. They rank 63rd nationally with a 247Sports average player ranking of 83.64. Not only that, but they’ve supplemented the class with a couple of 4-star transfers (Matthew Hill from Auburn and Christian Williams from Miami), likely selling those players on playing time in Tampa.
Improvement matters, so I like to see the progress that USF made. But perspective is important too. From 2013-2016 under Willie Taggart, USF signed classes ranked 54th, 42nd, 66th and 66th. Classes prior to Taggart’s time were in that range as well.
So the question is, with Montinar in charge of recruiting, did USF just return back to normal or did he actually make a significant positive difference?
Destination Location
When Jeremy Foley went out and hired Urban Meyer, Florida was considered the premier job in the country. That was enough to draw Meyer to Gainesville, as he spurned an opportunity to coach at Notre Dame to instead take over the Gators.
The fact that Florida used to be a destination location for coaches hasn’t been lost on me as Dan Mullen has struggled to fill out his staff. First the rumors of Travaris Robinson were heavy, but Robinson ended up at Miami. Then there were the rumors of Chris Ash and Charlie Strong, both of whom ended up with Meyer in Jacksonville.
I think Wesley McGriff and Montinar may be really good, but they weren’t Mullen’s first choices.
Look, Mullen had a significant disadvantage having to replace coaches heading into 2021 with his mentor trying to fill out a staff just down the road for the Jaguars. They are going to necessarily know and have close relationships with the same people and just as Meyer is making the jump to the NFL, the coaches he knows likely relish that opportunity as well.
But this has become a mark of the Mullen era at Florida. He is a good coach, maybe even a great one. But his inability to persuade players and now coaches that Florida is a destination location for College Football, a place where you can become a legend and jump-start your career is noticeable.
The problem is that at the college level, a large portion of the job is persuasion.
Changes enough?
So we now know that Florida has replaced Ron English and Torrian Gray with Wesley McGriff and Jules Montinar. Will that be enough to save Todd Grantham?
I’m worried about that. Grantham’s defenses at Florida haven’t been very good against the pass, and not just in 2020. The 2018 and 2019 defenses ranked 40th and 35th in yards per pass attempt allowed, respectively. The 2015 and 2016 defenses that carried those Gators teams were 12th and 6th in the same category.
The reason that the 2019 defense was so good (12th in the country in points per game against FBS opponents) was because of its ability to stop the run. The Gators ranked 52nd in yards per rush allowed in 2018, then 13th in 2019 and 81st in 2020. For all of the complaining about the pass defense (and rightly so, given they ranked 88th in yards per attempt allowed), the run defense was just as bad.
That means that just changing secondary coaches is unlikely to fix that problem. There are going to have to be changes defense-wide, which is why man people – including myself – thought Mullen would move on from Grantham after the 2020 performance.
He’s decided not to do so, against the wishes of much of his fan base. Even die-hards that I know who rarely criticize coaches have expressed reservations to me about Grantham as a long-term solution. They remember the feeling they had when Doug Nussmeier came back for his third season in 2017 when it was clear his offense wasn’t working in 2015 and 2016. Bringing Grantham back feels a lot like that.
Alabama is coming to the Swamp early in the 2021 season. I think we all expect to see marked improvement from both the 35-point first half and the 52-point performance the defense submitted against the Tide in the SEC Championship.
The fear is that the early season game against the Tide is going to tell us exactly what the opener against Michigan told us about Florida’s offense back in 2017.
Defensive tackle transfers
One area for optimism is that Florida has retained the services of two defensive tackles through the transfer portal.
Gators fans likely don’t know a whole lot about Penn State transfer Antonio Shelton or Auburn transfer Daquan Newkirk, but they’re going to hear those names a lot in 2021.
Partly, that’s because Florida has Gervon Dexter at defensive tackle and no real discernible experience at the position. Yes, they have recruits Jaelin Humphries, Lamar Goods and Jalen Lee, but those three have played sparingly, if at all.
And Dexter – a can’t miss 5-star prospect out of Lake Wales – showed last season that every freshman is going to have ups and downs. That means Florida doesn’t want to be relying on 2021 commits Desmond Watson or Christopher Thomas heavily.
Combine that with the fact that Newkirk and Shelton have both been productive players at Power-5 schools and it’s natural that one or both are going to find the field a lot this fall in the Swamp. In fact, those two combined for 42 tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss and 5 sacks in 2020. Florida’s four main defensive tackles in 2020 – Dexter, Tedarrell Slaton, Kyrie Campbell and Marlon Dunlap – only accounted for 8 tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks.
I mentioned earlier that Florida needs to make gains against the run and not just against the pass. Newkirk and Shelton are going to be key to seeing that improvement.
Youth movement on defense
Beyond those two at defensive tackle, Florida’s defense is really going to see a youth movement.
Second-year players Tre’Vez Johnson and Rashad Torrence are going to see the field a lot as safeties, hopefully being pushed by 2021 recruits Corey Collier and Donovan McMillon. I think everybody expects 5-star corner Jason Marshall to be starting day one opposite Kaiir Elam. Ty’Ron Hopper and Derek Wingo are going to have to step up at linebacker with James Houston gone.
Jeremiah Moon, Ventrell Miller and Zachary Carter are back. Carter especially is an important piece that will be critical to the Gators defense being successful. But Dexter, Diabate, Elam and Jaydon Hill are going to start with Moon and Miller being pushed by Hopper, Wingo, Lloyd Summerall, Princely Umanmielen and Jeremiah Williams.
2021 is going to be a transition year. We knew that the moment Grantham decided not to sub out Donovan Stiner and the rest of the senior-laden secondary while taking a legitimate shot at a championship. The Gators fell short and so one of the areas that is going to experience some growing pains is all of the youth that is going to be on the field this upcoming season.
I think a lot of these players are upgrades from a talent perspective. And with a full off-season of Nick Savage workouts along with what we presume will be a relatively normal spring practice schedule, I expect to see some significant advancement from the young players.
But until the bullets start flying in the fall, none of us are really going to know. Marshall will blow a coverage or two because all true freshman do. Johnson and Torrence are going to miss some tackles. Hopper and Wingo are going to overpursue the run and allow cutback lanes or not get out quick enough to cover a running back.
Those things are all a necessary part of building a defense, and we’re just going to have to live through it in 2021.
Will the next David Reese please stand up?
A lot of those young players are going to be at the linebacker position. Despite being a senior and a junior, Amari Burney and Mohamoud Diabate are relatively new to the position. Then you have Hopper and Wingo.
But the guy who has the chance to be David Reese is Ventrell Miller, who announced that he is returning for another year.
Miller has limitations, but so did Reese. Reese was a difference maker when it came to the running game and Miller showed flashes last year that he might be able to do the same. The issue was that he was often getting eaten up by offensive linemen in a way that Reese was not. Shelton and Newkirk should help that, which means we should really be able to see what Miller is able to do.
When Reese was out against Kentucky in 2018, Florida’s defense fell apart. The opposite was true against Kentucky in 2019, as Reese made a bunch of key stops against the Wildcats that allowed Kyle Trask to lead the eventual comeback.
There are a lot of things you can point to when you look at why the Gators defense took a significant step back in 2020. But one of the underestimated reasons was that for the first time in four years, David Reese was no longer manning the middle.
Florida needs Ventrell Miller to step into that role.
Jason Marshall holds the key for 2021’s defense?
There’s plenty of tape to be able to determine whether Miller will be able to step up into Reese’s shoes with better defensive tackle play, but that may not be the key to the 2021 defense.
Instead, that may rely on Jason Marshall.
Marshall is a 5-star prospect. But more than that, whenever you read anything about him, scouts rave about his ability to start day one at the college level. Well, we’re going to see.
Chester Kimbrough has transferred. It looks like Jaydon Hill is more suited to slot corner than on the boundary. The guys recruited in 2020 are mostly unproven.
Marshall is unproven too, but from Vernon Hargreaves to Joe Haden to Teez Tabor, Florida has a history of starting high-level corners early and getting a major return for doing so. They likely are only getting one more year of Kaiir Elam, so it would behoove the Gators to see what kind of effect a Marshall/Elam corner tandem can provide.
The reality is that this defense is probably preparing for a 2022 run. That’s not a statement about the defense so much as it is a statement that it’s a lot to ask for a championship run from Emory Jones in his first opportunity starting. Instead, Florida should focus on getting the young guys with potential the most experience they can.
That starts with Marshall.
Signing day is coming
With signing day coming up on February 2, we’ll finally have full classes to compare Florida to.
I don’t suspect that’s going to look real positive overall for Florida, as the Gators currently rank 12th nationally but will likely fall behind Michigan and North Carolina when the dust settles.
Marshall is the crown jewel for this recruiting class. Pulling him out of Miami Palmetto High School was a major win for Florida, but when we look at things from a big picture perspective, Miami is seeming to get the last laugh.
Coming off of 6-7 and 8-3 records, Manny Diaz has the 11th ranked recruiting class in the country. The Hurricanes likely will also get passed by Michigan and North Carolina, but the fact that they are recruiting equivalently to Florida – who has won 29 games the past three seasons – is indicative of where these staffs prioritize things.
You would have been hard-pressed to convince me that consecutive national rankings of 9th were good enough in the 2019 and 2020 classes. You’re sure not going to convince me that 13th or 14th is good enough in 2021.
More than that though, all of the people who assured me that showing success on the field would bring top-5 classes have gone away. As long as Mullen’s here, Florida is going to have good, but not elite talent. I don’t suspect that’s going to be good enough to go where Florida fans want to go.
Kyle Trask injured
Some depressing news broke this week as Kyle Trask has apparently injured his ankle and won’t be able to participate in the Senior Bowl.
Trask undoubtedly was interested in getting out there to compete, to show NFL scouts what he can do, and to impress NFL coaches. That seems like an audience who would love Trask’s decision-making and team-first attitude.
Instead, Trask will have to impress NFL personnel at Florida’s pro day, which is doubly important since the combine has been canceled due to COVID-19.
For all of the good things that Trask has done the past two seasons, he does appear to have pretty bad timing when it comes to injuries. He broke his foot back in 2018 when he was ready to take on the starting job after the Missouri loss amidst Feleipe Franks’ struggles. He was out with foot surgery in 2017 when Florida was cycling between Franks, Luke Del Rio and Malik Zaire. And now this ankle injury.
Hopefully it’s minor. Hopefully it allows Trask to shine in his pro day. But hopefully NFL scouts decide to look at his film rather than gaze at his 40-time (which will be underwhelming) or his ability to drive a throw, particularly if his ankle is compromised.
Selfishly, I wish Trask had come back for one more year. But this injury puts into perspective why that is unwise, as he doesn’t have a whole lot more to prove at this level and the risk of injury is always there.