By Will Miles
Baseball drops 2 of 3 to LSU
The Gators baseball team dropped to 17-7 after losing 2 of 3 games against LSU over the weekend. The results also drop Florida to 3-3 in the SEC and certainly casts some doubt on this team’s championship aspirations.
Ace Hunter Barco continued to live up to that designation, opening up the series with 7 inning of 2-hit, shutout baseball in Florida’s 7-2 victory. But then the Gators staff got absolutely battered in the next two games, giving up 27 runs.
Typically when you give up that many runs, it’s in large part because you’re giving the other team a bunch of free baserunners. That was certainly the case for Florida, as they surrendered 7 walks, 10 hit batters (!) and 4 errors over the two games. Add that to the 25 hits given up during those two games (including 7 home runs) and you just have a recipe for disaster.
I’m not sure what ends up fixing that, but I do know one thing needs to improve. The Gators have allowed 4.2 runs per game but have a 3.82 ERA. That means they are giving up an unearned run every other game. The Gators have also totaled 12 errors in the last 10 games after committing only 6 errors in their first 14 games.
You’re really putting your pitching staff in a bad position when you make them get extra outs. Not only does the error often end up leading to bigger innings, but it makes the pitcher throw more pitches, and throw them in higher leverage situations. So maybe the error doesn’t even cause the run, but it means that the starter is out of gas an inning earlier and you have to bring in a lesser pitcher to bridge the gap.
Florida State follow-up
Of course after I wrote the above the Gators baseball team went out on Tuesday and defeated #5 Florida State 6-3. It was a true bullpen games as Garrett Milchin (2.1), Nick Ficarrotta (1.0), Brandon neely (1.2), Phillip Abner (1.1) and Blake Purnell (2.2) combined to surrender those three runs.
I still think the staff was a little bit lucky. They issued 6 walks and hit another batter in the game, meaning that combined with the 9 hits surrendered, Florida State had 16 total baserunners. Florida only had 14 baserunners in the game, despite 11 hits.
Look, a win is a win, and anytime you take down a top-5 team, it’s something to be celebrated. That’s doubly true when it is that team out west and you have the ability to get the taste of the losses to LSU out of your mouth. The defense was also better against the ‘Noles, surrendering zero errors compared to two for Florida State. So this is progress.
But the Gators’ run differential now stands at 183-103, which would produce an expected record of about 19-6. So the fact that they are 18-7 means that their record is pretty true to who they are and there isn’t really some underlying statistical reason that they’ve been dropping some of these games.
That means that this is a good, but flawed, team. The fact that they dropped to 14th after losing 2 of 3 to LSU is probably indicative of who they are at this point. We’re going to find out though, because the schedule doesn’t get any easier. At Georgia (#23), vs. Arkansas (#2), at FSU (#5), at Vanderbilt (#9) and vs. Tennessee (#1) make up 13 of the next 15 games.
Softball drops 2 of 3 to Tennessee
I said last week that we’d start to get to know how good the softball team is because ten of its next 13 games were coming against ranked teams, including three over the weekend with 14th ranked Tennessee.
Well, the Gators dropped to 27-5 (5-4 SEC) after dropping two of three to the Vols in Gainesville. The losses were driven by surrendering 13 runs in the first two games, including three runs allowed by Elizabeth Hightower in the first game in her first loss of the season.
Hightower was able to regain form and allow only one run in 4.1 innings in the Gators’ sole win over the weekend, but she walked 7 over the weekend and so that is something to watching going forward. The Gators have now walked 107 batters in 208 innings after only walking 117 in 375 innings last year. That’s a major driver in an increase in opponents WHIP (walks, hits, innings pitched) from 0.99 last season to 1.11 this season.
There’s still time for the ladies to prove themselves. They have 3rd ranked FSU on Wednesday, followed up with a three-game series 4th ranked Alabama and a three-game series with 8th ranked Arkansas towards the end of April. All of those games are at home.
But just like the men, you can’t give good opponents free bases and not expect it to come back and bite you. That’s particularly true in a sport like softball, where runs are always at a premium.
Golden embraces expectations
New Gators basketball coach Todd Golden didn’t shy away from the expectations of the program at his introductory press conference.
I think this quote says it all. “If he (AD Scott Stricklin) didn’t think, ‘Hey Todd, I expect you to compete to win SEC Championships, to do those things. Oh, I just want you to be middle of the pack,’ that would have concerned me. I want those expectations.”
One of the things plaguing the basketball program over the seven years of the Mike White era (and many programs when a new coach replaces a legend) is a lack of clarity around expectations. We saw that with White as the negativity got ramped up by fans who expected championships infighting with those who felt that Donovan was a once-in-a-generation coach and those expectations were unfair.
The tension didn’t necessarily come from the lack of winning (though winning would have alleviated it), but from the lack of clarity around expectations that everyone could agree on.
Well, Golden defined those expectations up-front in his very first press conference. He wants to win championships, Stricklin told him he will be held to a championship-level standard and that means it is reasonable for fans to hold him to that standard as well.
That doesn’t mean the 2023 season has to end with Florida cutting down the nets, but it does mean that point differentials, NCAA tournament seedings, player development and roster management through analytics all need to improve.
Whether Golden is the right guy to accomplish all of those things remains to be seen. But we all now know the framework through which he should be evaluated.
12-personnel without tight ends?
Billy Napier is about to answer a question that I’m sure he never thought he’d have to answer. How do you run 12-personnel (one running back, two tight ends) without any tight ends?
Spring practice started with just four tight ends on the roster (Gage Wilcox, Nick Elksnis, Jonathan Odom and Keon Zipperer). But now both Odom and Elksnis are out, with Odom having torn his labrum and Elksnis breaking his scapula. That means there have been Dante Zanders and Noah Keeter sightings at tight end in the spring.
This is going to be an interesting test for Napier. These aren’t sprained ankles and there is no guarantee that Elksnis or Odom will be ready for the beginning, or even end, of the 2022 season. There are reinforcements coming in recruits Tony Livingston, Hayden Hansen and potentially Arlis Boardingham, but do you really want to be relying on true freshman at tight end when it is such an important position in Napier’s offense?
Every program goes through injuries and manages depth issues. It’s probably a better thing to have these injuries now – and be able to get Zanders and Keeter reps – than to have to scramble in the fall. But it just points out what happens when you transition from one staff – and scheme – to another.
Adjustments or hold the line?
Billy Napier’s profile coming into Gainesville is really impressive. Any time you start your coaching career with a 4-year stint with a 40-12 record, you can’t help but be impressed (for frame of reference, Urban Meyer went 39-8 in his first four seasons).
But one thing you will notice is that Napier had a tremendous amount of luck in one-score games, with a 16-3 record in his time at Louisiana. One-score games are normally 50/50 propositions. Had Napier gone 10-9 instead of 16-3 in those contests, his 34-18 record would look a lot less impressive than the 40-12 record he sports.
Perhaps more concerning is that 14 of those one-score contests have occurred over the past two seasons. Those teams were certainly capable of winning big (as UL did against Appalachian state 41-13 during the regular season). But in the Sun Belt Championship Game, the Ragin’ Cajuns only won 24-16.
I haven’t dug deep enough into this yet to understand why Napier’s better teams played more close games, but it is interesting. I wonder whether it might be that he is too conservative in general, or whether the better athletes he has (he had the #1 recruiting class in the Sun Belt in 2019, ’20 and ’21) would be better served by a more wide-open offense instead of the 12-personnel he prefers.
It also makes me wonder whether the injuries this spring to the tight ends may end up being a blessing in disguise. After all, if you don’t have the tight ends to run your scheme, you have to adjust. It turns out that Florida has a bevy of very skilled running backs who would be better served on the field than on the bench.
Fenley Graham in the slot?
That becomes even more important because Florida is also thin at the wide receiver position. This has perhaps been best exemplified during the spring with former defensive back Fenley Graham switching over to slot receiver.
Florida had elite slot receiver play in 2020 with Kadarius Toney. But Mullen and Co. really didn’t recruit that position well at all and Toney was a McElwain recruit. Once he left, there wasn’t anybody to take over the mantel and ensure Emory Jones had a safety blanket in 2021.
I’m not sure how important that position is going to be in 2022. With the tight ends being the focal point of much of what Napier has done in the past, and with the wealth of talent sitting in Florida’s running back room, I’m not sure how often slot receivers are going to be utilized.
But certainly moving Graham makes sense. He wasn’t going to get to play over Rashad Torrence, Tre’Vez Johnson, Jaydon Hill, Jason Marshall, Avery Helm or perhaps even Kamari Wilson. But he’ll get an opportunity to contribute on offense.
That’s going to be a theme for a bunch of Gators players, who are going to have to adapt to make a difference.
Roster deficiencies
One thing to watch out for is where the moving around of these players causes deficiencies elsewhere.
I’m not all that worried about Graham since there is significant depth in the secondary. But in the case of Zanders and Keeter, I’m not so sure.
Florida only has 6 defensive tackles, 6 defensive ends and 7 linebackers on the roster excluding the 2022 recruiting class. That’s really thin on the defensive line when you consider you’d normally like 3-6 DTs and 6-10 DEs, but also that the ends we’re talking about were oftentimes recruited as Bucks rather than true DEs. You also want 10-16 linebackers on a roster for a 3-4 scheme.
It’s entirely possible that Zanders (defensive line) and Keeter (linebacker) were so far down on the depth chart that moving them to tight end won’t make a difference at all. But it’s also possible that the injury bug that hit the tight ends this spring will hit some other position either later in the spring or in the fall.
That’s always the risk you take when you start shuffling now. Certainly, installation of the offense needs the tight ends to get the reps. And an injury during the season means one of these guys might get real, important playing time.
But this is also one of the reasons that coaches rarely take over and end up with elite teams right away. Not only was the previous roster deficient (or the previous coach wouldn’t have been fired), but it doesn’t often match what the new coach wants to do. Choices have to be made, and one area has to be sacrificed for another.
Reasons for optimism
All of that said, I still have considerable optimism for 2022 and here’s why.
The Gators ranked 21st in yards per play on offense and 39th in yards per play allowed against FBS opponents 61st in points per game scored and 44th in point per game allowed. Basically, the Gators underperformed their metrics both offensively and defensively.
On defense, the reason for the deficiency was pretty clear. Florida just couldn’t stop the run, finishing 85th in yards per rush attempt allowed. They also couldn’t create turnovers, finishing 104th in the country and averaging just one takeaway per game.
On offense, the reason for the deficiency was also pretty clear: red zone inefficiencies and turnovers. Anecdotally this makes sense. I mean, think about the interceptions in the LSU game towards the end of the first half by both Emory Jones and Anthony Richardson. They both came driving relatively deep into LSU territory but then got returned back deep into Florida territory. Once LSU converted them both into touchdowns, that was a 20 to 28-point swing in a game the Gators lost by a touchdown.
Irrespective of why it happened though is this silver lining. The yards per play numbers are more indicative of the quality of the team than the points per game numbers. That means Florida was way better than we saw last year, and should show that early on this year motivated by the change in staff and the underlying talent level.
By comparison, Utah’s 2021 season has almost the same profile as Florida’s (20th in yards per play gained, 34th in yards per play allowed). Yet the Utes wound up in the Rose Bowl against Ohio State and ranked 12th in the final AP Poll.
The point is that anyone thinking Florida is going to be overrun by the Utes may be sorely disappointed. For all of its warts, this Florida team is more talented than Utah and put up very similar numbers to Utah last year in a season where it didn’t really perform all that well.
And Florida has Anthony Richardson potentially turning into a star.
2023 Recruiting Update
Florida currently sits 51st in the 247Sports recruiting rankings (12th in the SEC). They only have one commit (Aaron Gats, 276th nationally) in the class. Napier is bringing a ton of visitors to campus but hasn’t been able to get them to commit just yet. That’s a problem, right?
Well, sort-of.
I’d like to see Napier line the recruiting coffers as much as anyone. But recruiting rankings in March are an inexact science that give you clues, but not definitive answers, about a class’ quality.
For example, Texas Tech and Arkansas currently rank 2nd and 3rd overall in the 247Sports composite rankings. That’s in large part because the Red Raiders and Hogs are the only teams in the top-50 with double-digit commits. These are actually really good classes for both teams, but the overall player quality (88.05 and 89.17) signify these classes will likely end up in the 20-25 range rather than the top-3.
I started getting worried about Mullen’s 2019 class back in April of 2018, but that wasn’t because he hadn’t gotten anyone to commit. In fact, it was precisely because he had gotten commits that I was worried.
At that time, Mullen had seven players committed. Six of those were 3-stars (ranked between 400-946 nationally) and one 4-star (ranked 365). That meant he had to hit on absolutely everyone else who was a top-tier target to achieve a top-tier class.
Urban Meyer’s big-time class in 2006 was light on early recruits (20 of 24 committed after the season started). But the four who did (Chevon Walker, Carl Johnson, Dustin Doe and Corey Hobbs) had an average player rating of 93.90. Basically, high-level players.
That means when the Percy Harvin’s (December 19), Tim Tebow’s (December 13) and Brandon Spikes’ (January 7) of the word decided to commit, Meyer had room and they added to an already impressive class.
That’s the difference between Napier and Mullen thus far. If he can add a 5-star and a couple of 4-stars to the ledger going into the season and have an average player rating of around 93 or 94, I think he’ll do just fine once December’s early signing day comes around. If he has to start supplementing with 3-stars early on, then that’s when the alarm bells should start going off.