By Will Miles
Baseball draws us back in – Part 2
The Gator baseball team extended its record to 9-2 since being swept at the hands of #1 Tennessee. That brings the Gators’ record up to 32-19 (13-14 SEC) with a mid-week game against FSU and then a three-game series at South Carolina.
The fact that this team has an opportunity to finish with an above .500 record in the SEC with a sweep of the Gamecocks is pretty impressive when you consider where they have come from.
After that loss to Tennessee, the Gators had lost 10 of its previous 15 games, and ace Hunter Barco announced that he would need to undergo Tommy John surgery and was out for the year. A defense that had struggled all year – combined with pitching that had struggled as well – indicated things weren’t about to get better.
But in the 11 games since, the Gators have surrendered an average of 3.1 runs per game. They’ve scored an elite-level 7.9 runs per game in that stretch as well. They’ve only given up more than 3 runs three times, and the errors have been cut down significantly.
All that means is that the Gators have a fighting chance. How good that chance is will depend on the young pitching continuing to come along. It will also depend on a little bit of luck. But it seems likely they’re going to get paired up with FSU at some point in the NCAA Tournament, so if you want to know what kind of chance Florida has, watch the Tuesday night game against the ‘Noles.
‘Nole Hunting
After Tuesday night’s 7-5 win over Florida State, that record for the Gators is now 10-2 in its last 12. Florida State isn’t great, as they came in ranked #20 in the country, but they’re significantly better than the Kentucky’s and even Mississippi State’s of the world given the record of those two.
After Nick Ficarrotta and Fisher Jameson gave up 5 runs in the first 3.1 innings, Blake Purnell, Tyler Nesbitt and Ryan Slater came in and slammed the door for the rest of the game. Beyond just the zero earned runs over the remainder of the game, those three surrendered just one walk and that one was intentional.
The story will be Sterlin Thompson’s walk-off home run. That’s especially true since Thompson got picked-off first base in the seventh inning when the game was tied at 5-5. And you don’t go 10-2 without the offense picking up the slack from time-to-time. The Gators have certainly done that over this stretch, averaging almost 8 runs per game.
But the difference is the pitching. Even in a game where it wasn’t great, the relievers kept Florida in the game until the bats could come alive. And the fact that it came from three different relievers bodes well as this team moved into the tournament.
Softball and the SEC Tournament
The Gators softball team did exactly what should have been expected of them in the SEC Tournament. The ladies beat Texas A&M and Kentucky – two teams either inferior or similar in talent and performance to the Gators – and then lost to #1 seed Arkansas in the semifinals.
Lexie Delbrey took the loss, giving up 4 runs in the fourth inning of the Gators 4-1 loss. The fact that Elizabeth Hightower wasn’t pitching this game is maybe an area to quibble with. Hightower pitched 5.1 innings against the Aggies (1 ER) and then 4.1 innings against the Wildcats (3 ER) and so she may just have run out of gas.
But that’s going to be the story of the regional, super regional and College World Series should the Gators continue to move on. Those tournaments do a good job of isolating teams that are excellent because they have one good pitcher and teams that have some depth on the staff.
Rylee Trlicek has been excellent all year (1.84 ERA in 38 innings), yet she’s only started one game. She came in to relieve Hightower and Delbrey against A&M (1.1 IP, 0 ER), Kentucky (2.2 IP, 0 ER) and Arkansas (3 IP, 0 ER).
If you want to look for an adjustment that can take this team from very good to potentially making the World Series, Trlicek has the best ERA on the staff and seems to be peaking at the right time.
NCAA Tournament
The loss to Arkansas means that the Gators end the 2022 season at 43-16 (13-11 SEC) and have earned the #14 overall national seed heading into the NCAA Tournament. That means a regional matchup against Canisius College (32-16) and a potential Super Regional matchup against either Georgia Tech (37-16) or Wisconsin (28-19).
From a common opponent perspective, Canisius has lost twice (convincingly) to USF while Florida is 2-0 against the Bulls. The Griffins are also much worse on the road (12-10) vs. at home (13-2).
As I mentioned in the last section, depth is going to be important. That’s a good sign for the Gators as Canisius ace Megan Giese has a 1.58 ERA and has thrown 150.2 innings. The next closest pitcher for Canisius is Alexis Churchill with 61 innings, and a 4.02 ERA.
If the Gators can get to Giese, this is going to be a sweep. If Giese can give the Griffins a couple of good starts, this could be a fight. Florida should impart a strategy of trying to extend Giese as much as they can. Get her to throw a ton of pitches and get into the bullpen, where you’ll be able to do a lot more damage.
Golden gets Kyle Lofton
Florida got the commitment of graduate transfer Kyle Lofton this week, a point guard transferring from St. Bonaventure. Lofton will be using the extra year of COVID eligibility to come play point guard for the Gators.
Lofton has played 116 games with the Bonnies, putting up 14.6 Win Shares in that time, including 3.2 last season. That has been about his output every year at St. Bonaventure, meaning that Lofton is a high floor, low ceiling type guy. His career three-point percentage of 30.3 suggests he isn’t going to be a long-range bomber either.
Of course, that’s kind of the guy the Gators need. In fact, if you look at the Gators roster in 2020-2021, what you see is Colin Castleton leading the team with 4.5 Win Shares, followed by Phlandrous Fleming at 3.2. From there you have Tyree Appleby (2.8), Anthony Duruji (2.5) and Myreon Jones (2.0). This suggests that even if Florida gets exactly the players that Lofton has been for the past four years, he would be the second best player on the team.
Combine that with the transfers of Will Richard, Alex Fudge and Trey Bonham and Todd Golden has remade this roster fairly quickly into one that may not compete for the SEC title, but will compete in every game that the Gators play. Mike White often won games his team shouldn’t, but then he lost games he shouldn’t, as well.
I don’t know what the expectations for Golden should be year one. But I do know one thing to look for is more consistency. That starts with players like CJ Felder, Myreon Jones and Colin Castleton. But that should be greatly helped by the addition of players like Kyle Lofton.
Bryce Lovett commits
Three-star offensive lineman Bryce Lovett (Rockledge, FL) committed to the Gators this week. Lovett is the fifth commit in Billy Napier’s 2023 class and is ranked 727 nationally by the 247Sports composite.
Lovett is 6’5” and 330 pounds and has spent most of his time at right tackle. As I said last week with the commitment of Knijeah Harris, Florida has depth problems on the offensive line and so signing multiple offensive linemen is going to be key for this class.
My colleague Bill Sikes did an excellent job of breaking down Florida’s offensive line recruiting woes a few weeks ago over at my site. In that article, Bill showed that elite programs (i.e. Alabama and Georgia) have averaged 4.25 offensive line recruits on a yearly basis since 2010. In the same time-frame, Florida has averaged 3.8. More than that, the Gators have been inconsistent, bringing in 7 commits in 2019 after bringing in just 5 total in 2016 and 2017. The result to inconsistent OL recruiting has unsurprisingly been inconsistent OL play.
There aren’t 4 elite offensive linemen on the board for the Gators. Harris was close, ranking 301st nationally at the time of his commitment. Dr. Phillips OT Payton Kirkland is also close, as he ranks 209th nationally and seems to be a Gator lean. Certainly Francis Mauigoa from IMG or Samson Okunlola from Thayer Academy in Massachusetts are the big fish, as they are ranked 8th and 30th in the country and are both offensive tackles, but the idea that Florida will get every elite player at the position is unlikely.
The Gators signed 7 offensive linemen in 2020 and 2021. One (Issiah Walker) never made it to campus. Napier signed 3 offensive linemen for his transition class (I’m not counting Tony Livingston even though he’s listed as a tackle) and just brought in Juco transfer Jordan Herman. Add to that the transfer of Kamryn Waites and that makes the Gators total numbers over the past three classes 11 offensive linemen, or 3.7 per class.
So expect Napier to sign at least 4 offensive linemen in this class. Likely he’s going to bring in 5 or 6. Since there aren’t 5 or 6 5-star offensive linemen on the board, that means some will be 3-star commits. That doesn’t mean they are bad or that they won’t end up contributing. It’s just the reality of a numbers game at a position where the numbers are really, really important.
Saban and competitive balance
Nick Saban said some interesting things this week about college football and competitive balance. Saban indicated that NIL might have unintended consequences and there’s a need to protect balance in the sport.
Saban is wrong, and not just because it’s ironic that the guy whose team most epitomizes competitive imbalance is stating this fact. The reason he is wrong is because dynasties are good for the sport of college football, not bad for it.
I hate Florida State. But part of that hate is born from the fact that FSU was a fantastic program in the 90’s under Bobby Bowden. That meant he was a foil to Steve Spurrier and the HBC’s quest for a National Championship. The fact that Florida got over the hump against the ‘Noles in 1996 made that championship more sweet than it might have been otherwise.
But I look back at those Florida State teams fondly. That’s because FSU was a worthy foe to Florida at a time that the Gators were dominating the SEC. I suspect other teams feel the same way about Spurrier’s Gators. Yes, Peyton Manning never beat Florida, but the Tee Martin win in 1998 had to be sweet for Vols fans who had been watching their Citrus Bowl MVP for four years hoping he’d get them over the hump.
The same will happen with Alabama. Eventually, Saban’s empire will fall and we’ll look back on it fondly, not because we’re Alabama fans but because those sort of dynasties are hard to build, even in a sport that has its share of dynasties.
The bowl game Florida played against Central Florida this year was a dud. That wasn’t just because both teams were average, but because it didn’t have the panache of playing a Penn State, Michigan or USC. Those programs matter because they have won a lot, just like Florida matters because it has won a lot.
Does that stink for Central? Absolutely. But what’s good for the Golden Knights is not necessarily good for college football. This sport has been built on dynasties. To ignore that fact is ignoring what makes the sport great, and what has built it into the power that it is today.
QB’s and Optimization
So I disagree that competitive balance is bad. But I also disagree that NIL is going to bring about competitive imbalance.
Look at the teams that have won big over the past few seasons not named Alabama and Georgia. For the most part, they have elite QBs. We know that position is the most important on the field. We also know that NIL should enable those players who are more important to reap higher levels of benefits.
There’s only one starting QB at Alabama. There’s only one starting QB at Florida. The idea that we will ever again see a picture of Tua Tagovailoa, Mac Jones and Jalen Hurts in the same college uniform is probably gone. Certainly that’s the case for the old picture of Tim Tebow, Cam Newton and John Brantley.
NIL means that the elite programs are going to get their pick of high-level recruits. But are you going to tell me that Alabama wasn’t already getting that? What NIL should also mean is that sub-elite programs can allocate their resources to pull the Tua’s or the Newton’s away from programs that already have established starters.
That means a program like Wisconsin should be able to level the playing field with Michigan and Ohio State. Or a team like Washington should be able to level the playing field with Oregon and USC. We’ve already seen this at Stanford, where the Cardinal parlayed Andrew Luck into two top-10 finishes in 2010 and 2011 and a run of sustained success afterwards.
The reality is that Saban is afraid of NIL because it will take away his advantages rather than enhance them. His concern for competitive balance is keeping the balance tilted in his favor, not college football’s.
3-Star Gems
So if we’re going to talk about optimization and the QB position, what would the most valuable commodity be in all of college football in the new NIL landscape? I think you could make an argument that it is a 3-star QB who turns into an elite player.
Think about it this way. Each school’s collective has limited funds to spend on player NIL deals. QBs are going to require the most expensive NIL deals. But if you could lock in a 3-star QB to an NIL deal at a relatively lower price, that would give you more funds to build NIL deals for skill players, whether that be receivers, running backs, defensive ends or corners.
Much like the most valuable commodity in the NFL is a first round QB because of the rookie salary cap, that means the most valuable commodity in the NCAA is about to become a 3-star QB who signs away his NIL rights for a relatively small price but turns into a star.
Think about what Kyle Trask was able to do for the Gators in 2019 and 2020. And think about what could have been had the Gators had even a competent defense in 2020. More than anything, that shows the value of a 3-star gem.
Bo Nix and QB evaluation
That leads me to a discussion about former Auburn QB Bo Nix. Nix played below average (QB rating of 126.2) in his career at Auburn, completing 59.4 percent of his passes and averaging 6.9 yards per completion. But Nix was also a 5-star prospect, the 33rd ranked player in the 2019 class. So why didn’t Nix’ time at Auburn pan out?
Well, the picture gets clearer if you look at his high school stats. For his career, Nix had a completion percentage of 56.2% and averaged 8.5 yards per attempt. His senior year – when lots of players see a jump in their stats – he had a completion percentage of 59.7% and averaged 8.5 yards per attempt.
The physical skills were there. The pedigree (his Dad Patrick played at Auburn) was there too. The yardage (over 10,000 yards passing) was there as well. But the efficiency numbers looked bad on both fronts: he wasn’t accurate and he wasn’t going downfield very often (elite high school players typically average somewhere around 12 yards per attempt).
That’s why I think a guy like Max Brown has a chance to be really good (71.6%, 12.4 yards per attempt in high school). It’s also why I think a guy like Jack Miller has a pretty firm ceiling (56.7%, 9.6 yards per attempt in high school).
These aren’t the only stats to look at, but they’re a good place to start. Completion percentage tells you something about a QBs accuracy and ability to read a defense. Yards per attempt tells you something about their efficiency when they throw the ball. You might be able to get away with one and not the other, but if both numbers are off I think that tells you to move on.
In the world of NIL, this is going to be critical. Signing Bo Nix – and the NIL deal that will now require – means you’re sinking resources into a player who gets people excited, but shouldn’t really be a surprise didn’t pan out. We saw this years ago at Washington with Jake Locker as well.
The reality is that you’re much better off taking a risk with Max Brown than you are spending on Nix. It also means that Vols fans excited about whatever NIL deal brought Nicholaus Iamaleava to Knoxville should take pause. Iamaleava had a 59.6% completion rate this past season and averaged 8.3 yards per attempt according to Maxpreps.
That sounds mighty Nixian.