By Will Miles
Jones’ best game as a Gator
Undoubtedly Saturday against Tennessee was Emory Jones’ best game as a Gator. His stat line looks really good, and obviously Florida put up 38 points.
But that does obscure what was a very ordinary first half. Jones was okay in the first half, but I found myself yelling at the TV just hoping he would finally throw the ball. I could see open men (particularly on crossing routes) during the telecast and he just wasn’t letting the ball rip.
That changed late in the second quarter, and with that change Florida’s offense all of a sudden became able to finish off drives with touchdowns as the Gators pulled away.
This now marks two weeks in a row where Jones has started extremely slowly, only to turn things around in the second quarter and then play well in the second half. That didn’t cost Florida against Tennessee, but it sure did against Alabama. If it doesn’t stop, it’s going to cost the Gators again.
If we’re going to be critical of the defense and ask it to play a complete game, then we need to do the same for the QB. Jones is improving, but this isn’t the improvement Olympics. SEC play necessitates that you come out ready to let it rip in the first quarter, not just after things start to bog down late in the first half.
That goes double when you’re on the road.
Week by week improvement
All that being said, Emory Jones has shown some real improvement from Week 1. I think a large part of that is Dan Mullen is simplifying things for him a bit. But a lot of it is Jones just being more decisive when opportunities for big plays arise.
That’s been particularly true when it comes to the QB running the ball. After running for 77 yards on 19 carries against the Tide, Jones exploded for 144 rushing yards against Tennessee. The fact that Jones now has 375 yards rushing (6.6 yards per attempt) in the Gators four games is a big part of why they have the number one rushing offense in the country.
But he’s improving through the air too. Against FAU, Jones averaged 4.2 yards per attempt (yuck), but that has steadily improved to 6.9 (USF), to 7.2 (Alabama) and now to 7.7 (Tennessee). That last one is significant because last season, FBS QBs averaged 7.41 yards per attempt.
That means that if Jones’ improvement sticks, he’s an above average passer. Combine that with his rushing ability (the average QB run is 3.07 yards) and you have a player who is bringing considerable value.
None of this changes the fact that Anthony Richardson looks like a dynamic player who should probably take the reins at some point this year. But what it does say is that Emory Jones has improved to a player who can help you win a bunch of games in the SEC.
I’m just not sure he can be the QB when you win the SEC.
Run game is for real
Jones is a big part of the running game, and one thing we should take out of the Gators win against Tennessee is that the running game is for real.
We could have thought that against Alabama, but the Tide have actually struggled against the run this season. Tennessee came into the game looking stout against the run, and Florida ran for 283 yards at a 7.1 yards per attempt clip.
I’m still not really all that confident when Florida ends up in third-and-long. But the running game assures us that won’t happen very often, as Florida is more likely to face second-and-2 than it is third-and-10.
This effectiveness certainly has to do with the mobility of Jones and the ability of running backs Malik Davis, Dameon Pierce and Nay’Quan Wright. But it also has a lot to do with the offensive line.
In the game against Tennessee, multiple Gators starters on the offensive line were either out or left with injury. Stewart Reese was out and Jean Delance and Kingsley Eguakun then went out with injuries though should be back for the Kentucky game. Despite that, the running game didn’t miss a beat. In fact, it was more effective in the second half.
Here’s the thing. We worried about the offensive line not being able to get any push last year, but we didn’t have Emory Jones or Anthony Richardson as the secret weapons to unlock the potential. Defensive ends can’t rush the QB aggressively because it’ll quickly become a 20-yard gain. Linebackers can’t pursue the running backs aggressively because the QB will pull the ball and run around the end.
The result is that Florida consistently has a numbers advantage that makes the defense overmatched and/or a step slow. That means that blocks that weren’t made last year are getting made this year. It helps that Reese and Delance have now had a full offseason to get comfortable with each other, but the fact that Braun and Tarquin could come in and the running game not miss a beat says this has more to do with who’s behind center than who’s playing center.
Downfield passing?
That’s what makes the downfield passing game – or lack thereof – so frustrating.
Emory Jones didn’t take a shot more than 20 yards downfield until Florida was down 14-10. It was obvious that Tennessee was creeping up to the line of scrimmage, daring Florida to go over the top. They just refused until finally Jones hit Xzavier Henderson behind the linebackers and in front of the safeties.
Not coincidently, Nay’Quan Wright hit the first explosive run of the night right after, running for a TD when Tennessee only had six men in the box and two deep safeties. Jones’ decision to try to hurt Tennessee deep made them back off, and the result was that Florida finally had some breathing room in the running game.
The same thing happened in the third quarter. Jones hit Justin Shorter down the sideline for a 33-yard gain. Again not coincidently, Florida was able to run the ball much more effectively in the second half.
I’m not sure why Florida didn’t decide to go downfield until late in the second quarter. The reality is that they need to do that 2-3 times in the first couple of drives. If they hit the play, that’s great. But even if it just serves to make the defense have to be honest against the running game, it’s well worth it.
This team is running well without much of a deep passing game (or even deep attempts). They’ll be deadly if they start incorporating that as well.
Slow starts
Florida scored a touchdown on its opening drive, so it’s hard to criticize the offense for a slow start. But I do think it’s concerning that the defense continuously seems to be getting off to poor starts, regardless of the opponent.
Yes, the Gators forced a three-and-out on Tennessee’s opening drive, but Jimmy Calloway was open on third down and Hendon Hooker just missed him. Convert that and Tennessee would have had a new set of downs.
Callaway was the culprit again in the opening drive of the second half, as on a fourth-and-4, Hooker put the ball right on his hands for what likely would have been a touchdown to pull Tennessee to 24-21. Instead, Florida took over, scored and never looked back.
Combine that with the two big plays allowed, the first on a screen properly diagnosed but with horrific tackling and the second on a completely busted coverage, and you see a defense that does seem to be improving, but not at a speed that screams “SEC Champion.”
Yes, Florida stopped Alabama in the second quarter. But they never got off the field against the Tide in the 3rd or 4th quarter. One stop in the 4th and Florida wins that game. Instead, they were forced to drive down the field, score and execute on a 2-pointer to force overtime.
And while many of the players who have been injured thus far are just dinged a little bit, those things start to add up in the SEC. It would be terrible if Florida had guys missing against Georgia because they got off to slow starts against Tennessee, Kentucky or Vanderbilt and had to play starters throughout.
But more importantly, we saw what happened when the defense got off to a slow start against the Tide. You can overcome those types of things against lesser opponents, but LSU and Georgia are on the horizon.
Big Plays Allowed
Many of the big plays Florida has allowed over the years could be traced back to defensive coordinator Todd Grantham. I’ve made it no secret that I have not been impressed with Grantham over the years, but I think we need to be fair and say that he had an excellent game plan against Tennessee.
On the first play of the game, Hendon Hooker looked to hit a throw in the flat on a play that absolutely killed Florida against Alabama. But the Gators were ready as they had linebackers and safeties in position and Hooker ended up keeping the ball for a 2-yard gain.
On the screen pass that turned into a touchdown, Florida was in position. Amari Burney diagnosed the screen, but took a bad angle to make the tackle. Rashad Torrence then overran the play, which allowed the back to cut back and run to the end zone.
On the deep throw down the sideline, safety Mordecai McDaniel got caught looking into the backfield. Based on Florida’s alignment, he should have known he couldn’t get beat deep, yet he didn’t move as the Tennessee receiver flew past him.
You can’t blame Grantham for either one of these. Perhaps McDaniel was too aggressive because he wanted to stop the throws into the flat that caused Florida problems the week before. But he was in the right place and just didn’t do what needed to be done. Same with Burney.
At some point, the players have to make plays when they’re put in position. I think you can make the argument that Grantham needs to adjust his schemes to put players in position to make plays that fit with their strengths. But when I see him rush four and get gashed on a screen, I don’t know what else to ask him to do. When I see him blitz and have a corner not focus on the receiver when in man coverage, I don’t know what else to ask him to do.
This does speak to development principles. Many of these guys didn’t get a whole lot of playing time in 2020. It also speaks to a scheme that seems extremely limited when it is not getting consistent pressure.
But at some point, the players have to make plays.
Secondary Issues
With Kaiir Elam out, Florida’s secondary struggled in the first half against Tennessee.
As I mentioned earlier, there were open players who Tennessee just couldn’t hit. You had the overthrow of Calloway on the opening drive, the drop by Calloway on the opening drive of the second half, and then you had the wild overthrow of tight end Jacob Warren when he was wide open after Florida scored to make it 17-14.
If you look back at history with Todd Grantham’s defenses at Florida, there have always been plays where the opposition got behind the defense.
If you remember the Auburn game in 2019, Bo Nix had an opportunity to hit Seth Williams wide open behind the defense. He hit him but threw it just a little bit too far and Williams had to dive to catch it at the Florida 13. Three plays later, nix threw an interception to Donovan Stiner in the end zone and Florida maintained its 17-13 lead.
But that same year, Florida fell behind 13-3 at the half to Georgia but pulled the score to 16-10 early in the fourth quarter. Seven plays later, Jake Fromm hit Lawrence Cager wide open down the sideline for a 52-yard dagger that put Georgia up 24-10 and essentially ended the game.
The point is that as much as I defended Grantham in the previous section, the secondary has struggled pretty much his entire tenure at Florida. That’s with players like Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, C.J. Henderson and Marco Wilson, three NFL-level players.
Yes, the players in the secondary this year are relatively young and inexperienced. But what makes me think that Grantham is going to prevent these big plays when he wasn’t able to do it with more established players before?
Hopefully he can turn it around.
Will Levis and the Wildcats
Kentucky has become a much better team under Mark Stoops. But they haven’t had a decent QB in the Stoops era.
The position has churned through players like Terry Wilson, Joey Gatewood, Sawyer Smith, Stephen Johnson, Patrick Towles, Maxwell Smith and Jalen Whitlow in the Stoops era. None of those guys are even what you would call above average players at the position.
But now Kentucky has Penn State transfer Will Levis behind center, hoping he’s going to make a difference. It looked like that might be the case after the opening game when Levis torched Louisiana Monroe for 367 yards at a blistering 14.1 yards per attempt.
But since then, he’s gotten consistently worse in every game for the Wildcats, putting up a QB rating of 98.0 (average is around 130) against South Carolina. And the Gamecocks didn’t have any sacks and only 3 QB hurries, so it wasn’t like he was getting harassed. He was just bad.
It was a road game and perhaps that’s the difference. But the games against Missouri and Chattanooga were home games as well and Levis’ performance got progressively worse.
Perhaps the more telling stat is that Levis had a QB rating in his time at Penn State of 118.6 in limited time. I’m not sure he’ll be that bad, but you don’t see 3-star recruits typically struggle like that and then transfer to another school and be world beaters.
If you eliminate the Louisiana Monroe game from the ledger, the rest of the games have Levis at a QB rating of 126.5, which seems about right. He’s an average QB, or exactly what Kentucky has had in place for the past decade under Stoops.
Christopher Rodriguez and the Wildcats
But Kentucky beat Florida and torched Todd Grantham’s defense in 2018 with Terry Wilson at QB. Wilson had a QB rating of 133.9 in 2018, but had a QB rating of 176.8 against the Gators. He also added 105 rushing yards on 10 carries to absolutely break the Gators defense.
But Wilson wasn’t the main reason that Kentucky beat the Gators that day. That distinction belongs to Benny Snell, who ran for 175 yards and averaged 6.5 yards per rush. Florida just couldn’t stop Snell at any point in the game, but Snell salted the game away at the end when Florida had a chance to get the ball back and potentially pull out another squeaker against the Wildcats.
Snell was a big, physical back who wore down Florida in that game. Well, Kentucky has another one of those guys in 2021 in Christopher Rodriguez.
Rodriguez is 5’11” and 224 pounds and there is no question that he is the fulcrum around which the Kentucky offense rotates. Rodriguez has been getting significant carries since his redshirt freshman year and has been incredibly efficient every time he touches the ball. He has averaged 6.8 yards per rush in 277 carries in his career and is averaging 6.1 yards per carry this year.
That is elite-level play from the running back. He’s also capable of pulling quite a load if Levis were to struggle. In the Missouri game, Rodriguez carried the ball 27 times for 206 yards as Kentucky escaped with a 7-point win. Last week against South Carolina, Rodriguez carried the ball 26 times for 144 yards as Levis really struggled.
A couple of weeks ago, I thought Todd Grantham should dare Alabama to run the ball and force Bryce Young to beat them through the air against coverage. I think the exact opposite strategy makes sense against Levis. Take away Rodriguez and you’re going to tie one arm behind his back.
Let Rodriguez get started and it’s going to be a battle in Lexington.
Cameron Neubauer
The Independent Alligator came out with an article this week that detailed abuse allegedly committed by former Florida women’s basketball coach Cameron Neubauer.
The allegations – if true – portray a coach out of control, players subject to abuse they shouldn’t have been, and perhaps even an administration that at best, didn’t do near enough to keep him accountable.
But the thing that bothered me the most about the article is that it details Neubauer being abusive towards the team in the presence of UF boosters.
I get that players and assistant coaches would be hesitant to report and/or stand up to Neubauer. After all, once you get a reputation for being a complainer, you don’t get opportunities elsewhere, whether that’s as a transfer or as an assistant coach. When peoples’ careers are on the line – especially in a situation where you only have to tough out four years – I understand the incentive to just put your head down and not make waves.
But boosters are different. Yes, they financially support the university, but more than that, they are adults who have the financial means to support the university. They should have far less worries than those kids (and that’s what they are) who oftentimes are reliant on their scholarships as their only way of attending college.
So where were they? Part of being a good person is standing up for those who can’t stand up for themselves. Anyone who saw anything untoward going on and didn’t report it up the chain and follow-up on it is a coward.
I’ve been a coward before in my life. Those are the moments that wake me up at night in regret. I hope the same is true for the boosters who saw this happening and didn’t do anything or the bare minimum.