It’s hard to say for sure, but there may have been a real change to the Florida offense in the past two weeks. Or, there could have been a three-week blip earlier in the year that’s been corrected. Let’s start with the first theory.
Going into the game, South Carolina was last in the SEC in pass yards allowed per attempt (8.3, tied with Mississippi State) and per game (301.4). They were only 10th in passing efficiency defense, but that’s mainly because they’d strangely only allowed six passing touchdowns. If you have a hunch, you’re right — they had allowed the most rushing TDs in the league. Give them just two more pass TDs allowed and they were basically in a dead heat with Mizzou, Vandy, and LSU for second-worst passing efficiency defense after Miss State.
Billy Napier, much to his credit, went with a more pass-heavy game plan against South Carolina. No ability to get stops meant the offense had to keep being aggressive, but you could tell there was more of pass focus anyway with the approach. Which, A) it’s about time, given Graham Mertz’s play so far, and B) it was a gimme given the awful pass defense they were going to face.
Toss out the four-play drive to kill the clock at the end and convert the three sacks to passes, and you get 51 called passes to 26 runs for 67% pass. I think it’s actually more like 53 pass and 24 run (70% pass) because I think Mertz had two scrambles on called passes.
Mertz clearly had a green light to Go For It against the Gamecocks. Whether he’s had that before but didn’t use it is unclear, but he certainly had it on Saturday. Some of the passes weren’t pretty, but that’s fine because no one ever should’ve expected him to be Kyle Trask. It’s not a coincidence that his best game came with by far his lowest completion percentage. The risk/reward balance was better calibrated today — by some combination of both Napier and Mertz together — than any time since the first half against Tennessee.
It really felt to me like a true team effort between the two. Putting so much passing into the game plan was a real vote of confidence from a head coach who historically has wanted 55-60% rushing plays. Maybe that unlocked a mental block on Mertz’s side of things to say that yes, it’s okay to push it downfield even if it falls incomplete. There have been a number of plays in other games with intermediate and longer routes where Mertz just looked hesitant to try throws and either held the ball too long or went for something shorter.
I don’t think Mertz had been on a tight leash, but the play calling to date had been oriented mainly around safe throws. Things opened up some against Vandy — which again, also has a poor pass defense — but Napier said after the game that Mertz should have taken more shots down the field. He said it more politely than I did just now, but he did come out and say it.
So, that’s the idea that there was a change in the past two weeks. Here’s the other train of thought, which is that there had been a three-week blip that’s been corrected for two games now.
Those three weeks were most of the Tennessee game, Charlotte, and Kentucky. Why those three? That was when Eugene Wilson was out hurt.
Napier eased Wilson into the game plan, as he didn’t appear to be a true focal point until Week 3. Maybe he wanted to be careful with a true freshman on the road at Utah. We can pretty much toss out the McNeese game for any of this, so just ignore that for now. Wilson was fine in Salt Lake, so his role stepped up a lot for the one drive he was available against the Vols.
Wilson is a difference maker because he has acceleration and wiggle that Ricky Pearsall does not. Only Georgia of anyone on the schedule should feel confident about having any defenders who can reliably tackle Wilson one-on-one. Defenses do the minimum adjustment needed to account for numbers when Pearsall does the jet and orbit motions. When Wilson does them, they have to do a lot more or else risk giving up a big play.
Even without Wilson a focus, Florida threw the ball a lot from the start against Utah. Sure, they trailed a lot of the game, but they ended up at 67% pass accounting only for sacks and not even scrambles. They were around 60% accounting for sacks against Vanderbilt despite running up a big lead, and then they were 70% at South Carolina.
The Gators were only 56% pass against Kentucky despite going down by a lot more at a much earlier point in the game compared to Week 1. They were also 52% run in the first half against Tennessee with Wilson only playing the first drive. The second half was almost entirely running, but Napier confessed to being too conservative in the final two quarters during his postgame presser. The Gators were just 47% pass against Charlotte, accounting for sacks and kneel downs at the end. You’d expect more running against a G5 opponent, but they also didn’t put the game truly away until late.
We’re dealing with small sample sizes here, plus a variety of game states encountered against a variety of opponents. The pattern that emerges — a fuzzy pattern, but something of a pattern nonetheless — is that the team just throws it more when Wilson is available and runs more when he’s not.
It should make sense. With Pearsall and Wilson, Florida has a couple of guys who can manufacture big plays in the pass game out there. With just Pearsall, they have only one, and defenses can try to smother him up. Arlis Boardingham may be emerging as a good third option from the tight end spot, but do keep in mind that his breakout games came against two of the definitively four worst pass defenses in the conference. If he’s quiet against Georgia, it’s not because he regressed.
Florida doesn’t have the line this year to execute Napier’s preferred offensive strategy of running a majority of the time and then taking some deep shots with the pass. I’m not sure the Gators ever did, but injuries have ensured that they surely won’t.
Mertz has played far better than he did at Wisconsin, which enables a more pass-oriented attack. From a play-calling standpoint, Kentucky may have been the thing to force Napier to give up on his ideal offense and meet the team where it’s at. Again, the weeks since have been against bad pass defenses, but the passes have been composed of more vertical routes and fewer run-substituting swings and screens. Having Wilson back in those two games absolutely helped too.
We’ll see from here on out, but it may be that fans will get to see more airing it out and less running into stacked boxes the rest of the way.