The win over Texas A&M wasn’t a breakthrough victory. The Aggies are reeling and were very shorthanded due to injuries, suspensions, and the flu.
Now, Dan Mullen lost to severely shorthanded LSU teams in consecutive seasons, so it’s not nothing. However, the only SEC teams that haven’t won multiple conference games yet are Vanderbilt, an Auburn program that had a dead coach walking, and A&M.
On the other hand, Florida would be in that list with Vandy and Auburn if they had dropped the game. Most coaches more or less get a mulligan for their first seasons, but avoiding losses like this one would’ve been is highly recommended.
There seems to be a central tension in this season between building for the future and winning now. Last Saturday was another bit of evidence for that tension existing on the pile if you ask me.
At the beginning of the game, we saw some of the Game 1 offense come back. The Game 1 offense that UF used against Utah has really only been used on large scale once again, that being the Tennessee game. It then has made some spot appearances like in the second half against Georgia and the first half against the Aggies.
The biggest tell that we’re seeing it is mesh points from the pistol. Mesh points are when the quarterback sticks the ball in the belly of a running back while holding onto it with both hands. You end up with a short period where four hands are on the ball, two from the quarterback and two from the running back. I’m not sure whether they used that at all in the second half against Georgia, but there were other hallmarks of it back then like using receivers more and spreading things out.
In other words, it’s what the offense is when Billy Napier concedes and structures things more to what Anthony Richardson is used to doing. Mesh points from the pistol are awkward, which is why meshes are generally only used with the running back to the side of the quarterback. The back could be even with the quarterback or behind him vertically, but he won’t be directly behind as he is in the pistol.
Despite the awkwardness, it can be done. And when it is done, it sets up option plays or play action quarterback runs. Texas A&M’s defense appeared to be so sure that AR wouldn’t run the ball early that he got several big runs with ease. Granted mobile QBs have been causing A&M trouble all year, but it was particularly egregious.
So that’s an example of a change where Napier chose to make it. I know he’d rather everyone practice his preferred offensive scheme, however Richardson isn’t as comfortable in it as he is with the more spread-y stuff. The only way to get him more comfortable is to do it, but you do have to calculate whether it’s worth running the offense in real games below its potential to build that up versus just doing a ton more reps over the upcoming offseason. Napier keeps going back and forth on that question.
The other noticeable change may not have been Napier’s choice at all. Heading into the game, 68.9% of the team’s receptions had gone to just four players: Justin Shorter, Ricky Pearsall, Xzavier Henderson, and Keon Zipperer. Shorter and Zipperer were out hurt, so Napier had no choice but to change things up.
Jonathan Odom got some snaps in Zipperer’s stead, but he’s not near the pass catching target that Zip is. I’m not sure he’s the pass catching target that Dante Zanders is, and he’s barely a good enough target to send out on patterns.
Therefore, the pass attack was necessarily more receiver-centric that it usually is. And what do you know? Both of the receivers called to step up more, Ja’Quavion Fraziars and Caleb Douglas, caught touchdown passes. Fraziars tied Henderson in catches, and Douglas tied Pearsall. It wasn’t like the early Mullen days when seven or eight different wideouts might catch a pass in a game, but the difference was noticeable.
The defense also made some evident adjustments. Allowing 24 points in the first half followed by none in the second half counts as evident, no?
As Will Miles diagrammed, Florida made some changes that will disrupt a less-experienced quarterback like Haynes King. It’s not rocket science, and it’s not something that will stymie and old veteran. It’s not, in other words, the ideal defense to beat everyone. But, they looked at what A&M was doing and decided to take it away and see if King could beat them the other way. He couldn’t.
I don’t know what the ideal mix is of just doing what works to get out of the game with a win versus building for the future. Everyone prefers to win, and Napier I’m sure would like to win without having to build in temporary offensive fixes or lean on a simple “he’s hitting everything in the middle, so make him throw outside and see if that works” defensive adjustment. He’d like the base stuff to just work. After all, the base stuff is the base stuff because it’s what he and Patrick Toney thinks is best.
I think Napier knew how important this win was for the rest of the season and getting momentum into next. South Carolina is a wildcard with the ability to outplay Florida (or severely under-play, you never know), and FSU will be tough for where this year’s Gators are. Winning more than last year’s six games is a big thing symbolically, and they can do it by beating Vandy and at least splitting the other two games.
Even bigger is making the postseason in order to get bowl practice sessions, and beating A&M practically locks that in with how bad the Commodores are. I fear that we may not see the Game 1 offense again except maybe as a second half thing against FSU if they’re down at intermission again. I hope not. It’s what works best.
Napier clearly has his eyes on a bigger goal than just winning games this year, that being laying a solid foundation for the future. He has to win enough to keep everyone bought in, but mere wins aren’t the only thing he’s after right now.