By David Parker
Thoughts of the Week – the Towson Game (09-28-19)
It’s Auburn Week. The season really gets cranked up this week, kicking off a 4-game stretch against 3 top-10 teams and their previous head coach that will define the Gators’ season. Heading into the season, I would not have thought that looking at the Towson game would inform us much about how we might perform in this gauntlet, but I am surprised to recognize that it just might be full of good data.
And that’s because they were not your typical cupcake. They are a top-10 ranked team in the FCS. It would not have been surprising if they gave this young, developing team playing with its backup quarterbacks, a tough game. But it wasn’t a tough game. The defense had a hard time getting off the field in the first half, but threw a 60-minute shutout. They beat the Tigers by 38 points, just 7 points more than their winning margin over SEC foe Tennessee. That has led to some grumbling about Florida not improving week to week, however it would not be hard to argue that Towson is a better team than Tennessee, which after all was beat handily by Georgia State. It certainly is a better coached team than Tennessee. And the winning margin should have been at least 52 points, had not a true freshman dropped a walk-in pick-6, and had another freshman not dropped an underthrown walk-in touchdown pass.
So I look at the Towson game as the exact progressive step we needed to take before facing Auburn. Are we exactly at the level of performance that we want to be before the meat of the schedule comes storming in? Nope. But we may be in as good a position as we could hope for, all things considered.
Statistically Speaking
Before moving on from the Towson game, we should revel in some numbers. Was I the only one who thought that Feleipe Franks’s school record for consecutive completions to start a game was only going to last 3 games? It looked that was for a while. His final 90% completion rate (18/20) was just a tick under Feleipe’s 92.6% in that game, as well. He did, however, top Franks’s streak of 15-straight completions, which also broke Chris Leak’s school record of 17, when he completed the first 15 passes of the game after hitting his last 3 against Tennessee.
Unnoticed by most fans and certainly the TV booth was that Lemical Perine’s 10-yard scamper on his first carry of the game put him over 2,000 yards for his Gator career. As much as he has been off his usual pace and toughness this year, you have to admire the talent and effort this Gator brings to the field.
As a team, the Gators notched their 9th-straight win, going back to last year. That hasn’t happened at Florida since the last time Dan Mullen coached here, when they won the last 10 games of Dan’s tenure as offensive coordinator in 2008 (and then won their first 12 games of 2009, for a school record 22-straight). This team will not approach that school record mark this time around, but how nice it is that we are finally winning games at a championship clip once again. To achieve this, Florida has done what winning teams do: win the second half. The Gators are +88 points over their opponents after halftime, outscoring them 105-17. Contrast that to a +38 mark before halftime this year, 65-27. They are a net 50 points better relative to their opponent in the second half than in the first half.
Cynical Key to the Auburn Game
Message to Dan Mullen: Get your vein-popping screaming explosion at the team out of the way on the first series of the game. Each time you have verbally eviscerated your team on the field or the sidelines this year, the team has seen an immediate level-jump in effort and execution. So rather than wait for a few series or a couple quarters of low energy or spotty execution, get in their faces and ears during the first play or two of the game, and get the max yield from the blowup.
I’m only partially joking.
Trask Master:
This has not been all Kyle Trask, of course, but since he took over starting duties for the Florida Gators, Florida has outscored two SEC teams and a top-10 FCS team over the last 9 quarters of football by a total of 91-3.
After a meteoric start to his career as a Florida starter, that made most Gator fans utterly giddy, we finally started to show some weaknesses in the Trask, Kyle profile. First and foremost is that he has no mental clock when he is in the pocket. This was evident several times in the game with Towson when he should have throw the ball away or taken off running (he had many yards of green space to run through on almost all these cases), but instead took the sack. But this isn’t surprising for someone who has just not played in his career. Almost at all. You really can only develop that mental pocket clock through repetition, which he hasn’t had. Another thing that stood out is that he can under-throw the deep ball. But again, that’s pretty common with quarterbacks without a lot of reps. Franks did the same thing for a long time when he first started, before developing that great downfield touch he has now. Give him time; give him time.
We Are Ahead of the Chains
Regardless of the outcome of the Auburn game, this is how Gator fans should view the 2019 team and the UF program under Mullen thus far. Even the more critical Gator fans have to admit that very few people foresaw the exploding 2018 dumpster fire Mullen inherited to be 15-3 after 18 games, with a 5-1 record in rivalry games (FSU, Miami, UT, LSU & UGA). Auburn used to be a rivalry game when the two teams played on an annual basis, so maybe we will count that one here as well. But whether we come out 6-1 or 5-2, I don’t know many pundits who thought we’d have that clean a ledger against the most important opponents we face.
As for our chances to beat a team of Tigers for the second week in a row (before facing a third group of Bengals next week), we may be a better bet than most Gator fans think. I’ve watched their games, and Auburn has looked very impressive in stretches, but very pedestrian for longer stretches. Their two big victories over Oregon and Texas A&M were over teams that really are not that good. They’ve got a lot of really good players, and a questionable coach. Playing at home, on Homecoming, with the throwback uniforms and the extra juice of knowing this is their first real test of the season since Week 0, if the Gators can minimize turnovers and penalties, and Mullen can scheme around the run blocking deficiencies, the Gators can keep this a tight game deep into the second half where they will look for their conditioning and superior coaching adjustments to carry the day as they have since Mullen returned home.
Of course to be fair, we have three big wins over teams that are not good at all. One or more may be downright bad. So Auburn fans may have every right to expect us to be an easy mark. But you can only play who you play, and both teams have beaten all their opponents.
And thus ESPN Game Day comes to Gainesville for the first time in 7 years. That’s a really long time. Too long. And it is a sharp indicator of how far we have come, and where we are going. And none of that will change if the Gators come up short on the scoreboard Saturday.
So if you find yourself struggling against the tide of “bad things happening”, as Steve Spurrier used to put it, in the middle of the game, and things look bleak for the home team, don’t get too down. We are ahead of the chains. Any wins we can pull off against Auburn, LSU and Georgia are gravy at this point. Enjoy the ride and hope for the boys in orange and blue to Gator done.
Chomps from the GC Staff & Columnists —
ANDREW SPIVEY
This will be the biggest recruiting weekend for a game since Dan Mullen arrived in Gainesville. The Gators are expecting close to 50 of their biggest targets on campus including three official visitors.
The biggest name officially visiting Gainesville this weekend is RB EJ Smith who is the son of Emmitt Smith. Smith has a few teams ahead of Florida but this official visit is big for the Gators who desperately need a RB in this class.
A name to watch this weekend is OL Issiah Walker who will be campus for the second time this fall and Walker has hinted a possible decision coming this weekend and that would favor the Gators if he does that. The
Gators really need offensive tackles in this class and Walker is one of the top guys in the country at the position.
NICK DE LA TORRE
There’s a rumor going around that Kadarius Toney will be able to play this week. Despite Dan Mullen saying after the game last week that Toney would be out until “at least after the bye week” (meaning he would be back for Georgia) that it was only Mullen trying to play mind games with auburn before sneaking Toney into the game.
While, yes, that would be some Jedi mind trick it just simply isn’t the case. A person close to the family has told me that Kadarius had surgery. He’s been in a sling ever since then. He hasn’t practiced with the team let alone even started lifting or been able to do anything with his arm yet. He’s simply not healthy enough to play.
That being said everyone else is. Expect to have CJ Henderson, Jabari Zuniga, Shawn Davis, Jeawon Taylor, Freddie Swain, and Ventrell Miller all back and healthy to go against auburn this week.
DAVID WUNDERLICH
The Vegas lines on this weekend’s game has Auburn a slight favorite. A lot of the general sentiment I’ve seen has the Tigers as a bit of a favorite as well. One piece of information that’d be useful is this: which Auburn team will Florida be playing?
The AU offense that beat Oregon on a neutral field was efficient at running and bad at passing. The one that beat the mighty Tulane Green Wave was kind of mediocre at both. So was the one that beat Texas A&M on the road. Then the one that smoked Mississippi State at home was a little above average at running and brilliant at passing. The Tiger offense has a high ceiling with its 5-star quarterback, but it also has a lot of variance since that 5-star is a true freshman.
Of course, we’ve barely gotten to see Florida’s defense at full strength, which it will approach on Saturday. CJ Henderson is the team’s best corner, Jabari Zuniga is its best true defensive lineman, and Ventrell Miller looked great early. Henderson’s been out since early in Week 2’s game, Zuniga since early in Week 3’s game, and Miller since early in Week 4’s game. All will be back this weekend.
In short, it’s harder to predict the Auburn offense/Florida defense matchup than a lot of media folks are making it sound. We have no idea what the Tiger offense will look like — not the least because its home vs. neutral/road splits are quite wide — and we have a very small sample size for the collection group of UF defenders that will actually be on the field this weekend.
ERIC FAWCETT
Florida basketball’s first commitment in the 2020 class came as a bit of a surprise in the form of JUCO forward Osayi Osifo but that may not have been the only recruit they landed last week. There are rumblings that one of their perimeter targets silently committed to the Gators but wants to wait to make their announcement this upcoming week. Naturally that would point to either AJ Hoggard or Niels Lane who are announcing October 6 and October 8, respectively, so those will be two dates to watch. It really could be either of them, and it could also be both of them. Word from Michigan State camp (the team thought to be in the lead for Hoggard) is that they’ve moved on from him and Lane has been trending heavily in Florida’s direction. Also, when Hoggard posted on Instagram that he was going to announce on October 6th Lane reposted it saying he was excited for Hoggard to announce right before him. Those will be the dates to watch for.
That’s all, folks!
All the best,
Your friends at Gator Country
…where it’s GREAT to be a FLORIDA GATOR!