by David Parker
I’m going to start by doing one of my favorite things to do on or about the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party: quote Steve Spurrier: “Why is it that during recruiting season they sign all the great players, but when it comes time to play the game, we have all the great players? I don’t understand that. What happens to them?”
That oft-repeated line was spoken in his post-game presser in 1991, after waxing the Dawgs 45-13 in 1991. Which, by the way, is almost the exact score Saturday’s game would have been if we hadn’t given them a pick-6, and had actually lined up on D on the first play of the game. Which just makes the symmetry even more perfect. We can all agree that Kirby has brought Georgia to another level in terms of dirty recruiting. But the results continue to be just as Spurrier observed nearly 30 years ago.
Let’s just take a look at recruiting comparisons of the two teams in Jacksonville Saturday. Georgia has on its depth chart a 5-star quarterback rated the #2 pro QB in his signing class, two other 4-stars and a 3-star. Florida started a 2-star high school backup. The 2-star completed 70% of his passes for 474 yards and 4 touchdowns; the Georgia quarterbacks completed 31% of their passes for 112 yards and 3 picks, between the 3-star and a 4-star, while their vaunted 5-star for some reason can’t get on the field. What happens to them?
At running back, Georgia played a 4-star and a 5-star, rated the #3 and #1 players at their position in America on signing day. Florida went with two 4-stars and a 3-star, ranked #8, #16 and #26 in the nation on signing day. Florida’s running backs totaled over 300 total yards from scrimmage, with a touchdown, while Georgia’s “elite” backfield ran up just 157 all-purpose yards, only 82 of them after first play (no touchdowns). What happens to them?
Now, at receiver, Florida’s recruiting ratings actually match up, but only thanks to a couple of transfers from the Big 10. The Dawgs have two 5-star receivers, and three 4-star catchers, including the #1, #4 and #8 receivers in the nation on signing day. Florida countered with their own pair of 5-stars, two 2-stars and a couple 3-stars. Rankings include a #1, #6, and two #12s from recruiting. Even if they were even on signing day, Florida receivers out-shined UGA’s by 133 yards to 88 (each group had two TDs), which was really hard to do considering Florida running backs and tight ends grabbed 16 passes and 2 TDs.
Then there’s the offensive line, where Kirby has really stacked the deck on signing day over his UGA tenure. On their two deep Saturday, they had two 5-star linemen, 6 4-stars and two 3-stars. This group included FOUR players ranked #1 at their position in high school, another #3, one #5, and another #10. That’s six linemen in their 2-deep with top-10 recruiting rankings ,and five in the top-5. With all that talent, they gave up a sack every 9 passing attempts – three total in the game. Contrast that to Florida, with zero 5-stars, zero top-5 ranked recruits, and only 2 top-10 ranked recruits. They gave up 1 sack all day. At that rate, Kyle Trask would have had to throw 43 more passes before Florida’s line (with an average recruiting ranking of #26) would have logged another sack. The flip side of this, the defensive lines, are the only position group where Florida has equivalently ranked recruiting “talent”, so this is all on the offensive line coaching. What happens to them?
Then there is the back 7. Georgia has three 5-star linebackers and a 5-star defensive back, including ELEVEN recruits ranked in the top-10 at their positions nationally, which includes 4 players ranked #1, and 4 players ranked #2. Florida has zero 5-star players on the entire roster in the back-7, only two players ranked in the top-10 in the nation, and zero players in the top-5 as recruits. Yet Georgia’s “elite” back 7 grabbed just 1 interception, or 1 pick for every 43 pass attempts. And that one was the fault of a Florida receiver running the wrong route and dragging his defender right into the path of the pass that would have otherwise been completed to Kadarious Toney. Meanwhile, Florida’s back-7, considered “recruiting scraps” loudly and often by Gator recruitniks, grabbed an interception 9 times they threw the ball, 3 total.
Last but not least, Georgia’s punter was ranked #1 in the nation as a recruit. Florida’s punter was an unranked walk-on. Guess who had the better net and gross punting average Saturday, and did so on only 3 punts, as opposed to 7 for UGA’s kicker?
What happens to them?
First the Bad Stuff
As amazing a day as Saturday was, there were plenty of negatives. Such as not being ready at the start of the game. Again. Last year was on offense; this year it was on defense. We gave up a 75-yard touchdown to a running back that we completely owned the rest of the day just because we didn’t even line up. They weren’t much more prepared on the second possession, either, but then finally did start playing like they at least knew the defensive playbook.
On offense, continuously trying to give Kadarious Tony the ball behind the line of scrimmage was mind-boggling. That’s just not something that can work against the speed and discipline of a Georgia defense. Yet we kept trying it with the same result. That’s the only ding I saw on offensive coordinator Brian Johnson’s performance report Saturday.
As much as our defense was able to almost completely shut down Georgia after the first two drives, I am not particularly encouraged yet for the rest of the season. That’s because this Georgia offense is tailor-made for a Grantham defense. Which is to say they had no serviceable quarterback. Much like everyone was fooled into thinking that Florida had one of the most dominant defenses in the country last year because of the way they completely neutered Auburn, the only reason we looked so amazing that day was that Aubie quarterback Bo Nix is terrible. Georgia’s quarterback room this year looks like the Muschamp wide receiver room at Florida when it was full of tight ends who couldn’t catch the ball. More than frequent bad passes, UGA had some big drops Saturday as well.
Minus the drops and bad passes that were a Dawg epidemic in Jacksonville, receivers were running wide open all day and the rush rarely got to the quarterbacks in an impactful way.
What I did see as a significant improvement on defense, however, was the fact that they completely shut down George’s running attack. Other than the first play, of course, where they were not lined up. The only time their running game ever did anything the rest of the game was when they put their running back/quarterback in, and we had a difficult time adjusting to the painfully simplistic play of either running back draw or quarterback draw, on every play.
We did eventually tighten on that enough not to lose the game, and that is laudable. Especially when you see the supposed defensive mastermind on the Georgia sideline completely incapable of adjusting to or recognizing the need to defend the wheel route.
So when I bag on the defense improvement as being so heavily reliant on Georgia miscues, and terrible quarterback play, don’t buy into the meme that some folks have put out there that we only won because Georgia isn’t any good this year. Georgia is very good this year. That was big boy football out there. Players on both sides were getting knocked out of the game for a few plays throughout the game, again and again, in what was a very clean game other than the horribly egregious and intentional helmet-to-helmet spearing on Kyle Pitts. That’s a hallmark of a serious football contest: people on both sides hammering so hard that it’s going to leave a mark. A serious football contest against a seriously good opponent that we completely mauled.
BUT…
Another negative point I will go back to is the rather shocking ability for the Gator coaching staff not to have the team ready to play when the game started. This is made all the more disturbing because the same thing happened in the last year’s Georgia game. Last year, we were in complete confusion on our first possession, because we were using two sets of play sheets on offense, which destroyed our opening drive, helping to put us into a 10-0 hole. This year, we weren’t ready to play on the first play on defense. We were running around like a bucket of minnows, completely confused like at the beginning of last year‘s game, which allowed a simple draw play over left tackle to go the distance for a touchdown. That play alone, given the 3-straight years of losses and terrible luck in this game, could’ve been a serious dagger to the heart of Florida chances. Especially since we had a blown coverage and a typically idiotic delayed blitz from the Buckman Bridge on the next drive surrender a deep touchdown pass to put us in even deeper hole.
It didn’t cost us Saturday, but it cost us last year, and if this kind of thing happens – say – in the SEC championship game, it will cost us again.
My biggest fears of this game I thought were realized when that confusion abetted opening touchdown play happened. I assumed it signaled that once again, Dan & Co had put far too much emphasis on the importance of this game. This approach builds stress and tightness among the players and is a recipe for bad things to happen. Treating this game and the Tennessee game like they were just another Kentucky or Vanderbilt game was a big part of how Steve Spurrier owned those two opponents in his Florida tenure. Putting way too much emphasis on the importance of the Florida State game is one reason we lost a few too many of those during Spurrier‘s tenure, as well.
But that initial confusion aside, it was clear throughout the rest of the game that this Gator team on both sides of the ball were playing loose and confidently, and were not constipated with a tightly wound cork in their posteriors.
The Good Stuff
The most critical part of this game, and the most critical part of the season so far, was Florida’s ability not only to keep their head when they went down 14-0 about a sneeze into the game, but also to roar back on offense and score 2 touchdowns so quickly. Not to be ignored, was that the defense was able to stop them in between those two Gator touchdown possessions, after Georgia returned a kickoff across midfield.
If the Gators had taken the entire first half to even the score, this game would’ve come down to a coin flip. But what we saw on those two TD drives was that our offense had them covered all day, in dominant fashion. Truth is, we could’ve scored 60 or 70 points if we had continued to run our first half office in the second half. But Dan knew that without a quarterback, the only way Georgia was going to get Back into the game would be through pick-sixes or other quick score opportunities through turnovers (which we almost gave them a couple times, even running the ball-control offense). So what he wisely did was run a more conservative offense to shorten the game and kill the second half clock, while keeping a hobnail boot firmly pressed on Georgia’s chances.
And what allowed him to do that was the fact that our offensive line busted holes open in the vaunted Georgia front, and our running backs did a great job of being patient, following their blocks, picking the right holes, and bulldozing potential tacklers for extra yards. We saw three running backs with three different skill sets, flexing those skills and proving that rumors of the demise of Florida’s running game were greatly exaggerated. And we’ve got two all-world backs on the bench ready to cut loose next year, as well. And another thing we saw maxing out in dazzling impact was those running backs catching passes. Dameon Pierce and Nay’Quan Wright mostly took shorter passes and then did their thing (though Wright also grabbed a great downfield pass, as well), but Malik Davis did a masterful job impersonating a wide receiver, catching balls well downfield in stride and sometimes in diving fashion. If not for the reeDONKulous overall performance of Kyle Trask, Davis would have been the game’s MVP because of the timing and impact of his downfield catches, as well as some timely and impactful runs to convert third downs.
Speaking of offensive line, not only did they establish a very solid running game, how about keeping that #11 jersey clean on a sloppy field? Some Gator fans complain that we don’t get our offensive lineman off the top of 5-star recruiting list. Well, we saw Saturday what we have seen for 2 1/2 years now under Dan Mullen: he catches all his offensive lineman at the Pass Pro Shops.
And the small and very manageable sack total to which our offensive line held Georgia today and has been holding opponents all year, is not just a function of a great pass pro. Kyle Trask has an active hand in this well oiled machine. His ability to sidestep and step up in the pocket almost every time defenders start to encroach on his personal space, is a testament to his great instincts and pocket presence, but also the great chemistry and anticipation he has developed with his bodyguards. When the rush comes from one direction or pushes in one direction or another, he knows what each lineman is going to do with that. He knows where the rush is going to be directed or redirected. And that cannot happen without very consistent play by the lineman. By each lineman. It’s a function of the lineman knowing each other and each other’s tendencies just as Trask knows theirs. Florida fans have likely underrated the pocket presence of some recent gator quarterbacks under previous coaches, when it may actually have been more a product of inconsistent linemen presenting a grab bag of possibilities every time they engage in rushing defender.
Again, some fans take issue with the recruiting rankings of the linemen he signs, but nobody can doubt that Coach John Hevesy is a very strong offensive line coach.
Myth Busters:
Florida fans have been talking about demystifying the Kirby smart mystique, basically busting the myth of his greatness by exposing him as an ill-focused jerk who has based all of his success on having vastly superior defensive talent procured through massive cheating on the recruiting trail.
Every year, the mythology has been chipped away little by little. It has been a bit difficult for Gator fans to stomach that they were not part of this process, however, this year the Gators took center stage in busting the Kirby myth.
I live in Atlanta, and I hear all of the feedback from Georgia fans and local media. The same people have been critiquing the Bulldogs for generations, and I know which ones are just complaining and which ones know their stuff. And the ones that know their stuff agree with Gator fans that this game could’ve been a name-the-score game for Florida. They know we left tons of points on the field, most of them intentionally in the second half to shorten the game and get out with a convincing win rather than take a high-risk approach to run up the score.
In the epitome of irony, Kirby said after the game that Florida didn’t beat Georgia; that Georgia beat themselves. Projection, we hardly knew ye. Georgia’s first touchdown only happened because we didn’t even line up properly. Their second touchdown was a busted play. Their third touchdown was a pick-six created when a Florida receiver ran the wrong route, leading his defender into the path of the ball that should have easily connected for a big Florida gain. And of course their last touchdown happened because two defensive backs fell down on their butts on the wet turf in total garbage time.
Meanwhile, Florida completely dominated across the box score, in every facet of the game, and did so while intentionally running down the score for the last 30 minutes.
Statement Win, Program-Defining Win
In the final analysis, this was a big statement win. Partially in the resolve and maturity of this team not to be daunted by a 14-0 hole in the first 10 plays of the game. But mostly because this is a very good Georgia team. It’s flawed for sure; having no decent quarterback being the biggest one. But they had no problem rolling to wins against everyone else not named Alabama so far (and they made Alabama look pretty pedestrian for the first 30 minutes of that game). Specifically, this Georgia team has a really strong star-studded defense in a year when nobody in the country is playing good defense (not even Alabama), and an offensive line stocked with 5-star recruits that have been plowing running lanes for excellent running backs in the SEC all year. The same formula they’ve used the last 3 years to stay ahead of Florida and challenge Alabama for SEC supremacy. We made them look silly Saturday. Made them look foolish. Made them look poorly-coached, ill-prepared and out-talented. This is the result of the 3-year trend since Dan Mullen took over, and there is no reason to doubt that it will continue to go this direction, and the gap continue to increase for Florida year after year, making our annual target Alabama and the national title, not Georgia and the SEC East.
As long as we get a new defensive coordinator ASAP.