by David Parker
The Arkansas Game
It was no coincidence that after all the weekend’s activities, domestic duties and errands were in the rear view, and I finally sat down on the couch to relax and watch a little non-Gator TV, the first thing I found on was Seems Like Old Times, the old Chevy Chase/Goldie Hawn classic comedy that never fails to amuse and entertain, no matter how many times I see it.
Because that’s what Saturday’s game against Arkansas felt like, didn’t it? How often did we remark, as we watched the Gator domination unfold, that this seems like old times? If you’re anything like me, you said it a lot.
Also, if you’re anything like me, you need to get a full neurological workup.
Trap Nap Claptrap
Yep, that’s what everyone said, right? Perfect trap game for Florida. Typical time for the favorite to take a nap. So let’s not just look at this as a landslide win as expected. Let’s respect the fact that Florida played a very emotional game against Georgia last week, left it all on the field, and got as banged up team-wide as we’ve ever been under Dan Mullen in one game. And let’s respect how badly Feleipe Franks wanted to not just play well, but beat his old team. And Arkansas is never a team that Florida will take overly seriously unless they’re playing in Atlanta (even then, it is easily argued that Florida took the Hogs lightly in the two SEC title games in which they faced them). Everything was stacked up for us to see a typical trap week sleep-walking display and just eke out a win by one or two scores.
But instead, we saw a team that was just as laser-focused as they were in the biggest game of the season seven days earlier. A team that was missing their #1 offensive weapon other than the quarterback, and did not skip a beat. A team that actually improved on both sides of the ball over the previous week, something rarely ever seen by any program in a trap game.
And this was just one of the artifacts Saturday that built on a theme. A theme that Florida fans have been reluctant to entertain silently in their heads, let alone speak aloud or type on social media or in an email. Partly because we got burned by this phrase in 2013, and again in 2017. And maybe much more so because it’s a phrase that the fans of hated in-state rivals FSU and Miami say every single year, only to fall flat on their faces and look like fools for the very utterance. The phrase, of course is:
We Are Back!
The very meaning of the phrase has sparked heated discussions across Gator Nation, and a fever pitch is being approached this week over whether it finally applies to our beloved program by any definition. SO I’ll throw my caution to the wind and say that we are back, and give you the reasons why.
I don’t think it’s even arguable what it means. “Back” means we are elite again. You can pick apart the minutia of what “elite” means, but that’s just an academic exercise. We are back again because we are elite again. And not just as a team: as a program. Meaning we can beat anyone, and not just as a lark, and it is not a passing phase. We are elite again, full stop. And we can see from the roster and the development that it isn’t a 1-year thing.
Apart from those aspects, the way we beat Arkansas is another bug artifact of our being elite, our being back. Yes, Kyle Trask threw 6 touchdowns, but we beat Arkansas on the ground. We established control of the line of scrimmage in the run game and chewed up yards. Even our passing game had to take a different approach, surgically but patiently dissecting the Razorbacks’ tough zone defense. And we did it without our #1 passing target, the best tight end in the country and possibly the nation’s most dangerous offensive weapon, Kyle Pitts. When you can beat SEC teams week to week, using completely different approaches, and beat them into the ground any way you choose, that’s an elite team and that’s an elite coaching staff who can develop and devise such diverse approaches.
We don’t have an elite defense, but Steve Spurrier seldom did, either, as he jammed the trophy case full of hardware. LSU has a below average defense last year and won it all. But even as they were winning it all, we knew from the roster and the programmatic issues, and Coach O’s history, that it was just a 1-year deal. And we talked about that in real time last year and were proven right this year.
Dan’s a proven winner. Urban was elite at Florida with Dan as his right hand man; when Dan left, the program almost immediately fell apart. And not by a little: it went from premier program in the nation to a laughing stock in the SEC in two years. Urban without Dan had one elite year at Ohio State before he cratered (again) and left (again), but with the talent he recruits, the path to the natty is a walk in the park in the Big 1, compared to the annual gauntlet in the SEC. Dan made a Heisman winner and multiple NFL star QBs. He created a winner at Missy State, where nobody wins, and had that team atop the first ever BCS poll, and the second one ever. This year isn’t a mirage. Kyle Trask isn’t a mirage. This unstoppable offense isn’t a mirage. Turning a trampled brand and 4-win program into a 10- and 11-win program with zero rebuild time, and having them on the cusp of an SEC title and playoff appearance in Year 3 during the AOS (Age Of Saban) is not a mirage.
This is real. This is permanent. This…is being back.
Some said we were back last year, even the year before, but had to prove it over time before we could accept that mantle officially. That was certainly a fair approach, so let’s split the decision: In 2018, we were back; in 2019, we were WAY back; in 2020, we bacl.
Spurrier found that he couldn’t take that last big step – winning the national title – until he got an elite defensive coordinator. Dan will likely learn the same lesson with Todd Grantham, but this is a different era and a different year. This is an era where LSU, Clemson and Alabama have won national titles riding offense, not defense. Sometimes with a pretty bad defense, like LSU’s last year. Especially in 2020, with the official college football slogan, “We Are All the Big 12”, you can win a natty with a bad defense if you’ve got an unstoppable offense.
We’ve got a bad defense.
We’ve got an unstoppable offense.
We may not win it, but we will compete for it.
We will compete for it this year, next year, and basically every year that Dan roams the sidelines.
We’re back. Write it down.
Pinball Wizard
More modern generations call them Madden numbers, but in my formative years, it was called racking up numbers like a pinball machine. That’s what this offense is doing this year. Kyle Trask as we know broke another SEC record for most touchdowns through however many games he’s played, which he has tied or broken every week this season. And all against SEC competition, which can’t be said about any of the quarterbacks whose records he has broken every week. He is throwing nearly 10 touchdowns for every interception he’s tossed. And he is finding any receiver he wants, whenever he wants.
But the offense is more than just Trask’s numbers. Sure, he is the engine, but we are seeing All-SEC and All-American level performances every week in every position group. And let’s take a look at what that has created in terms of effectiveness.
Looking at the drive charts for the Gators this year not only tell a staggering tale of effectiveness, but also highlights just how damaging our defense has been to not just the opponents’ side of the scoreboard, but our half of the scoreboard as well. But first, the good stuff: Nearly 70% of our possessions this year (68%) have ended in positive results (either scores (63%) or victory formations (6%)). Only 15% have ended badly (turnovers), with 17% ending in punts. Between Dan Mullen the Florida offensive coordinator and Dan Mullen the Florida head coach, the Gators rarely had a season, or even a game, where 15% of the possessions went for scores. And this year 80% of those scores have been touchdowns, whereas in those lean offensive years the TD-FG ratio was close to the opposite.
And the offense is absolutely relentless. It has scored touchdowns on 4-straight possessions 3 different times this year, including twice on Saturday. Not counting those 3 touchdown runs, Florida has scored on 5-straight possessions twice, including one string of 9-cpmsecutive scoring possessions (7 to end the Ole Miss game, 2 to open the South Carolina game). They have scored on their first possession in every game this year except Georgia, and all but one of those scores was a touchdown.
Defensive Deflation
To come back to my mention of how these drive charts will underscore how destructive the defense is to our half of the scoreboard, let’s revisit the Texas A&M game. Florida scored on 75% of their possessions in that game, and all but one were touchdowns. We only punted once the whole game, and only two possessions ended without a score. We were unstoppable, except by ourselves. The only other game where that happened was Ole Miss, and the next closest was 4 non-scoring drives against Arkansas. But while we scored 63 against the Hogs, we only scored 38 against A&M. That’s because the offense only got 7 possessions. Except for the SC game, we had more scoring drives against every other opponent on the schedule than we had total drives against A&M.
Why? Because our defense couldn’t make a stop. Ever. While that was the worst game of the year for the defense, that inability to make a stop is the only thing keeping us from scoring 60+ every week and sitting atop the national polls right now at 6-0.
They have certainly done better the last 3 games. They limited our possessions to 11, 11 and 8 in our first 3 games, but allowed us to have 14, 15 and 13 offensive possessions in our last 3 games. Part of that has to do with the Ole Miss, A&M and yes even South Carolina offenses being much better than the offenses of Missouri, Georgia and Arkansas, but empirically they have improved, mostly up front. Giving up 2 more reeeeeally long 1-play touchdown drives, making 3 in the last 2 weeks, and a third big play touchdown to Arkansas, bodes very poorly for the future, but at least between those embarrassing blunders, they are forcing more punts by pressuring the quarterback (they now lead the SEC in sacks, almost inexplicably) and clamping down on the running game.
Two-Minute Drill
One of the most eye-catching aspects of this offense is the way they are able to score at will at the end of the half, no matter how much time is on the clock. The Gators have scored a touchdown 3 times this year in the last 20 seconds of the first half. In the last 3 weeks, the Gators have scored a touchdown with 1:41, 0:11, and 0:17 left on the first half clock. In the first 3 games, they scored a touchdown with 0:05, 1:22, and 4:14 left on the first half clock.
In fact, they have scored on their last possession of the first half every single game this year but one: Missouri. And in that game, they already scored a touchdown with 1:41 left on the clock, then got the ball back and moved it from their 30 to midfield, and would have scored again if not for the refs ignoring a blatant personal foul on Kyle Trask on the final play that would have given Florida the penalty yardage to kick an easy field goal on an untimed final play. This corrupt oversight is what sparked the halftime melee that left several players suspended for the first half of the next week’s game.
The Trask Master
Since everyone else is opining on the Heisman candidacy of Kyle Trask, I might as well, too. I would say right now he is the favorite. He may not be getting the most hype yet, but given what’s in the books and what’s left to play, he should be the winner provided he does one thing.
He’ll rack up gaudy Heisman numbers in every game between now and the SEC Championship Game, and in that title game against Alabama, he’ll go head to head against quarterback Mac Jones, another Heisman candidate and probably fellow invitee to NYC (or virtual, if they do that), and if Trask wins that head to head matchup on the scoreboard, it will be because he outplayed Bama’s Jones on the field. Even if he loses close but puts up a Heisman performance, his alluring storyline may yet put him over the top, but historically they vote for the guy on the team that wins these big games. At least since Steve Spurrier’s senior season.
No other Heisman candidate this year has any real Heisman moment games on the schedule. Clemson signal caller Trevor Lawrence will get one in the ACC Championship Game against Notre Dame, and Ohio State’s quarterback Justin Fields might get one in the B1G title tilt, but then again maybe not. His opponent might have multiple losses by then, or the Big Ten champ may only have 6 or 7 games under its belt at season’s end.
Trask had the eyes of the nation on him in the UGA game, and put himself on the Heisman map. Not only with his performance, but by the fact that his rags-to-riches Cinderella story got the full Carl Spackler treatment in the national media. Then the following week, he had the SEC television stage almost completely to himself, thanks to all the canceled games, and not only threw for the most touchdowns in a game for the season and in his career, he broke multiple SEC records (again), and the Tua & Burrows comparison graphic got more screen time than the game did.
It will all come down to the game in Atlanta. Much like it did for Danny Wuerffel in 1996, when he stung Alabama for 6 passing touchdowns. If Trask hits them for 4 or more, doesn’t throw a pick, and Florida wins, you can engrave his name into the trophy that night.