by David Parker
Another week, another step toward reestablishing the Florida Gators as the premier program in the SEC and the nation. Still a long way to go to get there, but clinching the first Eastern division title of the Mullen era, of the Mullen rebuild, was the next mountain to climb, and we just planted a flag atop that peak. It’s the 13th time in the 29 years of the SEC Championship Game that the Gators have punched their ticket to Atlanta with a division title (although the first two tickets were to Birmingham).
It may not seem to some that this is any different that when we won the East in 2015 and 2016 under Jim McElwain. But both those years were marked by an offense that could barely scratch the scoreboard, and survived week to week by the skin of their teeth thanks to inherited defensive power that simply wouldn’t let opposing SEC teams cross the goal line. Until they got to the SEC title games, of course, but those offenses threw about 52 interceptions each year, so there was little they could do to hold back the scoring tide of the Crimson Tide.
This year is much different. The offense is cranking out historic numbers. Whereas the 2015 & 2016 SEC East champion Gators basically didn’t have a quarterback, this year they’ve got the clear Heisman Trophy race leader taking snaps. They also have perhaps the best player in the conference at tight end, and play-makers everywhere. And in stark contrast to the weekly eking out of victories back then, this Gator team is blowing everyone off the map each week (with the one exception of Texas A&M, when a close Gator victory was scuttled by an untimely fumble).
But Alabama is still favored to clean Florida’s clock in Atlanta just like they did in 2015-2016. This is because the defensive scheme is such a loser, and the defense thus has serious problems stopping any of their opponents week after week.
But make no mistake: this is a much different team, and this is a much different program trajectory. This team has a puncher’s chance to take down Alabama and advance to the first ever Gator appearance in the 4-team college football playoff. Florida had zero chance to win this game in 2015 or 2016. ZERO. And next year’s team on balance should be even better, though the offense will be making yards and scoring points in different ways than this year. Alabama may win the league title game by a double-digit margin again. It may not end well for Florida at all. But this is a big step forward for the program. If they manage to beat Alabama, don’t bet against them in the playoffs. If they lose to Alabama, it’s a very smart bet that Florida will win the SEC and be in the playoffs in the next two years. Anyone want to bet you that Dan Mullen won’t lead Florida to a national title in the next five years, you may want to go ahead and take that bet.
Doing That 2-Minute Thing
I’ve been tracking this for weeks in this space, and it was nice to see Saturday that the national sports media and TV broadcasters finally caught on. I’m talking of course about the Florida penchant, no inevitability to score a touchdown at the very end of the first half, and with only bizarre exception, on their last possession. No matter how much time is left, they’re going to put it in the end zone.
Against Tennessee, Florida – only leading by a scant 3 points at the time (10-7) – fielded a punt at their own 20 yard line and marched quickly down the field. Kyle Trask threw his second touchdown pass of the game with just 33 seconds left in the first stanza. In nine games, in rank order of remaining time, the Gators have now scored at the end of the first half with 0:05, 0:11, 0:17, 0:33, 0:42, 0:49, 1:22, 1:41, and 4:14 left on the clock. All touchdowns. Not only has this has never happened from a Gator team before, I don’t think it’s even possible that it’s ever happened in Power 5 college football. Not since the advent of the Power 5, at least. It has becomes one of the many exciting things to watch for each week. One more regular season game, and then the SEC Championship game – against last year’s national champions and this year’s #1 team – to see if the streak can continue.
Dan the Man
I would like to circle back to my opening section, where I emphasized how different this year is from the two times we reached the league title game under Jim McElwain. The difference is of course at the top: Dan Mullen. Many are trying to mitigate his success thus far, saying he still has some things to learn. They generally point to his supposed blind spot in playing inferior talent for the sake of loyalty or some other reason. He surely has more to learn, as does every working coach in the country, because this game never stops evolving, but I’m inclined to think he already knows what we fans know, with all our deep experience in the coaching profession, and he can see what we clearly see on the field in terms of personnel weaknesses. I think he is simply constrained against fixing certain problems right now by realities that perhaps we fans don’t fully acknowledge.
I’d be willing to bet that he’s aware that the right side of our OL is crap, but can’t just push an Easy Button and replace them with All-SEC linemen. I get he knows we will never overcome Bama and be the nation’s premiere program again with Grantham weighing us down, but he can’t exactly fire him in the middle of the year without expecting to destroy this special season. And he may not have the right guy lined up to replace him yet. I’d even be willing to bet that he knows that we need to upgrade our recruiting staff, including some of the on-field assistants, but he also knows that one of the most important – crucial, really – elements of successful recruiting and successful coaching and development, is staff stability, continuity and chemistry. He can’t just fire half the staff because they’re not rain makers on the recruiting trail, and there aren’t half a dozen rain makers (who are also great coaches and developers) available who would come to UF. Look no further than Ja’Juan Seider, or Randy Shannon, to see how even one chemistry/character mismatch added because of his recruiting prowess can cause myriad problems in the program.
Yet some fans have even gone so far as to suggest that if Dan doesn’t beat Alabama and Nick Saban I Atlanta this year, he’ll be considered a failure in 2020…Saban, who has been building the Alabama machine since Dan was an offensive coordinator at Florida…Saban, who has been a head coach since Spurrier’s Florida days, and has been winning national titles in the SEC at multiple schools for nearly 20 years. We want Dan, who took over a dumpster inferno of a program, with a brand that was 6 feet underground, less than 3 years ago, to knock off the undisputed king of the hill the first time he gets a shot at him. We should not expect that this is even possible, but if it happens, Gator Nation would be smart to recognize just what a Herculean accomplishment it was.
Heisman Trophy: The Trask at Hand
As Vizzini said to the man in black, it is down to you, and it is down to me. Thus is the Heisman Trophy race in 2020. Much like the SEC title, this award will come down to who wins the conference crown in Atlanta. Out-playing the other would be a big boost, but winning the game might be the only clincher needed.
And that would be too bad. While I think Kyle Trask likely leads for the award, if he puts in he usual Heisman-worthy performance in the title game, but our terrible pass defense facilitates an eye-popping day for Alabama’s quarterback Mac Jones, he would likely steal Kyle’s Heisman away. And it really shouldn’t be that close. The award should really already be Trask’s to lose, and only to lose with a terrible game in Atlanta.
Right off the top, Jones has the benefit of a much better defense giving him the ball a lot more often than Trask gets it each week. And Bama has a great running game. This gives Jones wide open receivers all day long, every week, and keeps defenses off balance. So he gets what he got Saturday: tons of stats-padding longball touchdowns.
And it’s not just Jones. Trask is operating at a huge disadvantage compared to all the other Heisman candidates. Defenses have – ALL SEASON – been scheming to stop just one man: Kyle Trask. Nobody has to give our run game even a first thought, let alone a second thought. So Kyle has to throw into double and triple coverage all year, figure out complex zone schemes and exotic coverages, and exotic blitz packages, behind only half a functioning offensive line.
If they were equal talents, Trask should have a fraction of the stats Jones has. But he has clearly better stats playing with multiple handicaps.
Beyond this, I want to make the case for Kyle Trask already having the award locked up by comparing him to historic benchmarks. The last decade has been an almost exclusively quarterback-controlled Heisman Trophy legacy. Since 2010, 9 of the last 10 winners of the award have been quarterbacks. To compare them fairly to Kyle’s season to date, I tallied their stats against their first 9 conference opponents. Six of the 9 winners played in conferences where defense is optional (3 from the Big 12, 2 from the ACC & 1 from the PAC 12), but at least they were conference games, as Trask has played all 9 times this year. Here is how they stack up through 9 league games in their Heisman season, with Kyle Trask inserted where his stats place him (caveat: Johnny Manzeil and Lamar Jackson only played 8 conference games in their Heisman campaigns, so the 9th game was added as an average of the 8 games they played):
Touchdowns
Kyle Trask 38 (+6 TDs)
Joe Burrow 32
Kyler Murray 29
Baker Mayfield 27
Jameis Winston 27
Robert Griffin III 26
Marcus Mariota 25
Lamar Jackson 18
Cam Newton 16
Johnny Manzeil 12
Note here that Kyle has almost 40 touchdown passes, and there is only one of these previous Heisman winners with more than 30 (and just barely more than 30)
Interceptions
Marcus Mariota 1
Kyle Trask 3 (-2 INT)
Joe Burrow 3
Cam Newton 3
Robert Griffin III 5
Kyler Murray 5
Baker Mayfield 5
Lamar Jackson 6
Johnny Manzeil 7
Jameis Winston 8
Touchdown-to-Interception Ratio
Marcus Mariota 25
Kyle Trask 12.7 (-12.3)
Joe Burrow 10.7
Kyler Murray 5.8
Baker Mayfield 5.4
Cam Newton 5.3
Robert Griffin III 5.2
Jameis Winston 3.4
Lamar Jackson 3.2
Johnny Manzeil 1.8
Mariota is so off the charts because of the 1 interception, but if he had thrown a second one, he and Trask would be in a virtual tie (and Mariota had several dropped by the defense-challenged PAC 12 opponents). But after the top 3, look how far back the rest of the field is.
Passing Yards
Joe Burrow 3,249
Kyle Trask 3,243 (-6 yds)
Robert Griffin III 3,075
Baker Mayfield 3,051
Kyler Murray 2,994
Jameis Winston 2,906
Marcus Mariota 2,698
Johnny Manzeil 2,289 (2,575)
Lamar Jackson 2,195 (2,469)
Cam Newton 1,638
Just one of the many dropped passes the last three weeks get hauled in, and Kyle leads here, too. Or if the highly iffy interference call didn’t take a long touchdown pass off the board Saturday, he’d be clearly in the lead here. And again, there is a huge drop from the top of the list to the bottom.
Another amazing aspect of Trask’s season has been his impeccable consistency. Of all these 10 quarterbacks – 9 Heisman winners and 1 Heisman hopeful – Trask is the only one not to have a conference game with fewer than 3 touchdown passes. He is also the only one from this distinguished list not to have a single conference game with fewer than 300 yards passing. The other 9 guys with the trophy in their living rooms all had at least one bad game; some of them multiple games where they were decidedly non-Heisman-like. Not Kyle Trask.
This award should be all but decided this year. And if Kyle acquits himself well in the last two games of the year, there is no justifiable way to deny him the trophy.