Florida Gators 2018 Season Preview

The wait is finally over.

This Saturday, the Florida Gators take the field against Charleston Southern to begin the 2018 season. Fans are champing at the bit, and while the anticipation is certainly different than last year against Michigan, the results – at least in game 1 – are most assuredly going to be better.

That doesn’t mean everything is assured to end up smelling like roses. Florida is coming off of a 4-7 season and has struggled mightily at quarterback ever since Tim Tebow left in 2009. The defense really struggled last year after carrying the team for years. And special teams are a question again with the departure of kicker Eddy Pineiro and punter Johnny Townsend.

There are plenty of reasons for concern. But there are also plenty of reasons for optimism. Dan Mullen has brought a new energy to the program that was sorely lacking under Jim McElwain. Doug Nussmeier is no longer around to run play action on third-and-forever. And the starting QB will not be (regardless of whether I want him to be) a graduate transfer.

There are a ton of ways to look at the season, and a ton of ways to interpret the data on both offense and defense. What I’ve tried to do here is distill down the stats to give you a realistic idea of what may happen in 2018.

As always, remember that I’m an idiot and will likely be wrong (much like everyone else who makes predictions for a living).

Schedule

The Gators 2018 schedule is much more favorable than in 2017. That 2017 team played six teams who were more talented according to the 247Sports roster composite ranking. Georgia, Florida State, LSU and Michigan were ranked 4-7 overall, with Tennessee (12) and Texas A&M (15) ahead of Florida (17).

The Gators went 1-5 in those games.

While the 247sports roster composite rankings are not out yet for the 2018 season, by my count Florida’s schedule in 2018 only has three teams definitely ranked higher (Georgia, FSU and LSU) and one who likely is a couple spots higher but really close (Tennessee) who is coming off a similarly terrible 4-8 season.

The defense is facing almost the exact same caliber of offenses that it face last season. In 2017, Florida faced offenses ranked 67.5 in yards per play gained against FBS opponents. The 2018 schedule has teams that had average rankings in 2017 of 64.0.

At least an identical performance from the Florida defense should be the minimum expectation based on the schedule.

And for an offense that struggled so much in 2017, the 2018 schedule should also be a bit of a respite. The Gators opponents in 2017 had an average defensive ranking (for yards per play allowed vs. FBS opponents) of 48.2. This year, the Gators opponents come into the season with an average defensive ranking of 58.1.

The substitution of Charleston Southern for Michigan is the biggest difference here. It’s also important that Florida – barring any unforeseen weather – will also get its full slate of cupcakes. I would have expected the Gators to score more points this year even if McElwain and Nussmeier were still around just based on the schedule alone.

But with Dan Mullen now heading things up on that side of the ball, the Gators should see significant progress on that side of the ball.

Defense

The Gators defense struggled in 2017.

The Gators gave up 27.3 points per game, up from 18.3 and 16.8 in 2015 and 2016, respectively. This correlated with increases in yards per attempt allowed as well, as the Gators ranked 67th in 2017, down from 7th in 2015 and 4th in 2016.

In fact, the defensive performance was the biggest reason that the 2017 season was so different from 2016. Florida’s offense was no doubt terrible (22.1 points per game). But that wasn’t much different from 2015 (23.2) or 2016 (23.9) when the Gators went 19-8.

The biggest difference in the defense came in the passing game, where Florida failed to live up to its DBU moniker. The Gators gave up 8.0 yards per attempt to rank 105th in the country. This was a stark departure from 2015 (12th) and 2016 (6th).

The decrease in the ability to stop the pass was a true team effort, not just due to the corners. Certainly the loss of Marcel Harris early in fall camp impacted the way the defense was designed. Once Nick Washington went down with a shoulder injury, it forced players into positions that they weren’t accustomed to or necessarily skilled at. It also severely limited the adjustments that then defensive coordinator Randy Shannon could make.

There is reason to believe that the Gators should be significantly better in 2018. C.J. Henderson and Marco Wilson have a full year of experience, which should significantly help the pass defense. It appears that Chauncey Gardner-Johnson will be used in a role that suits his skill set better than the one that he was repeatedly put into last season.

The biggest issue is again at safety, where the  injury to Quincy Lenton, the health issue for Randy Russell and the domestic violence arrest for Justin Watkins has left Florida dangerously thin. With Duke Dawson moving on to the NFL, there is going to be inexperience and youth in the secondary even with Wilson and Henderson manning the outside.

The youth was exploited last season mostly because it was unable to execute schemes. Recall the Michigan game.

This play occurred right after starting safety Nick Washington went out with a shoulder injury and Michigan decided to take a deep shot. True freshman Shawn Davis had just come in for Washington, and there was a completely broken coverage.

Michigan ran a two-man route, with Kekoa Crawford (1) crossing in front of Gardner-Johnson (23) and out of his zone with Tarik Black (7) starting in corner Marco Wilson’s (3) zone and running a post behind Gardner-Johnson. Gardner-Johnson bit on Crawford crossing in front of him, while Wilson properly let Black run free expecting Gardner to pick him up.

With the amount of youth on the backside of the Florida defense again, miscommunications may be more common than fans would like.

Of course, that play takes a ton of time to develop. The opposition had plenty of time to deliver the football last year against the Gators defense, as was on display against Missouri last season.

It was a first-and-25 after a pass interference penalty on Missouri the play prior, a time that a defensive line should be able to pin its ears back and come after the QB. Instead, no defensive lineman comes within 5 yards of Missouri QB Drew Lock.

Certainly, Henderson is beat right off the line of scrimmage and is unable to recover. But part of the reason that he can’t recover is that Lock delivers the ball well because he would not have been touched by a Gators defensive lineman had he held the ball for another three or four seconds.

This has been a building problem for the Florida defense. I like to measure the explosiveness of a defense by looking at the ratio of tackles for loss (TFL) and sacks to total tackles. It gives an idea of how often a play is turning into a negative play for the opposition.

It’s pretty obvious from the above chart that Florida’s explosive plays have decreased significantly. For a frame of reference, Alabama had a TFL/Tackles ratio of 10.5 percent and a Sacks/Tackles ratio of 4.1 percent last season. The 2015 defense was really good up-front.

The decline started in 2016, but was covered up by a defensive backfield that included Teez Tabor, Quincy Wilson, Marcel Harris, Marcus Maye, Duke Dawson and Chauncey Gardner-Johnson along with Jarrad Davis and Alex Anzalone at linebacker. With the majority of those guys gone last season, the lack of pressure really showed up.

Additionally, there is just less collective talent on the defensive line. The 2015 team featured Jon Bullard, Caleb Brantley, Alex McCalister, Bryan Cox, Jr. and a young CeCe Jefferson. The 2017 line had Jefferson, but also featured 3-star recruits Jabari Zuniga, Jachai Polite and Taven Bryan. Once Jordan Sherit went out against Texas A&M with a hip injury, the depth, experience and talent was thin.

So where does the pressure come from in 2018? The team needs more from Jefferson (13.5 TFL, 4.5 sacks), Zuniga (8 TFL, 4 sacks) and Polite (5.5 TFL, 2 sacks). But it really needs help from players who have shown flashes of promise but have yet to truly contribute.

Last season, Antonneous Clayton had one TFL. Tedarrell Slaton and Khairi Clark had 1.5 each. Elijah Conliffe had none. All four of these players were ranked in the top-310 nationally when they were recruited. Clayton and Slaton were in the top-100.

Florida wasn’t terrible against the run in 2017. The area where the Gators have to make progress to have a successful defense in 2018 is against the pass. With the depth issues already present in the secondary, the guys up-front are going to have to step up if Florida’s defense is going to significantly improve.

Offense

As stated above, the 2017 season wasn’t tied only to the offense. But let’s be honest, running offenses ranked in the 90s and 100s only wins the SEC East when the division is down and ends up with a beatdown to Alabama.

Dan Mullen wasn’t hired to improve the defense. He was hired to improve the offense. And he has clearly stated that he understands that Gators fans expect points and that he expects them from himself.

That’s music to the ears of Florida fans who have had to watch the Florida offense score less than 17 points 15 times during the McElwain era.

So what is a reasonable expectation for the offense in 2018? Well, last offseason I took a look at how often offenses ranked 90th or worse in points per game improve the next year.

The good news is that more than three quarters of the time, offenses improve. The bad news is that those improvements are typically pretty modest (56 percent of offenses improve less than 19 spots in ranking). Granted, many of the offenses that rank that low don’t have Florida’s talent or pedigree. But many of those offenses also don’t have Florida’s recent track record with QBs.

Running Backs

Obviously, any discussion of Florida’s offense has to start with the running backs. I’ve written about this prior, but I don’t believe that Jordan Scarlett is a game-changing running back. He’s very good, but he hasn’t yet shown that he can be elite (5.0 yards per rush average). Of course, how much of that is due to McElwain and Nussmeier is up for debate.

The guy who has the potential to be a star in the backfield is Malik Davis. Davis averaged 6.7 yards per rush on 79 carries. Lots of people have noticed his big play ability, with runs of 74 yards against Tennessee, 39 against Vandy, 25 against LSU and 32 against Texas A&M.

But Davis does little things that start to jump out at you if you watch his film.

On this play, Florida needs three yards for a first down. The Gators were down 14-7 to Kentucky at this point and were about to hit an uncovered Tyrie Cleveland down the sideline for the tying touchdown going into the half.

But since this is a Nussmeier offense, everybody knows that second down and short is a run play. Kentucky knows this too and sends a safety up into the box right as the ball is snapped. The Florida offensive line gets very little initial push.

Watch as Davis hesitates instead of plowing into his offensive line. Instead, he jukes right, then left and slithers his way to a first down. This kind of patience running the ball is not an isolated incident. He showed it repeatedly in this game and against Vanderbilt. A healthy Davis will be critical to Florida improving on the offensive side of the ball.

Wide Receivers

Perhaps the area where Florida has added the most is at wide receiver. Transfers Van Jefferson and Trevon Grimes have both been cleared to play. Jefferson was productive in his time at Ole Miss (42 catches in 2017) and has been widely lauded as the best wide receiver in spring and fall practices.

But I’m not sure it that’s a positive thing or not.

Adding a talented player is always a good thing. But Jefferson only averaged 11 yards per catch in his two seasons in Oxford. That’s hardly explosive. As a comparison, Tyrie Cleveland has averaged 19.7 yards per catch with the Gators.

The fact that Jefferson has been above-and-beyond the best receiver in camp either suggests that he’s about to have a huge leap in performance or that the Gators receiving corps isn’t as talented as their recruiting profiles suggest.

And those profiles are significant. Cleveland (34th nationally), Grimes (41st), Freddie Swain (127th) and Josh Hammond (165th) were all highly ranked recruits. Jefferson was as well (109th). Add to that Jacob Copeland (69th), Daquon Green (239th) and Kadarius Toney (421st) and the Gators should excel at the position.

But that’s the problem. Obviously QB has been a problem. But Brandon Powell, Cleveland and Hammond were the starters last season and totaled 82 catches for 1062 yards. For comparison, Georgia’s starters (Mecole Hardman, Javon Wims and Terry Godwin) combined for 108 catches for 1777 yards.

That was 67 percent of Georgia’s passing yardage, compared to 54 percent for Florida. There were times last season when Florida’s receivers were not getting open. That can’t happen in 2018 for the offense to be successful.

Quarterback

In 2009, when Mullen took over Mississippi State, he was taking over a team that had ranked 116th in points per game the year prior and 108th over Sylvester Croom’s tenure in Starkville.

The offense immediately improved to 76th in points per game in Mullen’s first year. Most of the improvement came from the running game, as Mississippi State improved from 111th in yards per rush to 14th. The passing game improved much more modestly, improving from 111th in yards per attempt to 90th.

The modest improvement in the passing game was because while Tyson Lee did improve from 2008 to 2009, he still wasn’t very good (-1.8 YAR in 2008 vs. -0.8 in 2009). Lee did rush the ball more (74 attempts vs. 62 in 2008) and more effectively (2.6 yards per attempt vs. 0.6), but Mississippi State wasn’t making much headway at the QB position, at least not the starting QB.

The running game did improve significantly under Mullen. Some of that was attributable to starting running back Anthony Dixon. Dixon ran for 869 yards on 4.4 yards per rush in 2008 but improved to 1391 yards and 5.4 yards per rush in 2009.

But the biggest area of rushing improvement for the Bulldogs came from the QB position, just it was the backup QB.

In 2008, Chris Relf ran the ball 7 times. In 2009, Relf only threw the ball 41 times, but he ran the ball 76 times for 500 yards (a 6.6 yards per rush average). If you include Relf’s passing and running into the numbers for the QB in 2009, it raises Mississippi State’s YAR to -0.01 from the -1.8 from the year prior. Basically, Mullen was able to cobble average play by rotating his QBs strategically depending on the situation.

Enter Emory Jones and Kadarius Toney.

Florida’s beat writers have made it clear that Emory Jones isn’t ready to be he full-time QB, at least not yet. They’ve also made it abundantly clear that Jones is going to play in 2018 and likely won’t redshirt. That’s because Mullen is going to run him.

Jones averaged 6.9 yards per rush on 129 carries his senior year in high school. Earlier this year, I broke down how Jones would fit into Mullen’s offense and suffice it to say that many of the running plays in Mullen’s offense were also run by Jones in high school.

Toney was even better in high school than Jones, averaging 11.5 yards per rush on 78 attempts his senior year. He showed flashes last season, averaging 8.6 yards per rush and 10.1 yards per catch on mostly screen passes.

Toney showed similar patience that I lauded Malik Davis for earlier on this play against Kentucky.

On this play, Toney shows the patience to not rush for the corner where the safety could knock him out of bounds. Instead, he reverses field and waits for his blockers to pick off Kentucky defenders. Had Feleipe Franks made a better block at the end, this play goes for a touchdown.

I realize that this came off of a screen pass, but that type of patience is critical for any player running the ball out of the backfield in Mullen’s offense. This is particularly true for players like Toney who are smaller than typical Mullen QBs like Nick Fitzgerald or Tim Tebow.

The contribution from Toney or Jones is important because I don’t think we can count on a ton of production from Feleipe Franks (or Kyle Trask if he’s named the starter).

Franks put up the worst stat line of any returning QB in the SEC last season. You can get away with substandard QB play when playing teams like Charleston Southern and Idaho. But last year showed us that you cannot when you’re playing against Georgia, FSU or even Missouri.

But if Franks can show the same percentage improvement that Mullen got from Lee from 2008 to 2009, that would improve Franks from the worst in the SEC (YAR = -1.45) up three or four spots (YAR = -0.75). That still isn’t going to win many games, but that’s only accounting for Franks’ contributions.

If we add a contribution of Jones and Toney on par with what Mullen got from Relf in 2009 though, the story gets a little bit better. Adding in 76 rushing attempts for 500 yards for those two raises the overall QB YAR to 0.23, or slightly above average. It’s been a long time since Florida got above average QB play.

That would put Florida at 8th in the SEC in QB YAR based on last year’s numbers for returning starters. For comparison, Nick Fitzgerald had a YAR of 0.32 and would be just ahead of Florida should this scenario play out.

Clearly it would be better to have just one player behind center so that the defense doesn’t ever know what’s coming. But Mullen has shown multiple times – with Lee and Relf in 2009 and Tebow and Leak in 2006 – that he can manage multiple QBs with defined roles.

But we still can’t forget that while his Mississippi State team in 2009 could run the ball better, it still only scored 25.6 points per game. That would be a significant step up for Florida, but isn’t where fans expect things.

The hope is that superior talent drives that number up sharply. But even with a YAR of 0.23, my model predicts that the Gators will score 27.3 points per game. That would be more in-line with the 2005 (28.6 points per game) or 2014 (27.9 points per game) seasons.

The 2005 team finished 9-3 with a defense that gave up 18.8 points per game. The 2014 team finished 7-5 and got Muschamp fired with a defense that gave up 19.5 points per game.

Coaching

And that’s how close a 9-3 and 7-5 season are. An extra 0.7 points per game more on offense and less on defense means a two-win difference.

And winning on those margins comes down to coaching. Mullen did a remarkable job at Mississippi State with what he had. His struggles against Alabama, LSU and Auburn are well documented, but he was also severely outgunned in those games.

247Sports board member SmurphyGator sent me the following stat: From 2015-2017 (as far as the rankings go back), Mullen has won 40 percent of his games against teams with more talent according to the 247Sports overall roster composite rankings and 84 percent of games against teams with less talent. For an average coach, the winning percentage is 30 percent and 70 percent, respectively.

Arranging the data slightly differently and splitting into teams ranked 1-10, 11-20 and 21-30 in the composite roster rankings shows something that should make all Gators fans smile.

Mullen’s national recruiting average while at Mississippi State was 27th, so it’s probably safe to assume that he fits in the 21-30 bin. Yet he won 61.5 percent of his games while at Mississippi State. Additionally, the 40 percent rate against better teams from 2015-2017 is almost 10 percent better than his peers with similar recruiting. Additionally, he wins against lesser talented teams 23 percent more often compared to his competition.

So why is his overall win percentage in Starkville only at 61.5 percent the past three seasons? It’s because from 2015-2017, Mullen played 20 games against teams more talented than MSU and only 19 against teams less talented.

That really points to Mullen being able to maximize what he gets out of his players on game day.

The area where I worry about coaching is on the defensive side of the ball. When Todd Grantham was named defensive coordinator, I looked at his record at Georgia, Louisville and Mississippi State.

Plenty of people pointed out that he has to be good if he improved the Bulldog defense from 98th to 48th in yards per play allowed only one year. The result was almost an almost 10 points per game allowed improvement.

But the coach Grantham replaced – Peter Sirmon – interestingly went to replace Grantham at Louisville. There, the Cardinals’ defense immediately fell from 7th to 70th in yards per play allowed.

Now there are two ways to look at this. Either Grantham is elite and turned around a struggling defense, or Sirmon is a really bad defensive coordinator. I tend to lean towards the latter because in 2014 and 2015, Mississippi State had similar metrics to Grantham. In other words, Sirmon was the outlier.

We’ll find out soon.

Prediction

I started off this article talking about how Florida’s step back in 2017 was more tied to defense than offense. That means that the Gators defense needs to improve significantly, and it also means that any record prediction will be tied to what you think of Grantham.

I’ve also predicted that Mullen will improve the Florida offense to around 27 points per game. That means we can use the Pythagorean Expectation to estimate how much the defense needs to improve to produce wins.

The good news is that this says that Florida’s absolute floor is a 6-6 season, which I think is true. But it says that to get to 8 wins, the Gators are going to need a top-15 defense in points allowed. While he’s come close (19th in 2012 with Georgia and 17th in 2014 with Louisville), Grantham has never reached those heights.

We can talk all we want about Florida having more talent on the defensive side of the ball than Mississippi State and that is true. But this Florida team doesn’t have more talent than the Georgia teams that Grantham presided over.

So that brings us back to the Mullen factor. The Gators face 4 teams that are more talented out of the 12 on the schedule. If Mullen continues to win at the 40-percent clip against those 4 and the 84-percent clip against the rest, that adds to a 8.3 wins and a likely 8-4 season.

But that includes a lot of things that have to happen. Feleipe Franks has to improve like Tyson Lee did in 2009 (as opposed to Chris Leak, who regressed in year one under Mullen in 2005).

Kadarius Toney or Emory Jones have to provide significant value in the running game. This is far from a sure thing. While Toney and Jones are very good players, Toney was hurt a lot last year and Jones is a true freshman. Additionally, the Florida offensive line is not exactly a juggernaut.

But more than anything, the Florida defense has to improve and improve significantly. Two times at Mississippi State, Mullen had defenses ranked worse than 40th in points per game (70th in 2009 and 75th in 2016). Those were the only two times the Bulldogs were under .500 in Mullen’s tenure there.

That’s why I don’t think anything worse than 6-6 is possible. But I also think that 8-4 is probably the ceiling unless the Gators have extremely good luck in close games. Mullen is 20-14 in those games in his time at Mississippi State so there is some hope that his in-game coaching acumen translates to success in those situations.

But if there’s anything I learned from last season, it’s that you can only survive on fairy dust for so long.

Grantham’s defenses have averaged 36th in points per game allowed in his career. That puts the Gators at 23.0 points per game allowed in 2018. According to my chart above, that puts Florida somewhere between 6.9 and 7.5 wins for 2018 and that’s what I’m predicting.

Florida goes 7-5.

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