Gators poised to deliver a message with a big win versus Florida State

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Florida travels to Tallahassee on Saturday having lost five straight and seven out of the last eight to the Seminoles.

That streak has been marked by sub-par QB play.

• 2010: 8-16, 64 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT
• 2011: 14-29, 130 yards, 1 TD, 4 INT
• 2012: 16-25, 150 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT
• 2013: 20-25, 115 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT
• 2014: 13-32, 169 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT
• 2015: 19-39, 134 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT
• 2016: 19-35, 149 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT
• 2017: 18-39, 184 yards, 2 TD, 3 INT

That amounts to an average completion percentage of 52.9 and 136.9 yards per game through the air. I don’t care how good your defense is, you’re not going to win many games with that kind of play at QB.

Of course, the current streak of poor QB play was preceded by a 6-game winning streak for the Gators marked by some of the best QB play in college football history and piloted by then-offensive coordinator Dan Mullen.

Mullen renews the rivalry, this time as the Gators head coach with a ton at stake.

What’s on the line?

With a win:

• Florida ends the regular season 9-3. That record would put the Gators in the top-12 of the College Football Playoff rankings and guarantee them a spot in a big-boy bowl game. Quite an accomplishment for Mullen in year one.
• Florida State misses out on a bowl game. This would end a streak of 36 consecutive bowl appearances for the Seminoles. More importantly though, it would give Florida 15 more practices than Florida State going into next season.
• Recruiting, recruiting, recruiting. According to 247Sports, Florida’s roster was the 12th most talented in the country this year compared to Florida State, who was rated the 5th most talented. Yet Mullen has taken a dumpster-fire of an offense and made it respectable, while Taggart has taken a bad offense and made it worse. Who would you want to play for?

With a loss:

• Florida continues playing second-fiddle to its main in-state rival. Regardless of the records, a Seminoles win would mean that fans and boosters would be left with the image of the Florida State players carrying off that gator head in victory yet again.
• Florida ends up in the Outback Bowl against Iowa again, generating little buzz for an 8-4 team that was fun to watch, but also wildly inconsistent.
• Florida State keeps its bowl streak alive, gets the 15 additional practices that affords and Taggart silences his critics all offseason because he beat his main rival.

The ramifications of Florida/Florida State are always huge. But with two new head coaches at each school, this game will set a tone for the rivalry moving forward the next few years. Dan Mullen is the highest paid state employee in Florida. Part of earning that paycheck is beating Florida State.

Florida State Offense vs. Florida Defense

The lead story for this game is that Florida State’s offense is bad. It’s not bad like they struggle to score in stretches but show flashes of competency. It’s bad like sometimes a punt is a better outcome than actually running a play.

The Seminoles rank 108th in yards per play, 129th in yards per rush, 83rd in QB sack percentage, 114th in red zone attempts per game, 119th in giveaways per game and 114th in time of possession against FBS opponents.

Even Doug Nussmeier looks at those numbers and thinks an adjustment or two might be in order.

It starts up-front with the offensive line.

Football Outsiders tracks advanced offensive line statistics for FBS football teams, both run and pass blocking. Against the pass, the Seminoles are a respectable 54th in sack rate (this includes FCS opponents, which is why it’s different from above). In passing situations, that improves to 29th. But it drops to 101st in standard situations. There’s a reason for this.

The reason is that the Seminoles get the ball out quickly in passing situations. On this play (a third-and-17), FSU throws a quick bubble screen. Because it is third-and-long, Boston College is in a zone defense and so without multiple missed tackles, this play is just for punt positioning.

I saw a bunch of these play calls even in more reasonable third down situations. That’s because when the ‘Noles do try to go downfield on third down, Francois just has no time. The result is he is incredibly inaccurate.

On this play, both the left and the right tackles are beat immediately at the snap on a 3-man rush. Francois steps up in the pocket, but is being harassed as he throws the ball into double coverage inaccurately. If Florida can get pressure with three linemen, it’s going to be a long day for Francois.

The result is that Florida State is 127th in third down conversion percentage (30.8%).

But the FSU offense is truly poor because of the running game. Again, this goes back to the offensive line.

Pro Football Outsiders tracks six advanced offensive line stats related to running the football. Out of 130 FBS teams, Florida State averages a ranking of 122nd in those six categories and is dead last in two. The key theme is allowing penetration and not getting to the second level for blocks.

On this play against Virginia Tech, Hokies tackle Jarrod Hewitt (#55) immediately drives center J.T. Mertz (#64) into the backfield. None of the other Florida State offensive linemen get off their initial blocks. That leaves linebackers Dylan Rivers (#44) and Rayshard Ashby (#23) completely free to make the tackles.

Florida has struggled giving up big plays in the run game this year when linebackers Vosean Joseph and David Reese have gotten themselves caught up in traffic outside of their assigned gaps. But gap integrity only really becomes important if the offensive linemen can get to the second level. Joseph, in particular, is really great when he gets to freelance and if Florida State’s offensive line can’t get up on him to block, that’s what he’ll be allowed to do.

The poor offensive line play means that Florida State averages 2.5 yards per rush against FBS opponents, ranked 129th. The Seminoles have two backs (Cam Akers and Jacques Patrick) with more than 50 yards rushing. By contrast, the Gators have six (Malik Davis, injured in the second game of the season has 61 yards rushing).

Akers and Patrick have been relatively inefficient as well, averaging 4.1 yards per rush. Contrast that to Jordan Scarlett and Lamical Perine, who have run for 257 more yards on 28 less carries. The end result is that Florida State is in a lot of third-and-long situations, and as mentioned above, doesn’t have the ability to convert very often.

That isn’t to say that the Seminoles have zero ways of threatening the Gators. The passing game is in no way elite, but it does average 7.3 yards per game, better than the 7.0 per game averaged by Florida. And while Deondre Francois has been bad this season (yards above replacement (YAR) = -0.89) this season, he was much better two years ago before his injury so he is capable.

The other thing to take into consideration is that the game is in Tallahassee. At home this year, Francois has a YAR of -0.23. Away from the Swamp this season, Gators QB Feleipe Franks has a YAR of -0.35. It’s likely that Florida State will get about equivalent QB play to Florida in this particular game.

Florida State has also shown – particularly recently – the ability to hit the deep throw.

This was a play early in the game against Boston College. The Seminoles are in max protection and send three receivers out on the route. Francois identifies the right receiver in one-on-one coverage and delivers the ball short, which is why it is intercepted.

Note that Boston College didn’t blitz. Instead, it had a bunch of linebackers just sitting in the middle of the field guarding nobody. While Akers and Patrick do have 38 catches on the year, they are averaging just 6.1 yards per reception. There’s no reason to get beat deep with an extra linebacker on the field.

Francois got another shot at a throw like this late in the game to win it, and he didn’t miss this time.

It’s the same formation, but this time the Boston College safety jumps the route in the middle of the field, leaving one-on-one coverage on the outside. Francois hits his receiver in stride for the touchdown.

Perhaps more important than the one-on-one coverage is the particular receiver who was left in one-on-one. Tomorrian Terry has 32 catches for 666 yards (20.8 yards per catch). Nobody else on the Florida State offense averages more than 16 yards per catch. You can leave those other receivers in single coverage. In my estimation, Florida has made a mistake if they leave Terry one-on-one.

Florida Offense vs. Florida State Defense

Florida State acquits itself much better on the defensive side of the ball. The Seminoles rank 86th in points per game allowed (31.1) against FBS opponents, but that number is not supported by other underlying statistics.

The Seminoles rank 23rd overall in yards per play allowed, 17th in yards per rush allowed and 41st in yards per pass allowed. Opponents have a passer rating of 127.6 and the ‘Noles are allowing 394.6 yards per game.

These are much better underlying numbers than Florida. The Gators rank 47th in yards per play allowed, 59th in yards per rush allowed and 56th in yards per pass allowed. Opponents have a passer rating of 127.9 against Florida and the Gators are surrendering 370.2 yards per game (in fewer plays). Yet, Florida has only allowed 23.9 points per game against FBS opponents.

That difference really comes down to turnovers and red zone chances. Florida State ranks 115th in takeaways per game and 122nd in red zone attempts per game while Florida ranks 31st and 26th in the same categories.

What this means is that Florida State isn’t going to give up a bunch of big plays and it likely will require long, sustained drives to score on them consistently.

This is an issue for Florida, as this is exactly how you would want to attack the Gators. If you make Feleipe Franks drive down the field in five and six yard chunks, chances are the offense will have a hiccup.

Against non-cupcakes, the Gators have averaged 2.3 explosive plays in losses while averaging 4.7 in wins. Since each explosive play leads to a scoring chance, it shouldn’t be a surprise that those extra 2.4 explosive plays lead to an additional 17.8 points per game.

The one red flag for the Seminoles is that four of its five leading tacklers are defensive backs. The ‘Noles leading tackler is Hamsah Nasirildeen, who only has 0.5 tackles for loss. That indicates that Nasirildeen isn’t up on the line of scrimmage as a defender, but that he is coming up in run support.

That does help the Seminoles stop the run. But it also leaves them vulnerable over the middle.

On this play against Clemson, Tigers QB Trevor Lawrence fakes the hand-off to his running back. All three Seminoles linebackers come up to stop the run. But so does A.J. Westbrook (#19), the strong side safety. The result is that Lawrence is able to hit receiver Justyn Ross (#8) for a big play over the middle.

I mentioned this week on Gators Breakdown that it probably wasn’t a coincidence that this was a throw that Florida showed repeatedly against Idaho.

Franks executes the play-fake and then waits for tight end C’yontai Lewis to clear the linebacker and delivers the ball before the safety can get there. The very next play was a deeper version of the same concept to Toney that Franks overthrew. His ability to hit plays when they are open over the middle will go a long way towards deciding who wins the game and by how much.

Prediction

“By how much” is really the question I’m wrestling with in this one.

Florida State’s offense has been so bad that I just don’t think they’re going to be able to move the ball against the Gators. Even if they hit a couple of explosive plays, that still leaves them somewhere between 17-21 points.

Florida has scored at least 17 points in 9 of its 11 games this season.

Florida State’s defense has been slightly better in many metrics, but not in giving up points (the most important one). I also think some of its rankings are skewed by being behind so much and having opponents trying to run the ball when they know they’re going to run the ball.

Franks and Francois are basically a push if you’re friendly with the numbers. Franks has been better overall – and significantly so – if you don’t split things into home and away.

And that’s why I think Florida wins the game. Even in the 2012 win, the Gators won in spite of Jeff Driskel and in some ways, because of E.J. Manuel. The Seminoles have had better QB play consistently in this series recently.

And that’s just not something you can count on this year with Deondre Francois. His QB rating of 123.6 and 10 INTs is significantly worse than Franks (140.5). And Franks separates himself even further on the ground, with 230 yards rushing compared to -25 for Francois.

The only way I see Florida State being able to win is if Franks has a meltdown like we saw against Missouri. If he just plays below average, I think Florida wins by a field goal. If he plays average, the Gators win by a TD. And if he plays well, I think Florida can put its foot on FSU’s throat and take them out of the game early and make them fold.

After all the criticism that’s come his way the past two years, I think Franks finally plays well in a big game and lays it on the Seminoles.

Florida wins, 34-10.

Predictions this season: 4-6 straight up, 3-7 ATS

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