Can Feleipe Franks improve enough in 2019 for Florida to compete for the SEC title?

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Feleipe Franks improved immensely under Dan Mullen in 2018.

It doesn’t matter which metric you look at, the improvement is obvious. But if you use my Yards above Replacement (YAR) metric, he improved Florida’s QB position the second most of any team in the SEC from 2017 to 2018. Not coincidently, Florida’s offense improved from 109th in points per game (22.1) to 22nd (35.0).

Lots of the credit for that improvement has to go to Dan Mullen. The Gators head coach was clearly able to scheme around his QB’s weaknesses. Some of the credit for the improvement also needs to go to offensive line coach John Hevesy, who oversaw an improvement on that unit that was remarkable during the course of the season.

But a ton of the credit for the improvement has to go to Franks as well. Florida hasn’t gone into an offseason since 2009 knowing for sure who the starting QB will be. The Gators have that now.

But this offense is only going to improve as far as Franks can take it. Early returns from spring practice are that the wins against South Carolina, Florida State and Michigan have given him an edge and a confidence that has carried over.

For Florida to compete not just in the East, but for the SEC, will require a similar improvement from 2018 to 2019 that Franks showed from 2017 to 2018. The question is can he do it again?

How much does Franks needs to improve?

Franks had a YAR of 0.19 in 2018. The way YAR works is that zero is average, so he was slightly above average. But you don’t really consider a QB elite until he gets above a YAR of 1.0. And elite is what will be needed with Jake Fromm and Tua Tagovailoa in the SEC.

That means Franks would need an improvement of at least 0.81 to get to the mark of an elite QB by YAR.

Last season, four SEC QBs who saw significant time in 2017 and 2018 achieved that kind of improvement: Franks (1.65), Jake Bentley (0.98), Jarrett Guarantano (0.88) and Kellen Mond (0.84). Perhaps not coincidently, all of those QBs had negative YAR values in 2017.

The reason for this should be fairly obvious. It’s a lot easier to be not terrible than it is to be elite. The jump from average to elite is significantly more difficult.

Were Franks to put up the exact same rushing numbers (110 rush, 350 yards) and have the same number of pass attempts (322), he would need to average 8.7 yards per attempt to achieve a YAR of 1.0. Considering he averaged 7.6 yards per attempt, tacking on more than a yard per attempt would be significant.

You might think this is something Franks can improve just by improving his accuracy. While it is true that his 58.4 percent completion rate could improve, the underlying numbers suggest that still wouldn’t push him anywhere close to 8.7 yards per attempt.

Franks averaged 13.1 yards per completion in 2018. Were he to maintain that average while improving his completion percentage to 64 percent, he would still only average 8.4 yards per attempt. That would bring his YAR up to 0.74, which is very good but still well below Fromm (0.96) and Tagovailoa (3.55).

Where Franks can improve

If we set the goal of a YAR of 1.0, Georgia’s Jake Fromm is a really good comparison.

Fromm had a YAR of 1.07 in 2017 and 0.96 in 2018. That likely was somewhat disappointing for Bulldog fans in 2018, as Fromm only threw the ball 16 more times and averaged the exact same 9.0 yards per attempt. But it is still really, really good QB play that Florida fans would take from Franks in a heartbeat.

So if we’re looking at Fromm versus Franks in 2018, where did Fromm win?

YAR for Jake Fromm and Feleipe Franks in 2018 overall, vs. Top-80 FPI, vs. Top-25 FPI and vs. the SEC. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

The answer is everywhere because Fromm had the better season. But we can understand where Franks can improve by looking at each players’ overall YAR versus his YAR against teams ranked in the top-80 and top-25 of ESPN’s FPI and in SEC play.

What we see is that when you strip away complete cupcake games (FPI less than 80), Franks and Fromm both saw their performance decrease by fairly similar amounts. So anybody who tells you that Franks just padded his stats against Idaho and Charleston Southern and was terrible against other teams isn’t accurate.

But against top-25 opponents – even with the win over Michigan – Franks saw his YAR drop much more than Fromm. And while Franks was well below average against SEC opponents (YAR = -0.65), Fromm was almost the same QB (YAR = 0.80).

This was the inconsistency that Gators fans felt during the 2018 season. You had the Tennessee (YAR = 0.81), Florida State (1.86) and Michigan games (0.91). But you also had the Georgia (YAR = -1.56) and Missouri (-2.85) games as well.

Perhaps there is no stat that better exemplifies this difference between Fromm and Franks than the following:

Feleipe Franks and Jake Fromm yards per completion vs. competition level in 2018. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

Fromm had a much higher completion percentage than Franks in 2018 (67.4 to 58.4). But both QBs had essentially the same average per completion. But for Fromm, that average didn’t change regardless of the competition. Franks saw a marked decrease as the competition got better.

Florida was able to win some of the games where his yards per completion dipped down low (Mississippi State and South Carolina), but two of the Gators losses came in those games as well (Georgia and Missouri).

Three of those games were against top-25 teams according to ESPN’s FPI. It’s probably too much to ask Franks to carry the Gators in those types of games in 2019, but he’s going to have to be more consistent.

Can he do it?

I have to admit that I came into this figuring that it was going to be hard to find examples of QBs who went from average or worse to elite in one season in the SEC. It turns out, it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought.

Improvement of recent SEC QBs who have been drafted into the NFL. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

Admittedly, this is a cherry-picked list of players. But all of these QBs were drafted into the NFL, with Stafford going first overall. And I haven’t had to go back that far to find multiple examples of players who have shown the kind of improvement Florida fans want to see from Franks.

The best-case scenario for Franks would be to mimic Stafford. In his first year, Stafford was thrown into the fire and only averaged 6.8 yards per attempt with a YAR of -0.33. He improved his yards per attempt to 7.3 in year two and then 9.0 in year three.

Franks improved from 6.3 to 7.6 from his first year to his second. If he improves to 9.0 in 2019, Florida is going to compete for the SEC and Franks is going to be a first round draft pick next April.

Will he do it? Well, everyone who has seen Franks play this spring has indicated that he looks like a completely different player, even those who doubted him coming into this offseason.

I’d have to think awhile to come up with a QB whose progressed more than Feleipe Franks. Thought he’d get pushed this spring, I was wrong based off what I saw today.

— Denny Thompson (@denny_thompson) March 14, 2019

Perhaps more encouraging for Gators fans should be that in Mullen’s first season at Florida as offensive coordinator, Chris Leak averaged 7.1 yards per attempt. In year two, Leak averaged 8.1 yards per attempt and improved his YAR by 0.85.

Urban Meyer is sure the Gators have a coach who will get Florida back to championship level.

I asked Urban Meyer tonight how long it would take Mullen to get Florida to the playoff.

Without hesitation:

"Oh, Dan is the right guy" pic.twitter.com/9s2sW3BJ7A

— Ben Murphy (@BenMurphyTV) March 30, 2019

Say what you will about Urban, but the man knows coaching.

And if he’s right, then Feleipe Franks is going to have a huge 2019 season.

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