Why the film says Feleipe Franks may give Gators fans an aerial show in 2019

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The Florida passing game averaged 7.3 yards per attempt in 2018, which ranked 71st against FBS opponents.

There are likely many reasons for this, but the biggest reason comes from a breakdown I did of every throw Feleipe Franks threw in 2018.

Franks was less accurate in every area when the Gators lost in 2018. But he really struggled when throwing the ball downfield. However, if we look at the last three games against FBS opponents (South Carolina, Florida State, and Michigan), Franks was much more accurate down the field while basically matching his accuracy near the line.

The question we should ask then is whether those last three games are representative of growth in Franks’ game or whether it is an outlier compared to the longer season?

Offensive Execution

Florida’s offense is predicated on numbers.

If the defense plays two deep safeties, the Gators run the ball. If the defense plays one or zero deep safeties, the Gators need to make the defense pay through the passing game.

Early in the season, this was an issue. Kentucky is playing a single high safety. His responsibility is typically deep in the middle of the field. That’s where Franks throws the ball. Additionally, Franks locks onto his slot receiver. That’s where he was going with the ball regardless, even though he had single coverage to either of his outside receivers.

Note how he also lofted the ball a bit on this throw, giving the safety time to get back into position. When given a similar look later in the season, Franks didn’t make the same mistake.

This is why Franks is going to get drafted. Georgia safety Richard LeCounte (#2) takes one step towards the outside receiver, and it’s just enough for Franks to get the ball over him to Swain.

It’s a great throw. But is it the right one? I’m not sure that it is.

I’ve looked pretty extensively at correlating completion percentage from high school to college. The conclusion was that there is a pretty strong correlation. I posited that this likely is because completion percentage has less to do with accuracy and more with throwing the ball to the right (i.e. single coverage) receiver.

One thing you notice with Franks – especially early in the year – is that he was often trying to fit the ball into tight spots on throws downfield.

Improvement in the passing game

Statistically, the Florida passing game didn’t begin to show improvement until the South Carolina game. So what did he start to do that he wasn’t doing earlier in the year?

This is actually a tricky defense to read. The safeties are offset at the snap, indicating that J.R. Reed (#20) will have deep center responsibilities. It’s pretty clear this is the case because the other safety (Richard LeCounte, #2) has deep responsibilities for tight end C’yontai Lewis.

You can see this better with a still image. Lewis (yellow arrow) is open in the zone between LeCounte and the underneath linebacker. But the fact that LeCounte is on Lewis means that Reed’s responsibility is to rotate over to help on Grimes (circled). That means that Franks has a shot to hit Van Jefferson (#12) in one-on-one coverage at the bottom of the screen.

Franks actually did the same thing the next week against Missouri. That time he had Josh Hammond open in a zone behind a linebacker and in front of a safety but Franks checked down to Jordan Scarlett for a minimal gain.

But that started to change against South Carolina.

The thing that caught my attention here  is that it is a beautiful throw over the linebacker and in front of the safety against a very similar coverage. The fact that the throw has so much zip on it makes it even more impressive. Also, you can’t see it on this clip but Toney was running the same post that Grimes ran in the play against Georgia.

Whether it was shushing the crowd or getting benched against Missouri, Franks finally let the throw go.

Then there was this throw against Michigan in the Peach Bowl.

Jefferson has a couple of steps on his defender and this is a pretty easy pitch-and-catch. But I think that’s the key word – easy. It’s easy because the safety is late coming over to help. And why was he late?

He’s late because at the snap, Franks is looking to his right holding the safety in place. He knew where this ball was going before the snap but his job was to verify the coverage while looking off the safety. That’s not something he was doing against Kentucky.

The other place where Franks improved was the anticipation on his throws. In the Kentucky example from above, he may have been able to fit the ball in had he just thrown it a beat earlier. He had to put extra gas on the throw against Georgia to fit it in. But it showed up in other ways too.

On this play, Franks has Grimes open in one-on-one coverage. Missouri sold out on third-and-1 and is in a zero-coverage defense (no deep safety help). But Franks gives the ball a couple of extra pats waiting for Grimes to get separation instead of trusting that he’ll get it.

The result is that once the ball comes Grimes’ way, he’s converging on the other receiver in the route. The ball is behind Grimes. But had Franks led Grimes properly, would the other defensive back been able to peel over and break up the throw? Plus, it’s harder to be accurate 30 yards down the field than 15. That ball has to be out before Grimes gets out of the field of view for this play.

Again, we see that Franks was able to anticipate his receivers coming open much better against Michigan.

How is C’yontai Lewis so open on this play? Franks is about to get hit by the Michigan blitz. And if we look at a still shot of the play right before Franks makes the decision to throw, here’s what you see.

Franks recognizes that based on the positioning of linebacker Josh Ross (#12) that there is no way he’ll be able to swing his hips to stay with Lewis. The fact that Ross and defensive back Josh Metellus (#14) double-team Lamical Perine (playing WR here) means that Lewis is wide open.

You could even see that anticipation starting to take hold in the Missouri game if you look close enough.

Here Franks recognizes one-on-one coverage against Toney on the outside. He then throws Toney open with a back shoulder throw. There are only two outcomes on this throw. Either Toney catches the ball for a 27-yard gain or it is a harmless incompletion. Wait one more tick and the defensive back has time to recover.

Takeaway

Is Franks a finished product? Absolutely not.

He could certainly use some work on his acting.

But I think his development is perhaps illustrated the most by this play against Michigan. It isn’t pretty and looks really awkward, but I think it shows a lot of reason for encouragement.

The first question is, why does the throw look so awkward? I think it’s because Franks was about to pull the ball down and run. You see him make a move like he’s about to leave the pocket but then he decides to stay.

So why did he decide to stay? Well, he realizes that he has Hammond one-on-one against the Michigan safety with the entire field in front of him.

Everything about this throw from a visual standpoint is terrible. It is a duck thrown after a weird hitch. Hammond has to wait and gets tackled because of it. But Hammond is able to wait because he is wide open.

And that’s the theme that you see if you watch the downfield throws in the last three games against FBS opponents for Franks last year. It wasn’t just that he went 15-28 on throws more than ten yards down the field (after going 32-93 in the first 9 games).

It is not a coincidence that the Florida offense in 2018 averaged 3.8 explosive plays per game (20+ yards) for the first nine games and then averaged 7.3 over the last four.

His yards above replacement (YAR) for those games against South Carolina, FSU and Michigan was 0.86. That would’ve been fourth best in the SEC behind Tua Tagovailoa (3.55!), Jordan Ta’amu (1.51) and Jake Fromm (0.95). If you prefer more mainstream numbers, Franks had a completion percentage of 56 percent through the Missouri game and 63 percent from then on (subtracting Idaho).

He was a different QB. And the difference was that in the vast majority of the cases, he was targeting one-on-one matchups and throwing to wide open receivers rather than trying to fit the ball into tight spaces.

That has very little to do with what we traditionally think of as accuracy. This has to do with reading the defense correctly and delivering the ball to a receiver where you have much more margin for error.

And when you have a cannon like Franks, widening that margin of error is going to mean a lot of big plays in 2019.

Featured image used under Creative Commons license courtesy Ardi Kidd