The 1-2 Tennessee Volunteers come calling in the Swamp this Saturday.
This should be a cakewalk, right? After all, Tennessee’s only win is over an FCS opponent and the Vols lost to BYU and in embarrassing fashion to Georgia State.
Florida could have easily folded. On the road, down 11 and without its leader, Kyle Trask stepped into the fray and delivered in a big way.
But now Tennessee has tape on Trask. The question is, will that be enough for the Volunteers to overcome their own shortcomings.
Tennessee
When looking at these two teams, Florida is clearly better, but the difference isn’t quite as big as you’d expect.
If we eliminate the cupcake games – both 45-0 wins – Tennessee has scored 56 points and surrendered 67, which equates to a 5-win team. But Florida has only scored 53 points and given up 41, which points towards a 7-8 win team.
Of course, Florida’s two games were against Miami and Kentucky while Tennessee’s were against BYU and Georgia State so it’s understandable that Florida’s score differential might be less impressive than Tennessee’s.
The real differentiator is at quarterback.
While we know very little about Kyle Trask, we know a lot about Tennessee starter Jarrett Guarantano. Guarantano is now a third-year starter and his stats look pretty good (66% completion for 8.3 yards per attempt). But that’s before you eliminate his performance against Chattanooga (7-8, 142 yards and 3 TD).
2018 and 2019 statistics for Tennessee QB Jarrett Guarantano. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
If you include the Chattanooga game, Guarantano has been slightly above average. But when you take that game away, he has been really bad. In fact, he’s been worse than he was in 2018, when Tennessee averaged 22.8 yards per game.
This should be really worrisome for Tennessee fans, because the offensive line has been much better in 2019.
Football Outsiders has advanced metrics for offensive lines that they now publish for college teams.
Tennessee’s OL rankings according to Football Outsiders in 2018 and 2019. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
You can go read the descriptions of what each of these statistics mean in further detail if you want, but suffice it to say that Tennessee’s line was terrible in 2018 and is at least serviceable in 2019. That’s normally a good thing.
But if the line is better and Guarantano is still playing poorly, what does that say about his ability to overcome a better team like Florida?
Florida
But in my opinion, this game is much more about Florida than it is about Tennessee.
The Gators should win, and win easily, but there are so many unanswered questions going in. Will Kyle Trask turn into a pumpkin after his unbelievable performance versus Kentucky? Will C.J. Henderson or Jabari Zuniga be out due to injury?
And perhaps most importantly, will Florida be able to get its running game going?
The Gators are averaging 3.6 yards per attempt against FBS opponents, which is ranked 91st. Those same Football Outsiders stats indicate the Gators line has been worse than that. And after looking at the film, it’s easy to see why.
It’s not always the entire line, but it seems like on every play there is at least one lineman who isn’t able to execute his assignment.
On this play right tackle Jean Delance (#56) pulls and has responsibility for Kentucky linebacker Deandre Square (#17). Square is able to slide away from Delance and force Lamical Perine (#2) back towards his safety help. Had Delance been able to turn Square to his left instead, there was a huge hole for Perine to run through so long as he didn’t get caught by defensive lineman Josh Paschal (#4).
On this play, Delance steps on right guard Chris Bleich’s foot as he tries to pull. Bleich (#67) stumbles and it slows down Perine, who has to put his hand on Bleich’s back as he tries to read where the hole will be.
On this play, Brett Heggie (#61) is blown 2-yards back behind the line of scrimmage by Kentucky defensive end Calvin Taylor (#91). Taylor then proceeds to shed the block and make the tackle on the pitch. Heggie was the most obvious culprit here, but even if he had blocked this one perfectly, the play wasn’t going anywhere.
Even when Florida got a few yards on the ground, it wasn’t necessarily because of the line.
This was the longest run by a running back in the entire game (8 yards!). But if we look closely, running back Dameon Pierce (#27) has to shed a tackle within a yard of the line of scrimmage because Heggie gets tossed aside by Taylor. This could have easily been a 2-yard gain if not for the individual effort by Pierce.
The problem is not just that Florida ends up in a lot of second-and-8 situations. Florida’s offense is predicated on getting the defense to commit an extra safety into the box to open up the passing game. When that isn’t necessary, this is the kind of thing that happens.
Kentucky has five men in the box. This is a defense that is begging to be run against. Instead, Florida tries a throw in the flat to Malik Davis to get him into space.
The play is blown up by Paschal (#4) on a great individual play as you expect him to rush the QB. But the fact that Florida didn’t run the ball here is a red flag because this is the type of front that Florida ran all over last season.
And if the opposition only has to have five men in the box, they can drop more defenders into coverage. This closes the windows that Kyle Trask will have to throw in between.
Here, Kentucky is in a 3-2-6 alignment. They rush four and play zone coverage behind it. Bleich (#67) gets driven back into Trask and he nearly throws an interception over the middle to the dropping linebacker, one of the five men who started in the box.
By this point, Kentucky wasn’t honoring the running game at all. You could really see that on the two-point conversion attempt after the touchdown that brought Florida to within 5 points.
Linebacker Jamar Watson (#31) nearly intercepts this pass. But Watson is in the throwing lane because Kentucky drops linebacker Kash Daniel (#56) immediately into coverage. This is a really difficult read for the QB for two reasons. First, it happens so fast that he has to process the linebacker dropping really quickly. But second, you don’t expect the defense to drop the linebacker because he needs to be up to protect against the run.
But it shouldn’t be a surprise that Kentucky was playing the pass. Mullen abandoned it the minute Trask came in the game.
If you eliminate the final drive when Florida was trying to run out the clock, Florida had 13 passes to 5 runs after Trask entered the game. It’s actually more skewed than that though because Trask threw a 14th time where a pass interference penalty was called and was also sacked on a pass attempt that was overturned because of a targeting penalty.
This was isolated to Trask, as excluding the kneel down at the end of the half, the offense had 18 runs and 18 passes with Franks in the game.
Part of that is because Florida was behind and needed to throw to get back in the game. But part of it was that Mullen clearly decided to put the game in Trask’s hands and Kentucky was happy to oblige.
Trask played great. But I do think it’s worth mentioning that Kentucky’s coverages were really, really bland. On his 14 pass attempts (counting the pass interference play), Kentucky played zone 11 times and rushed four defenders 9 times. Trask went 9-11 for 126 yards against the zone coverage.
Trask makes a good throw here. But Kentucky doesn’t have a defender within 10 yards of Van Jefferson. How they busted a zone coverage I’m not quite sure, but this is a throw a QB should make 100 out of 100 times.
When Kentucky ramped up the pressure a little bit though, Trask saw it coming and got rid of the ball quickly.
This is a little bit worrisome to me though. It’s good that Trask saw pressure and threw quickly. But Kentucky is sitting on short routes while bringing an extra man. Had the ball not been tipped, defensive back M.J. Devonshire (#36) may have been able to undercut the route.
Why the Wildcats didn’t play this style of defense more often escapes me. Yes, they had already lost safety Yusuf Corker to targeting, but they basically gave Trask the same look and he continually beat them.
I doubt Tennessee will do the same.
Were I Jeremy Pruitt, I would play a bunch of man-under cover-2. That coverage essentially is man coverage but with two high safeties to help out. It allows the defensive backs to take some chances they otherwise wouldn’t.
Quarterbacks are taught to check to a run if they see that coverage. But that could be an issue given the Gators problems running the ball.
Takeaway
Florida should win this game fairly easily. The Gators are more talented, more experienced and more tested.
But the only place where that isn’t true is at the quarterback position. Luckily for Florida, experience for Jarrett Guarantano has not led to a significant uptick in performance.
Tennessee has proven to be able to run the ball much better in 2019 than last season. That alone will likely keep the game closer than the oddsmakers think (Florida favored by 14).
Lots of fans likely want Florida to come out chucking the ball all over the place. But the reality is that this team isn’t going anywhere long-term if it can’t get the running game going. If things aren’t any better against Tennessee on the ground, it’s time to get worried.
I expect Florida to have focused on the running game this week, including the incorporation of some misdirection to help the offensive line a little bit. I also expect Mullen to really push being able to run the ball. The question is, will they be able to do it.
They’re going to have to, because as well as Trask played last week, you don’t want to be relying on that kind of performance every week. He’s young, and at some point is going to throw a costly interception if the ball is put in his hands too much.
But at home, knowing they need to get the job done for their back-up QB, I expect the offensive line to be at least serviceable. That may not be enough in a few weeks, but against Tennessee it will be.
Florida (-14) wins, 24-17.
Picks this season: 3-0, 1-1-1 ATS