There was plenty of uncertainty at the Gators QB position heading into this game against Tennessee.
Most Florida fans I knew were anxious to see what he could do with a defense that had prepared for him exclusively.
Tennessee wanted to see what he could do too, as the Vols won the toss and deferred. But they regretted that decision almost immediately as Trask led Florida on a 5-play, 75-yard drive that took 136 seconds.
Trask was unbelievable in the first half, completing 12 of 14 passes for 204 yards (14.6 yards per attempt). By the time the fourth quarter came around, the game was a laugher.
But amidst all of the promise of Trask’s performance, there are a few things that stood out as outstanding and a few that are still nagging at me.
Good: Trask steps up
No honest fan (or analyst) could say they knew what they were getting out of Kyle Trask in his first start.
I broke down his high school film and stats two years ago, and while I saw some really impressive things, I also saw some things to be concerned about.
But if you’d have told me that Trask would have a passer rating of 168.6 and a Yards above Replacement (YAR) of 2.10, I would have told you that Florida would have finally found its quarterback.
And it appears that they may have.
One of the perplexing things about Florida’s offense this year has been its inability to get the ball to tight end Kyle Pitts, who is a match-up nightmare for opposing defenses.
The thing you should notice on this play isn’t that Trask throws a perfect pass to Pitts for the touchdown. It’s that at the snap, the safeties are showing a cover-1 look (they are not lined-up parallel to each other) but after the snap, they spring backwards into a two-deep coverage.
That leaves Pitts in one-on-one coverage against Tennessee linebacker Henry To’o To’o (#11), an obvious mismatch. Easy pitch-and-catch.
On the first drive to open the second half, Trask got what looked like two-deep coverage.
This time though, safety Nigel Warrior (#18) jumps Pitts over the middle. That leaves Freddie Swain (#16) in one-on-one coverage against Tennessee corner Warren Burrell (#4). Again, easy pitch and catch.
Of course, these throws are both easy pitch-and-catch throws because Trask made the correct read against defenses that did something different than their pre-snap alignment indicated.
Florida quarterbacks haven’t done that consistently since Tim Tebow left town.
Bad: Tennessee is really, really bad
I now understand why Tennessee lost to Georgia State. The Volunteers are a really bad football team.
And I don’t just mean that they are physically overmatched. Many of the mistakes they made against Florida were completely unforced.
Case in point: after falling behind 7-0 on that opening drive, Tennessee was driving down the field. Tennessee QB Jarrett Guarantano completed a 5-yard pass to Austin Pope to set up a second-and-5 at the Florida 32-yard line.
But after Pope had been wrapped up, offensive lineman K’Rojhn Calbert hit Florida safety Shawn Davis late. The 15-yard penalty not only stalled the Volunteers drive, but also pushed them out of field goal range.
But that was hardly the only mistake Tennessee made on the day.
On this play, Tennessee wide receiver Jauan Jennings (#15) beats Florida DB Trey Dean (#21) with a jab step to the outside. This is about the easiest red zone touchdown you’ll ever see. Instead, Jennings tips the pass and beyond missing out on the TD, Tennessee didn’t even get a field goal because Dean recovered in time to make the interception.
This is a complete bust by Florida’s defense. Tennessee is in a 5-wide formation, and Florida has both safeties (Brad Stewart and Shawn Davis) shaded to the strong side of the formation.
That means there are three Gators – Marco Wilson (#3), Lacedric Brunson (#34) and Ventrell Miller (#41) – to guard Dominick Wood-Anderson (#4) and Eric Gray (#3), the two Tennessee receivers up top.
I don’t know who’s in the wrong here, but Wilson is playing man coverage while Brunson and Miller are playing zone. The result is that Wood-Anderson runs right past them and is wide (and I mean wide) open for a touchdown.
Guarantano completely misses.
Five plays later, I think Guarantano screwed up again.
I say “I think” because I have no idea what he’s doing here. Florida has two deep safeties, which means Marco Wilson is going to play underneath the receiver. It looks like to me that Guarantano is concerned about a Florida blitz, but there is no blitz. The Gators only rush their front-four.
So he’s throwing a hot read against a zone defense with no blitz coming. That’s never going to turn out well. Or if he was expecting a curl at the sticks, he and his receiver are completely mixed up.
Tennessee was really lucky here, because had Wilson not bobbled the ball, he only had to beat one man to take it the other way for a touchdown.
It’s not an indictment of Florida to have to play a bad Volunteers squad. I just think it means that using this game as a barometer for the rest of the season is misguided.
If anything, the fact that Tennessee was able to stay in the game for as long as it did is a bad sign.
Incomplete: The first half
Kyle Trask was unconscious in the first half. Tennessee wasn’t just shooting itself in the foot, the Vols were shooting themselves in the face.
And yet, Florida was only up 17-0 at the half despite outgaining Tennessee 250 yards to 88, and it was just inches from only being 10-0.
This is quickly becoming a trend for the Gators, as this is what I tweeted during the game against Kentucky.
Florida averaged 8.0 yards per play in the 2nd quarter and scored zero points. That’s really hard to do. If they can stop shooting themselves in the foot, the offense will score.
— Will Miles (@WillMilesSEC) September 15, 2019
Florida averaged 7.4 yards per play in the first half against Tennessee. That should translate to an elite offense. Last year, Alabama was the second best offense in the country averaging 7.4 yards per play and the Tide averaged 45.3 points per game.
The reason Florida’s offense isn’t putting up even close to that kind of scoring is because it is completely one-dimensional.
Mullen ran the ball 19 times in the first half (to 15 passes), but only averaged 2.4 yards per rush. In that second quarter against Kentucky, Mullen ran the ball 6 times (0.8 yards per rush) against 7 passes (14.1 yards per attempt).
The reason Florida’s offense seems inconsistent is because it is. Trask or Franks will complete a 15-yard pass one play and then that is followed up by a couple of one-yard runs. The average yards per play are deceiving because the Gators offense is so feast or famine.
You can get away with that against Tennessee. You can barely get away with it against Miami and Kentucky.
You’re not going to be able to get away with that against LSU, Georgia or maybe even Auburn.
Bad: Turnovers
Florida put away the Vols with a 17-3 second half performance. But this game was way closer than it should have been.
It was closer because of the one thing that can derail really good teams: turnovers.
Trask was great in the first half, but his second-half line was pretty poor.
Florida QB Kyle Trask’s statistics against Tennessee, divided by half. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
Maybe you chalk that up to trying to do too much once his confidence was riding high, and certainly Trask’s line was hurt by a couple of drops. But the fact remains that after the opening drive of the second half, Trask had 10 attempts for 36 yards and two interceptions.
On this play, there’s two-deep coverage again. This time though, Tennessee stays in the coverage. That means that the corner has help deep and can stay underneath, much like the play where Marco Wilson got the interception earlier.
Trask tries to float the ball over the corner and under the safety. Now, if you’re going to make this throw it has to be on a rope. Floating it makes for an easy interception.
But more than that, Florida—already up 24-3—is in field goal range. Josh Hammond (#10) is open coming over the middle. On third-and-13, he isn’t going to get the first down. But he will ensure Florida is solidly in field goal range.
Florida had 14 turnovers last season in 13 games. The Gators already have nine in the first four games this season.’
That is going to have to improve.
Great: 4-0
There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about Florida coming out of this game.
But the fact remains that Florida now sports a 4-0 record, and likely will be 5-0 going into the teeth of its schedule. You couldn’t have asked for more back in August.
The defense is able to be a lockdown force when it wants to be. The Gators surrendered 4.3 yards per play versus Tennessee after giving up 4.6 and 3.9 yards per play against Miami and UT-Martin. The only game where the defense struggled was against Kentucky (5.4 yards per play), but even then it was able to tighten the screws in the fourth quarter to help facilitate the comeback (3.7 yards per play in the fourth).
Add to that the promising last two games for Kyle Trask, and it’s possible that Florida is in a better position than it was heading into the Kentucky game. That is particularly true since it is possible that Jabari Zuniga, C.J. Henderson and potentially even Kadarius Toney could be back for Auburn.
Trask is averaging 10.2 yards per throw in his first five quarters of action. He’ll likely come back to earth a little bit. He came back a little bit in the second-half against Tennessee.
But if the Gators can get any semblance of a running game going at all, this is going to be a really formidable team when Georgia comes calling in Jacksonville.
The McElwain era was characterized by teams that were good, but even Florida fans knew were paper tigers. That was confirmed in his first two years when the Gators finally faced quality opponents and couldn’t compete against FSU or Alabama.
A lot of that was tied to the QB position, which was a definitive weakness with Treon Harris and Austin Appleby under center. With Trask’s emergence (and Franks before him), Florida fans can have some hope that the Gators can at least compete with the big boys.
Will they be underdogs? Absolutely.
But being the underdog makes winning that much sweeter.
Help a fellow Gator
For the most part, Twitter’s biggest use for the past 24 hours has been to troll Central Florida and Tennessee.
But if you are a Gators fan, you may have missed this tweet from a fan named Beth, better known as @_GatorGal.
This is my son, any amount would be greatly appreciated , every retweet will help as well.
Thank you💙🧡https://t.co/Dcyz50c3Ml— 𝖦𝖺𝗍𝗈𝗋𝖦𝖺𝗅 (@_GatorGal) September 20, 2019
You see, Beth’s son – Jason – was just diagnosed with a serious liver disease. He can’t work because of the disease, getting government assistance has been slow and pretty soon he’s going to get cut off by medical providers if he can’t pay some of his bills.
Jason’s story got my attention because there is a history of liver disease in my family, and I recently lost someone way too soon because of it. It also got my attention because Jason is 37 years old and I just turned 38 today.
But mostly it got my attention because of the tone of Beth’s request. She clearly didn’t want to ask for help. But she also clearly would do anything to help her son. I can absolutely relate to that.
People ask me all the time what they can do to support Read and Reaction. Usually, I tell them reading is enough or to buy something from one of my sponsored links.
But today, I’d like to ask you to consider donating to Beth and to Jason. Gators fans like to talk about “in all kinds of weather” and this is a perfect opportunity to display why that mantra means something.
If you can’t donate, please share, and when you do, say a prayer for both Jason and for Beth. Thank you.
You can donate at the GoFundMe site Beth set up here.