Bo Nix, Kyle Trask, and the keys to a Florida win over Auburn

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Auburn comes to Gainesville this weekend for a matchup of top-10 teams.

The Tigers come in following wins against Oregon, Texas A&M and an annihilation of Mississippi State and plenty of national respect.

The Gators come in seeking that level of respect, having dropped below 3-1 Notre Dame in the polls despite winning against Towson.

Florida’s wins against Power-5 opponents Miami, Kentucky and Tennessee have been underwhelming, either overall or because of the opponent. But it’s easy to look at the 24-20 score against Miami and assume that Florida struggled, as opposed to dominating despite turnovers that kept the Hurricanes in the game.

And it’s also easy to look at Kentucky missing a game-winning 35-yard field goal and overlook that Florida stormed back from 11 points down in the fourth quarter to force that attempt.

It’s also easy to look at the two shutouts against FCS opponents and assume that the Gators 5-0 record is a mirage that is about to be exposed.

But if Auburn comes into the game with that attitude, I think the Tigers may be in for a rude awakening.

Overall

Auburn had a great game against Mississippi State.

But it’s easy to look at one game and assume linear improvement that will be sustainable, when that rarely happens. Mississippi State is the best that this Auburn team can play. The likelihood that the Tigers will play that well again is low.

That doesn’t mean that Auburn will play poorly. What it means is that the Tigers will likely play more like its overall season resume than its elite one-week performance.

That is a really good team. Their top-10 record is earned. But the idea that the win over Mississippi State is representative is why Auburn is favored in the Swamp. Had that game been similar to the 28-20 win over Texas A&M, analysts would be picking the Gators.

The reason for that is simple. Florida is a really good team too.

In fact, when we look at where Florida ranks in yards per play against FBS opponents, the Gators grade out better than Auburn on both sides of the ball. While it is true that Auburn has played better opponents, this still points to this matchup being more even than most might think.

Despite Florida ranking significantly better than Auburn on a yards per play basis offensively, the Tigers have been far more effective at turning those into points, averaging 38 points per game to 29 for the Gators against FBS opponents.

The biggest reason for that disparity is that in those games, Auburn has turned the ball over an average of 1.4 times but the Gators have turned it over 3.0 times per game.

• The two fumbles against Miami were in the red zone and likely cost the Gators touchdowns.
• The fumble against Kentucky came deep in Wildcat territory after an explosive play to Van Jefferson and the Gators had two touchdown runs by Franks called back by holding.
• The two interceptions against Tennessee came in Volunteer territory, one in the Vol end zone.

The Gators averaged 5.5 yards per play against Miami, then 7.7 against Kentucky and 6.2 against Tennessee. They have a top-20 offense, but just haven’t been able to punch the ball in because of mistakes.

If they can clean up those mistakes, they are going to score, even against Auburn’s defense.

That’s further accentuated by where Auburn’s strengths are on the defensive line.

The Tigers have 34 tackles for loss this season but only 13 sacks. Compare that to the Gators who have 40 TFL and 24 sacks. That indicates that Auburn is getting penetration in the running game far more often than they are terrorizing the QB.

Florida has struggled running the ball all season. To expect that to change against Auburn is likely foolish. But one thing we haven’t seen is Kyle Trask have to deal with significant amounts of pressure. That’s also unlikely to occur in this one, at least to a significant degree.

Conversely, Bo Nix has been sacked only six times. Some of that is because he doesn’t throw the ball that much. Some of it is because Auburn has a short passing game. Some of that is because Auburn uses a ton of misdirection to get the defense out of position.

Likely Florida will struggle getting to Nix. The question I have is whether that is significant.?

Quarterbacks

After the opening drive of the second half in Auburn’s demolition of Mississippi State last week, ESPN posted a stat that got my attention.

So the question that’s really going to determine this game is whether Bo Nix found his footing against Mississippi State or whether he’s more the QB on the left hand side of the chart?

Last season, I wrote about highly rated true freshmen QBs who started early, trying to understand what Gators fans might be able to glean should Dan Mullen have decided to start Emory Jones. Obviously Mullen didn’t decide to start Jones, but what if we apply those findings to Nix?

One takeaway from that article was that the completion percentages of the QBs who started early after three games tracked well with their completion percentage for the year. Even after the Mississippi State win, Nix is only completing 57.6 percent of his passes five games in.

The other thing I’ve written about extensively is how completion percentage translates from high school to college, particularly a players’ senior year of high school. Well, here are Nix’ high school stats.

Nix was a really good quarterback in high school, but he wasn’t an accurate one.  He also didn’t throw the ball downfield very much, as he only averaged 8.5 yards per attempt, both for his career and for his senior season.

Compare these numbers to injured Gators QB Feleipe Franks, who had a completion percentage of 58.9% and a 12.0 yard per attempt average his senior season in high school.

This doesn’t mean Nix can’t be an effective QB. Clearly he can be. But I do think that the underlying numbers suggest that he is more the inaccurate QB who showed up the first five games of the season than the guy who torched Mississippi State.

Overall, his yards above replacement (YAR) is 0.75, indicating a very good QB. But that is skewed by a near perfect performance against Mississippi State (YAR = 7.64!). He had a YAR of 1.82 against Kent State but was significantly below average against Oregon (-0.85), Tulane (-1.47) and Texas A&M (-1.47).

Nix can be really special. But he’s also been inconsistent thus far in 2019.

Conversely, in his first three games of action, Kyle Trask has played great, but he’s also been really consistent.

If we look at Trask’s YAR, he has been significantly above average in all of the games that he has played. And if you dismiss his time against UT-Martin and Towson, he played better against SEC opponents. The fact that one of those was coming in cold down 11 points on the road is another feather in his cap.

Trask has completed 77.3 percent of his passes, which is otherworldly. Likely, that comes back to earth somewhat, but I still expect him to complete about 65 percent of his passes for the rest of the year.

I say that because we can look to Trask’s high school stats as well. It is true that he had limited time playing behind D’eriq King (64 attempts his senior season), but he completed 73.4 percent of those throws for an 11.9 yard per attempt average.

It is true that this is going to be Trask’s biggest challenge. But Auburn has been more inconsistent stopping QBs thus far in 2019 than you might expect at first glance.

Overall, QBs have been below average against Auburn (-0.54 YAR). But two times, QBs played above average against the Tigers. Some of that is because of garbage time numbers, as these were both blowout wins, but I don’t think that completely explains things.

After all, Florida has had multiple blowout wins this season, yet the Gators have kept every QB to a negative YAR.

Even in the Kentucky game – when Sawyer Smith looked like Dan Marino in the first half – Florida was able to put the clamps down in the second half.

The result is that Florida’s defense has been twice as good at stopping the opposing QB than Auburn. And that is with a bunch of missing starters who are going to be back on the field against the Tigers.

Mississippi State outlier

So what happened against Mississippi State that led to the explosion by Nix in that particular game?

Well, the first thing to do is to look at the context of the game.

The Tigers had a short field on their opening drive thanks to an excellent punt return and JarTarvious Whitlow busted a 30-yard run for a touchdown.

The next drive started at midfield after another good punt return, Nix went 1-2 for 22 yards with a nice throw against a zone, and the Tigers ran three times for 25 yards to punch the ball in for a touchdown.

The third drive started at Mississippi State’s 18-yard line after a fumble on the kickoff. Nix just handed the ball off twice and Auburn had a touchdown to go up 21-0.

So yes, Nix played really well. His stat line looks fantastic. But when the Tigers had basically put the game away, his stat line was 1-2 for 22 yards passing and 1 rush for 9 yards.

At that point, it looks like Mississippi State kind of gave up.

On this play, I’m not sure what the coverage is. I’m not sure the corner knows either, as he plays as though he doesn’t have any deep support, but that leaves the receiver wide (and I mean wide) open over the middle. Nix has to make the throw, but he should make this throw 100 percent of the time.

This play is a completely busted coverage. The corner and safety both take the short receiver while nobody picks up Seth Williams. Again, Williams is wide open and you have to credit Nix with hitting him in stride. But when players are open by 15 yards, the QB is supposed to make that throw.

This is a heck of a throw. Nix hits Schwartz right in stride after he torches the corner. But Mississippi State blitzes its corner even though he is playing off the receiver. He wouldn’t have gotten to Nix in time even had he been unblocked. This is schematically terrible on defense as it has no prayer of getting home and leaves the corner exposed.

Takeaway

Nobody can deny that Nix played great against Mississippi State.

But I do think it’s a fair question to ask whether he would have played as well had the game been 21-21 when he started firing rather than special teams, turnovers and his running game spotting him 21 points early.

He’s going to get an opportunity to prove it against Florida, because while the Gators have struggled on some third-and-longs this year, the Gators have also played at an elite level when it was absolutely needed (-2 yards allowed versus Miami in the third quarter, 3.7 yards per play vs. Kentucky in the fourth).

If I’m worried about anything against Auburn, it isn’t Nix. It’s this.

Anthony Schwartz has elite level speed. Nix’ running ability opens up this kind of misdirection in a way that a less mobile QB cannot. You may get frustrated as a Florida fan if Nix rips off a couple of 10-yard runs. Don’t be.

The thing that Grantham’s defense needs to prevent is giving up a couple of runs to Nix and then overpursuing and allowing Schwartz to hit the home run around the edge. Watch to see if Florida linebackers Amari Burney and Ventrell Miller are in position when Auburn gives the ball to Schwartz. If not, Auburn is going to have some explosive plays.

On the offensive side of the ball, Florida is again going to struggle to run the ball. This probably will have less to do with Auburn than it does with the Florida offensive line.

But Auburn hasn’t really pressured the QB at an elite level this season and Florida has done a pretty good job of protecting its QB this season.

Conversely, Florida’s defense has gotten after the QB this season and is getting Jabari Zuniga back to pair with Jonathan Greenard. They may lose contain on Nix a couple of times, but I also expect them to harass him into a mistake or two.

Because that’s what happens when true freshmen come in to play in the Swamp. Nix has averaged 5.4 yards per attempt on the road thus far this year versus 9.5 yards per attempt at home. If Florida can hold up against the run and force Nix to beat them through the air, I like their chances.

Additionally, Kyle Trask has thus far looked like he may be an elite-level QB, even without a running game. To be sure, Auburn is a significant step-up in competition. There is a world where the Tigers put a ton of pressure on Trask and he turns into a turnover machine.

But he’s done nothing but be consistent with his chances thus far in 2019. The Gators have outscored their opponents 91-3 ever since he came in against Kentucky. The offense looks different and has a different pace with him in the game, and he is quickly making the right read and getting the ball in the hands of his playmakers.

The question with Trask – much like it is with Nix – is whether his opening salvo is for real. Without much of a running game, he’s going to have an opportunity to prove it.

I’ve spent a ton of time watching his film. I think he’s for real.

Florida (+3.5) wins, 34-21.

Picks this year: 5-0, 2-2-1 ATS

Featured image used via Creative Commons license courtesy stephenjohnbryde