It seemed like a bad sign when Gators QB Kyle Trask threw a screen pass to nobody on the opening drive of the game after South Carolina had driven right down the field on its opening drive.
But the Gators dug deep and came out victorious against South Carolina despite its mistakes, missing its starting defensive ends and the rain that clearly affected Trask’s ability to throw the ball.
Florida now heads into its bye week with a 7-1 record, preparing for a Georgia team that is suddenly struggling, and a real opportunity to take a stranglehold of the SEC East.
That opportunity comes because the Gators took control in the fourth quarter against South Carolina to deliver a hard-fought 38-27 win.
Offense
Kyle Trask played pretty poorly in this game.
His yards above replacement (YAR) was -1.65, indicating he was significantly below average. Had you told me coming in that would be the case, I would have been really worried as the passing game was the one place where Florida seemed to have a distinct advantage.
Some of Trask’s performance is attributable to the weather. It was clear that he was having trouble getting zip on his passes with the wet ball. His YAR is also much better than South Carolina’s QB, Ryan Hilinski, who had a YAR of -3.22.
But some of it is regression to the mean. Nobody can maintain the pace he put up in his initial burst against Kentucky, Tennessee and Towson (77% completions, 10.0 yards per attempt). He’s come back to earth in the last three (61% completions, 7.2 yards per attempt), which is still a very good player. It’s just not the dynamic player that was needed against Kentucky.
But the Trask of the early season showed up in the fourth quarter against South Carolina.
After attempting 27 passes for 136 yards (5.0 yards per attempt) in the first three quarters, Trask hit five of six attempts for 64 yards, including three of his four TD passes.
His most important pass during that stretch wasn’t a big TD pass or anything he did with his arm. It was what he did with his legs.
South Carolina linebacker Earnest Jones (#53) has his hand down pre-snap, but drops into coverage at the snap, taking away Trask’s first read (slant to his slot receiver). Trask then gets flushed by Javon Kinlaw and is able to avoid the pressure, reset and deliver the first-down throw to tight end Kyle Pitts.
The next throw was the 25-yard completion to Freddie Swain that put the Gators up for good.
Part of why Trask was able to play hero in the fourth quarter is because of the other thing that is starting to regress towards the mean: the Florida running game.
Nobody will confuse this Gators running game for last year’s edition. But Florida managed to get 150 yards on 30 carries, including the huge 75-yard run from Dameon Pierce.
Two weeks ago against Auburn, Lamical Perine had to break multiple tackles for his long run that put that game away because of missed blocks by the offense line. Pierce had no such issues.
Right guard Brett Heggie (#61) pulls around and delivers a perfect block on South Carolina linebacker T.J. Brunson (#6) to spring Pierce. But also notice how left guard Richard Gouraige (#76) and center Nick Buchanan (#66) drive back defensive tackle Kobe Smith (#95), so much so that Gouraige is then able to engage with linebacker Earnest Jones (#53).
South Carolina safety R.J. Roderick (#10) is all that stands between Pierce and the end zone, and that’s a mismatch.
Watching live, the way you typically know that a running play is blocked correctly is whether the first defender the running back has to make miss is a safety. That was the case on more than one occasion for the Gators on Saturday.
If the other team is going to play a six-man front, you have to make them play. Florida does here, with Heggie (#61) pulling again to pick up Brunson (#6) and this time left tackle Stone Forsythe (#72) getting up to Jones (#53) on the second level.
The running game was by no means perfect. But it provided just enough support to keep the Gators in the game until Trask could really get his footing.
Play Calling
I was at my daughter’s softball game, listening to the game with Mick Hubert as her team warmed up. So the only feedback I got on Florida’s play was on Twitter, where fans were actively questioning Dan Mullen’s play calling.
I think they have a point.
Mullen came out of the chute throwing the ball all over the place (11 passes to 2 runs in the first quarter). On its face, this makes sense because Florida has been so much better through the air in 2019.
But the weather was terrible and Trask was struggling. At some point, an adjustment needed to be made. That adjustment did come in the second quarter, as the Gators ran the ball 11 times against just 3 passes.
But the Gators were back to their pass-happy ways in the third quarter, throwing the ball 11 times against 3 rush attempts.
In the decisive fourth quarter, the Gators rushed the ball 14 times against 6 passes, although many of those runs were trying to run out the clock.
But I think there is some valuable information we can glean from these splits. Trask averaged 5.2 and 2.1 yards per attempt in the first and third quarters. He averaged 9.4 and 10.7 in the second and fourth quarters.
Clearly his effectiveness went up when Florida was willing to give the ball to its backs.
But that isn’t a one-game trend.
Florida play distribution and yards on scoring vs. non-scoring drives vs. LSU and South Carolina. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
In the last two games, Florida has had 10 scoring drives. On those drives, the Gators have run the ball five times more than they have thrown it.
In those same two games, Florida has had 15 non-scoring drives, and have thrown the ball 22 more times than they have run it.
Yes, much of Florida’s yardage against South Carolina on the ground came on the one Pierce run. But the running game was effective not just because of yardage gained, but because it opened up the passing windows for Trask just a little bit.
Georgia is struggling right now, but they’re still a good team. Mullen would be wise to stick to the run – even when it’s not working – against the Bulldogs to help his quarterback.
Defense
The Florida defense was back to what it’s been all other games except for LSU: inconsistent.
Even when it was ranking in the top-20 statistically, the Gators defense was susceptible to drives where it looked pedestrian. It was also capable of being a shut-down unit for significant stretches of the game (-2 yards in the third quarter vs. Miami, the fourth quarter against Kentucky, Bo Nix).
The one thing that has changed in the last two games is how susceptible the Gators are to big plays on the ground.
The Gators defense has now surrendered 35 explosive plays (20+ yards), 12 on the ground and 23 through the air. But seven of those explosive rushing plays have come in the last two games, including four against South Carolina.
Some of that is because of the absence of Jonathan Greenard and Jabari Zuniga. But there are other issues as well.
Typically in a 3-4 defensive scheme, it isn’t critical that you get push from your defensive tackles. What is critical is that the defensive tackles occupy blockers and don’t allow them to get to the linebackers. The more offensive lineman the DTs can occupy, the more the linebackers can roam free and make tackles.
On this play, DT Tedarrell Slaton (#56) gets pushed back five yards at the snap. That means that both linebackers (Ventrell Miller, #51 and James Houston, #41) get blocked by offensive linemen. Safety Donovan Stiner (#13) takes a poor angle and it ends up a big play.
This wasn’t an isolated incident.
Here, Slaton (#56) gets pancaked by the right guard. South Carolina is then able to get an offensive lineman on both linebackers again, this time with left tackle Sadarius Hutcherson (#50) on David Reese (#33) and center Donell Stanley (#72) on Ventrell Miller (#51).
This time, Stiner (#13) funnels the running back towards the inside and Miller does a really nice job fighting off the block from Stanley to make the tackle, but it’s still an 8-yard gain.
Once Florida started getting beat up-front, the Gators started guessing.
On this play, Jeremiah Moon (#7) jumps to the left right into David Reese’s (#33) gap. It doesn’t look like a stunt though because Moon doesn’t rush the passer and DT Marlon Dunlap (#91) just rushes straight. The result is that the draw goes right into Moon’s gap, and Moon, Dunlap and Reese all run into each other.
The linebackers got into the act as well.
On this play, the defensive line actually gets a little bit of a push. Ventrell Miller (#51) comes in and takes on the pulling guard the way he is supposed to. But David Reese (#33) tries to run around the offensive lineman assigned to him (Jaylen Nichols, #52) and the back cuts back inside where Reese would have been.
Because Reese jumps around Nichols, it doesn’t slow down the running back Feaster. Stiner properly forces him back to the inside and Amari Burney (#30) but is unable to make the tackle, and South Carolina again has a big gain.
Zuniga and Greenard are going to make a big difference when they get back. If nothing else, they significantly extend the defensive line rotation to keep players fresh and allow those who aren’t playing well to be removed.
But to pretend that they are going to fix all of these issues is probably foolish. If the Gators don’t get better push up the middle and stay in their gaps, big plays in the running game are going to continue to be a problem.
Takeaway
Every win is important in the SEC. To win by 11 points on the road against a South Carolina team that shocked Georgia the week prior is a big deal.
As much as I harped on the defense against the run up above, the Gators still forced five 3-and-outs and held South Carolina to 14 yards passing in the second and third quarters combined.
You’ll hear some complaining from South Carolina fans about the officials in this game. The only place I can see any complaint is on the offensive pass interference no-call on the TD throw to Pitts. The officials missed that one.
But they missed a bunch against Florida too. And Florida was already ahead 24-20 at that point. Push them back with the penalty and they’re still up a touchdown with seven minutes to go. I’d take my chances with that scenario.
So Florida heads into the bye week with a 7-1 record, ranked seventh in the country, with the only blemish being a road loss to a very good LSU team.
In Miami, Manny Diaz is talking about having to rebuild a program that he was a part of last season. In Tallahassee, Willie Taggart is icing his own kicker on potential game-winning kicks, along with overseeing whatever this was to end the game.
And we have Georgia, the supposed SEC East juggernaut, losing at home to South Carolina and struggling against a Kentucky team with a wide receiver playing QB.
Meanwhile, Florida now has two weeks to prepare for a game that likely means either a trip to the Outback Bowl or a birth in the SEC Championship Game.
Eight games in, that’s all you could have asked for.