It’s put up or shut up time for both Georgia and Florida in the 2019 Cocktail Party

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This may be the most significant SEC East game in over a decade.

If Georgia wins, the Bulldogs’ playoff hopes stay alive and they take control of the division, albeit with games still against Auburn and Texas A&M to come. A Florida win not only gives them a two-game lead on the Bulldogs but a leg up on the only competition left for the East at that point: Missouri.

For Kirby Smart, the ghosts of coming up short against Alabama in 2018 and 2019 are starting to show again. His coaching in the loss against South Carolina was an abomination, Jake Fromm may be gone after this year and Justin Fields is not waiting in the wings for 2020.

For Dan Mullen, this is a veteran-heavy group. While not everyone will leave, 19 of the Gators 22 starters will be draft-eligible, including nine seniors. Because recruiting at Florida has been good-but-not-great under Jim McElwain and in some respects, Mullen himself, that level of experience matters.

Back in 2001, Mark Richt took over at Georgia just as Steve Spurrier left the Florida program. Richt had an average first year (8-4), a fantastic second year (13-1, SEC Championship) and a good third year (11-3, lost SEC Championship Game). Florida was down at the time – although the Gators kept beating Georgia – with Ron Zook at the helm.

Florida brought in Urban Meyer, who beat Georgia with a struggling offense in 2005 in the Billy Latsko game and started immediately battling Georgia for supremacy. The Gators won SEC and National Championships in 2006 and 2008, while Georgia finished second in the country in 2007.

The game will tell us whether history will repeat itself.

Smart comes into this game with an average first year, a fantastic second year (National Championship runner-up) and a good third year (lost SEC Championship Game).  I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that this is Mullen’s chance to announce that Georgia is going to have to start going through Florida as opposed to just Alabama from this point forward.

The question is whether the Gators have enough to get the victory.

Overall

Initially, this looks like a pretty significant mismatch in Georgia’s favor.

Offensively, Georgia ranks 10th in yards per play gained while Florida ranks just 51st. And on defense, Georgia ranks 6thin the same metric while Florida ranks 45th. It is absolutely true that Georgia has been statistically better than Florida thus far in 2019.

But there are a few caveats that we need to consider.

On offense, Florida has had to completely revamp its offensive line in 2019 as well as change gears with a backup QB after the loss of Feleipe Franks to injury. Throw in the injury to wide receiver Kadarius Toney and the Gators have been running a considerably different version of Dan Mullen’s offense than they expected coming out of camp.

On defense, the Gators haven’t been at full-strength since the second game against UT-Martin when C.J. Henderson suffered an ankle injury, followed by Jabari Zuniga being injured early against Kentucky. Throw in the injury to Jonathan Greenard that kept him out against LSU and South Carolina and we haven’t really seen the Gators at full strength since the opener against Miami (10 sacks).

As for Georgia, the Bulldogs haven’t really been tested because of their schedule strength.

Yes, Georgia beat Notre Dame, but that was a home game and a six-point win that could have gone either way. Even if we include the Irish, Georgia’s FBS opponents have a 21-25 record and the best defense they have faced is ranked 34th in yards per play allowed.

Compare that to Florida. The Gators have faced three defenses ranked in the top-21 (Miami, Auburn and LSU) in yards per play allowed. Their opponents have a cumulative 28-20 record. They have averaged 30.1 points per game on offense and 22.0 points per game on defense, compared to 25.4 and 26.3 for Georgia’s opponents, respectively.

This could be excused if Georgia was dominating its opponents, but they haven’t really been any more impressive against common opponents than the Gators. Florida and Georgia have both faced South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee. Georgia has outscored those three by 47 points. Florida has outscored them by 50.

Sometimes scoring margin can be deceiving, but that isn’t the case here.

This chart looks at the differential between yards per play gained and yards per play allowed against a given opponent. Basically, the larger the number, the better the team played against its opponent.

What that means is that Florida outplayed both Kentucky and South Carolina by a wider margin than Georgia did. The game against Tennessee goes slightly to Georgia, but the fact that they were both blowouts makes that difference pretty negligible.

The other thing to take into account is that in each of these three games, Georgia has faced at least the backup QB.

Against Tennessee, the Bulldogs caught Brian Maurer’s first career start. They knocked out South Carolina’s backup QB (Ryan Hilinski) and wound up losing to third-stringer Dakereon Joyner. And Kentucky played a wide receiver at QB due to all of its injuries at the position.

All of this to say that it’s easy to look at the overall rankings of these teams and think that it’s a giant mismatch. But when you dig deeper, that mismatch is exacerbated on paper because Florida has been taking on Auburn and LSU while Georgia has been playing Vanderbilt and severely wounded opponents.

Of course, this game isn’t going to come down to who these teams have played in the past. It’s going to come down to the matchups.

Georgia offense vs. Florida defense

Typically, you might think that stopping the Georgia offense centers around stopping Jake Fromm. But I don’t think that’s the case.

The Bulldogs are just average through the air (49th in yards per attempt) versus elite on the ground (5th in yards per rush). That means that to stop Georgia, Florida is going to have to contain D’Andre Swift.

Note that I didn’t say stopping Swift. Even in the loss to South Carolina, Swift still had 23 carries for 113 yards. That’s a really good day at the office for a running back, but for a player averaging 6.8 yards per rush this season, that’s a significant step back. In the other close game Georgia played this year against Notre Dame, Swift was “held” to 5.4 yards per rush.

Conversely, Georgia struggled mightily against Kentucky, particularly in the first half. But Swift’s 39-yard run put Georgia up 7-0 halfway through the third quarter and Kentucky didn’t have the ability to come back.

Against South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee, the Georgia offense has hit 11 explosive (20+ yard) plays. Of those, Swift has been involved in five.

That’s a problem for Florida as the Gators have been getting gashed via the run recently. Florida has given up 35 explosive plays all season long with 12 of those on the ground. But seven of those 12 have come in the last two games against LSU and South Carolina.

Of course, Jonathan Greenard has been out against both of those opponents.

It’s pretty obvious what Greenard does rushing the passer. But what he does against the run is underrated.

On this play, Greenard (#58) does a great job holding the edge and stretching the play, allowing the James Houston (#41) to come flying up to the ball carrier for the tackle.

On this play, Greenard (#58) fires around the edge on third-and-short. That redirects the running back just enough that it allows the linebackers to come in and make the tackle.

This is the thing you see when Greenard is on the field. It’s not just the plays that he makes. It’s that the penetration that he gets with his lightning first step redirects plays. That frees up the linebackers to fire at the back rather than getting mauled by offensive linemen.

This is critical because Florida’s defensive tackles have been unable to get a ton of penetration this year. If Greenard is 100 percent healthy, Florida has a shot at containing Swift. If not, it may be a long day for the defense.

Greenard’s health is going to be critical for the Bulldogs as well though, because they haven’t been great through the air.

Some of that is due to Jake Fromm, who does seem to have regressed this year (0.45 YAR in 2019 vs. 0.95 in 2018). But some of that is due to the place that was seen as weakness coming into the year: wide receiver.

On this play, Fromm has man-to-man coverage and his receiver isn’t jammed at the line of scrimmage. This is a match-up his receiver, Demetris Robinson (#16), has to win. But Robinson doesn’t win the match-up and Georgia has to settle for a field goal because of it.

Repeatedly, Notre Dame played cover zero (no deep safeties) and Georgia was unable to take advantage. You can bet that Grantham took notice.

The other thing Grantham has no doubt seen – and it isn’t a new phenomenon – is that Jake Fromm really, really favors throwing outside the hash marks

Last season, Fromm completed only 41 passes (2.9 per game) to his two main tight ends. In the game against Florida, he kept throwing outside over and over and Florida was prepared. It wasn’t until he finally started targeting his tight ends at the end of the first half that Georgia’s offense started to move.

This year, he has only completed 13 passes (1.9 per game) to his tight ends. Isaac Nauta is gone, and nobody has stepped up to replace him. That means that Fromm’s weapons over the middle have gone away and he’s had to focus on throwing outside even more.

On this play, South Carolina safety D.J. Wonnum (#8) almost gets to this pass. It looks like Fromm saw the corner back away before the snap and assumed he had an easy pitch-and-catch. But Wonnum sat on the underneath route and nearly got the interception.

This is an opportunity for Florida’s defense. One of its strengths is the corners, particularly C.J. Henderson and Marco Wilson. If Georgia doesn’t worry them going deep – and they shouldn’t based on the Notre Dame tape – then Grantham will be able to design schemes to sit on these short routes.

Don’t be surprised if Florida has an opportunity to take a pick-6 the other way.

I still expect Florida to give up a few big plays to Swift. He’s too good and they’ve been too inconsistent recently to believe they’ll completely shut him down. The only way this portion of the matchup goes Florida’s way is if they are able to take one from Fromm the other way.

If that doesn’t happen, Georgia should be able to score.

Advantage: Georgia

Florida offense vs. Georgia defense

Florida’s offense has been really good this season, particularly after Kyle Trask took over.

It isn’t completely reflected in the numbers because the game plan was clearly to possess the ball for extended periods against LSU and the weather played a role against South Carolina. But Trask has proven to be more than a capable backup.

This shines through when looking at Georgia and Florida’s common opponents.

Florida has 15 explosive plays in those three games in 189 plays (7.9%). Compare that to Georgia’s offense with 11 explosive plays in 217 plays (5.0%). Of those 15 explosive plays, 13 have come through the air.

That’s a theme for the season overall as Florida has 36 explosive plays and 29 of them have come through the air. So if the Gators are going to score, they’re going to have to hit big plays in the passing game. That means protecting Trask from the Georgia pass rush will be key.

Fortunately for the Gators, the Bulldogs have struggled to put much pressure on the QB.

Georgia has 16 sacks overall for the season, which amounts to 3.7 percent of their defensive plays. But 10 of those 16 sacks have come against FCS Murray State and Arkansas State. That means against non-cupcakes, the Bulldogs are averaging just over a sack per game.

When you can’t get pressure on the passer, two things happen. First, you can’t force turnovers (like Auburn was able to against Florida) and second, you are susceptible to double-moves.

That’s how South Carolina took its first lead against Georgia. The Bulldogs blitz and are still unable to get to Hilinski. That gives the tight end (Bryan Edwards, #89) time to run an out-and-up against defensive back Divaad Wilson (#1). Hilinski is able to step into, and deliver, an accurate throw because there isn’t any pressure at all.

This has me salivating over what Mullen is going to be able to do with Kyle Pitts. Pitts has been a matchup nightmare the past two games, and I expect that to continue. But beyond Pitts, Florida is going to have an advantage at multiple spots because Georgia is going to have to blitz to get pressure.

But they haven’t been able to get pressure even when blitzing. That’s going to be a real problem.

Advantage: Florida

Coaching

I wrote an entire article regarding the strengths and weaknesses of Dan Mullen and Kirby Smart this offseason.

I’m not going to restate everything here, but there were multiple cases where in-game decision making affected Georgia’s ability to win. In fact, in last year’s game, Georgia outgained Florida by 154 yards, won the turnover battle 3-0, yet Florida was within six points with 11 minutes to go in the game.

That was because Smart settled for field goals inside the 2-yard line twice, including the epic goal-line stand that nearly saved the game for Florida.

Anybody who watched Georgia’s loss to South Carolina could pin that game on Smart as well. Yes, the Bulldogs turned the ball over four times. But Smart didn’t use his timeouts well in the last minute and cost himself over 30 seconds. That would have been really helpful when Georgia faced a second-and-5 with 13 seconds left just barely out of field goal range.

If this happened once, then you might blame random chance. But this happens all the time with Smart. From the busted coverage on second-and-forever and the fake punt against Alabama to his pooch kick-off that cost him the game against Tennessee three years ago, coaching strategy is not his strong suit.

If Florida can keep this game close, this is a significant thing to look for. Who goes for it on fourth down? Who uses timeouts to get an extra drive before the half? Who makes adjustments at the half to take advantage of something they saw in the first half?

Advantage: Florida

Takeaway

I came into this season thinking Georgia was going to be a juggernaut.

With Fromm coming back for his third year and the recruiting differential between these two teams, I just assumed the Georgia would run away with the East. I wasn’t alone, as just about every media member did too.

If the Bulldogs had just played poorly against South Carolina, it would be one thing. But Georgia struggled again against Kentucky and they clearly can’t generate any kind of pass rush.

That plays right into Florida’s hands.

The Gators’ strength is to throw the ball. When Trask gets pressured, he has made mistakes in the past. But when he has a clean pocket, he’s as accurate as anybody in the country.

On the defensive side of the ball, Florida’s health is the key question. If Zuniga and Greenard are truly healthy enough to be difference makers, this is going to be more the defense we saw against Auburn rather than the one we saw against LSU or South Carolina.

And that’s critical because as strange as it sounds, if Florida can limit Swift and force the game into Fromm’s hands, I’m not sure he’s capable of delivering with this receiving corps.

Add to that the Mullen over Smart advantage and I’m a lot more confident now than I was at the beginning of the year.

If the game is close, Florida has the personnel and coaching acumen to pull out a close one. If it’s a blowout where talent just takes over, that favors Georgia.

Florida isn’t Vanderbilt. They’ll be able to keep it close. Amari Burney or Trey Dean at the Star will undercut a Fromm throw and take it the other way. Trask will be able to take advantage of all of the opportunities that Kirby Smart’s conservative game management gives him.

And Dan Mullen will announce that this is going to be a rivalry in the East for the foreseeable future.

Florida (+3.5) wins, 27-21.

Picks this year: 8-0, 4-3-1 ATS

Featured image used under Creative Commons license courtesy Tammy Anthony Baker