Florida looks to avenge recent losses to Missouri, keep SEC hopes alive

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I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Florida has to watch out for Missouri because the Tigers are a much better team at home.

That’s because Missouri’s record is 5-0 at home and 0-4 on the road, including losing three straight. Prior to that losing streak, people were even starting to talk about Missouri winning the SEC East.

While that was a bit farcical even at the time, the fact remains that Missouri’s record indicates that the Gators – or any other team coming to Columbia – need to watch out. Add to that the Gators poor performances against Missouri recently (18-38 in 2018, 16-45 in 2017) along with the cold weather (42 degrees at kickoff) for a 11am local start time, and it’s reasonable that this is a game Florida might be on upset alert.

But is that really the case? After all, the last two years Florida hasn’t had a lot to play for coming into the game against Missouri. But there’s plenty to play for this year.

The SEC East is technically still a possibility, although distant. 11-2 is a fairly realistic possibility. And revenge for looking inept against Missouri is a distinctly realistic possibility.

So what are the keys to the game?

Defense

After completely shutting down Vanderbilt, Florida’s defense jumped to 28th in yards per play allowed. That matches pretty closely with Missouri (23rd) and so based on this particular statistic, these defenses are fairly even.

I do think it’s worth noting that Missouri’s defense has been particularly good against the pass this year, ranking 16th against FBS opponents in yards per pass attempt. That’s important because the Gators are so heavily reliant on throwing the ball.

But an interesting thing about these defenses is that Florida has only allowed 18.8 points per game vs. FBS opponents compared to 21.5 for Missouri. So even though Missouri’s defense ranks slightly better than Florida’s in terms of yards gained, the Tigers are giving up more points.

It was fairly difficult for me to find why this might be. The Tigers and Gators are really close (33rd and 35th) in third-down conversion percentage allowed. And while the Gators turn the ball over more (2.1 vs. 1.4 per game), they also force more turnovers (2.1 vs. 1.6). Even if we look at sacks and tackles for loss, Florida does come out on top (69 TFL/35 sacks to 54/16 overall) but that gap narrows considerably when you look at the four common opponents between the teams (25/10 to 22/8).

No, the biggest differentiator here appears to be in terms of explosive plays.

I didn’t have time to tally up all of the explosive plays given up by Missouri to compare them to Florida. But one statistic I do think is interesting is that while both teams rank very similarly in number of offensive plays faced, Missouri ranks 9th in opponent punts per play while Florida ranks 42nd.

At first blush, this looks bad. It means that Missouri is forcing a bunch of three-and-outs while Florida is giving up more extended drives. But both teams also rank very similarly in number of red-zone attempts allowed per game.

That means that the difference in scoring has to come from plays outside the red-zone, i.e. explosive plays.

That’s how you lose to a team as inept as Vanderbilt.

Indeed, there were 4 explosives (plus a big penalty) on 16 plays on Vanderbilt’s scoring drives.

First TD drive, 8 plays for 68 yards, 2 explosives
Second TD drive, 1 play for 61 yards, 1 explosive
Third TD drive, 7 plays for 65 yards, 1 explosive (aided by 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty)

Vanderbilt didn’t have any other explosive plays in the game. They just happened to make these count by turning those drives into touchdowns (and scoring them on two of the explosive plays).

This is how the Gators score points. They will have some struggles moving the ball. They’re going to have to hit a few big ones to get on the board.

Of course, the converse applies to Missouri. The Gators aren’t going to buckle and allow huge plays all over the place. That means Missouri is going to have to convert once they get into the red zone.

Advantage: Draw

Offense

This is where Florida clearly has a huge advantage.

The Gators rank 36th in yards per play gained compared to 89th for Missouri. The Gators are also scoring 31.2 points per game compared to 25.5 for Missouri. That’s despite Florida playing a much more difficult slate of defenses (Miami, Auburn, LSU and Georgia) while the only really good defense Missouri has played is Georgia.

Normally the Gators are at a significant disadvantage in the running game, just because theirs is so poor. But Missouri is nearly as bad, ranking 83rd in yards per rush compared to 90th for Florida.

That means the difference between these two teams is through the air, with Florida ranking 22nd in yards per pass attempt compared to 76th for Missouri.

Now, some of that is because when Kelly Bryant has missed time, Taylor Powell has been terrible (4.0 yards per attempt). But I think there are some things we can look at that do point towards the Gators advantage at that position.

Statistical comparison of Missouri QB Kelly Bryant with Florida QB Kyle Trask. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)

Bryant is thought of as a running quarterback, but that’s not really the case. The FBS average rush for QBs is usually around three yards. The fact that Bryant is down at 2.5 means that he is actually subtracting value with his legs overall.

Of course, the same can be said of Trask and to a much bigger degree. In fact, his running ability (or lack thereof) is why his yards above replacement (YAR) is below Bryant’s for the season.

But the thing I want to focus on is what happens to Bryant as the quality of competition increases.

Against Power-5 opponents, Bryant has a YAR of -0.39 and his yards per attempt decrease to 7.1. Against common Gators opponents (only three since he didn’t play against Georgia), his YAR is even worse at -0.52 and his yards per attempt decreased even more to 6.4.

Conversely, Trask is the same QB regardless of the competition, as his YAR and yards per attempt are virtually identical against Power-5 opponents as they are against all of the Gators competition. And when you look at the common opponents (Kentucky, South Carolina and Vanderbilt), Trask has been even better (YAR = 0.63).

People have made a big deal about Missouri’s success at home and futility on the road. And indeed, that has been true this year for Bryant, as he has a YAR of 0.84 at home and -0.12 on the road. But he didn’t have those splits when he was the starter at Clemson (0.20 at home, 0.17 on the road).

If you look at Bryant’s performance against Power-5 teams at home, his YAR drops to -0.07, or pretty much in-line with his performance on the road.

So how has Missouri averaged more than 40 points at home and only 10 on the road then if the QB play has been basically the same? Well, look no further than its running game.

Missouri has averaged 4.9 yards per rush in its five wins but only 3.2 yards per rush in its four losses. The former would rank 35th overall in FBS. The latter would rank 119th.

So the question is whether Missouri is going to be able to run the ball because I think it’s pretty clear that Florida has the advantage at QB. I suspect they’re going to be okay on the ground, but not where they have been at home throughout the year.

Advantage: Florida

Takeaway

I was there in the Swamp last year when Drew Lock made the Gators defense look pedestrian and Feleipe Franks couldn’t hit wide open receivers. By the end of that game, it seemed clear that it was time for the Kyle Trask era to start.

Because of an injury during the following week’s practice, that era was delayed to this year. Far from being the question mark that he was when he came in for mop-up duty against Missouri last season, Trask is now the strength of the Gators offense.

And Drew Lock works for the Denver Broncos now.

Todd Grantham’s defenses have struggled with QBs like Lock; guys who are above average and have significant amounts of experience. We’ve seen that this year with Joe Burrow and Jake Fromm and Fromm, Lock and Jake Bentley in 2018.

Bryant is not that kind of QB. He was below average (YAR = -0.12) in his year at Clemson. He’s been above average this year (YAR = 0.44), but not against Power-5 opponents (YAR = -0.39). And while he’s listed as probable to play, he missed last week with a hamstring injury and so is going to be less mobile than he normally is.

The key will be Missouri’s ability to run the ball. Florida struggled to stop the run against LSU and South Carolina but seemed to fix that particular issue against Georgia and Vanderbilt, both of whom have better running backs than Missouri.