Kyle Trask has earned his starting job and more from the game against Missouri

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The Gators came out flat against Missouri in an early game at Columbia and suffered a tough road loss – wait, they won?

You wouldn’t have known that by looking at Twitter, particularly after the Gators took a 6-3 lead into halftime. You might not have even known that after that game, after the debate of whether Kyle Trask should remain QB or if it’s time for Emory Jones to take over raged.

The optimist would look at that dialogue and suggest that the chatter both during and after the game is due to the expectations that Dan Mullen has set. The pessimist would look at the same dialogue and feel like those people are sucking the joy out of a season that has the potential to finish top-5 (10-3 LSU was ranked 6th to end last season) and a win better than the 2018 campaign.

After all, Willie Taggart didn’t last two seasons in Tallahassee. Dan Mullen is 19-5.

If the game against Missouri proved anything, it’s that both camps are probably right.

For those hoping for championships from Mullen and company immediately, it’s pretty clear that this team is at least a couple of years away. For those willing to be patient, it’s pretty clear that this team is at least a couple of years away.

But I think both sides can agree that a 23-6 road win against Missouri sure beats the alternative that Gators fans have experienced the previous two seasons.

Kyle Trask Comparisons

Kyle Trask takes holds onto the ball too long, takes too many sacks and isn’t much of a running threat.

But that’s been the case all season.

Nobody paid too much attention when he was dominant against Tennessee through the air. Nobody cared when he was gutting out a knee injury to get a convincing win against Auburn. And nobody cared when he was making Gators fans believe in this team in a shootout with LSU.

But the loss to Georgia has some fans caring as they look towards the 2020 season. And looking towards 2020 makes them ask whether Trask is able to win this team a championship and would the Gators be better off getting Emory Jones experience.

The answer to whether Trask can win a championship has proven to be “no”, at least for the 2019 version of Trask. But that’s not who we’re going to get next year.

Look no further than every Gators fan’s favorite QB to see what an offseason with Mullen after starting a year can do.

I wrote after Franks was injured that he and Trask are different QBs with different strengths and weaknesses. Nowhere is that more apparent than when you look at my Yards above Replacement (YAR) stat that takes into account both a QBs running and passing ability.

By that measure, Kyle Trask’s 2019 season is almost an exact replica of Feleipe Franks’ 2018 season. Undoubtedly they accomplished that value in vastly different ways as Franks is much more of a runner. But those fans frustrated with Trask taking sacks that kill drives were equally frustrated last year when Franks was throwing into double coverage or getting flushed from the pocket too soon.

2018 Franks was not a perfect QB and neither is this year’s edition of Trask. But Franks was a way better QB in 2019, averaging 9.7 yards per attempt.

And that isn’t something he did against inferior competition. Franks averaged 9.4 yards per attempt against Miami (ranked 18th in yards per play allowed vs. FBS) and 10.2 against Kentucky (ranked 59th).

Were Trask to show similar improvement in his passing from 2018 to 2019, we would expect him to average 10.5 yards per attempt.

Admittedly, these things aren’t linear. But there is another QB in the SEC who had a YAR just slightly worse than Feleipe Franks (0.18) in 2018. That QB only averaged 7.6 yards per attempt that season and drove his fan base crazy by looking like he was ready to put it together only to make a mistake that killed a drive.

That player is Joe Burrow.

If we look at Trask’s 2019 versus Burrow’s 2018, we see two things. First, both of them had a considerable dip in the middle of their season. Burrow’s corresponded with his stretch against Florida, Georgia, Mississippi State and Alabama. Trask’s corresponds to Auburn, LSU, South Carolina and Georgia.

But Trask’s career started out better than Burrow and then Burrow improved considerably during the last four games of the season. Trask appears to be on the upswing as well, though the games against Florida State and the bowl game will tell us a lot.

I’m not saying that Trask will be Burrow. But I saw Burrow coming two years ago precisely because he showed elite accuracy at the high school level. That kind of accuracy typically translates to the college game, and here’s what I wrote about why in the article about Burrow.

“If you constantly see a QB throwing to wide open receivers, it can’t always be because of broken coverages. Defenses have to make choices about what they want to give up. It is the QBs job to exploit those weaknesses.”

Burrow completed 72.3 percent of his passes his senior year of high school. Trask – admittedly in limited duty – completed 73.4 percent of his. More importantly, Burrow completed 74.4 percent of his throws at Ohio State as a back-up before transferring. Yes, he struggled last season at LSU (57.8%), but he completed 67 percent in LSU’s last four games in 2018.

Trask has completed 66.8 percent of his throws this season. The accuracy is translating, and the game against Missouri shows us why.

On this play Missouri has a single-high safety with responsibility to the deep middle of the field. That means from the pre-snap look, Trask knows Hammond is going to be in one-on-one coverage on the outside. The defensive back is also giving Hammond plenty of space, meaning he won’t be able to jam him off of his route.

Hammond actually made this catch more difficult than it should have been. Trask delivered the ball to his outside shoulder but he turned inside, forcing the adjustment. But the fact remains that Trask threw to the right place and a big play was the result.

These are back-to-back plays. On both plays Trask recognizes that the deep safety is shaded over towards the receivers at the top of the screen. Note how he looks to his left at first but then comes back to his right. He knew he was going to Pitts at the start of the play but wasn’t able to step into the throw to deliver it accurately.

On the second play, Pitts is in the slot on a linebacker (good job Dan Mullen). Again the safety is unable to get over to the sideline but this time Trask is able to step into the throw.

These are just two examples, but Trask is showing that he throws to the right receiver and makes the right read. Does he have things to improve on this offseason? Absolutely.

I’ve seen a lot of people questioning why Dan Mullen won’t play Emory Jones. The implication is that Jones hasn’t progressed enough in the passing game to allow him to take the reins.

But perhaps Trask being the backup this season isn’t because Jones hasn’t come along but because he won the job. Perhaps it’s because Trask is a really good QB with the potential to improve.

And perhaps it would behoove Gator Nation to be a little bit more patient with a QB who has a profile very similar to the guy who’s going to win the friggin’ Heisman Trophy.

Gators Defense

Much has been made of Florida’s struggles to run the ball on offense. But in the last three games, the Gators defense has made it really difficult for the opponent to do so as well.

Missouri was held to 52 yards on 29 carries. That comes on the heels of holding Vanderbilt to 51 yards on 40 attempts and Georgia to 119 yards on 37 carries. All of this has occurred with Jabari Zuniga basically a non-factor.

Jonathan Greenard has been a force up-front. But there are other players who are starting to step forward against the run as well. The one who’s been most noticeable to me is defensive end Zachary Carter.

Though he was flagged for a facemask on this play, it demonstrates what I’m talking about. Carter (#17) didn’t have a real exciting job against Missouri. He was responsible for setting the edge both in the run and pass games. In the pass game, it was because the Gators didn’t want to let Kelly Bryant get outside to run. In the run game, it was because they want to funnel things back inside to David Reese.

So not only does Carter take on the block from the left tackle, but he also throws him aside to the inside, forcing the back to cut back to the inside. Carter ends up making the tackle along with his buddies, but even if he didn’t, he’s doing his job. This isn’t an isolated incident.

The other thing that Carter is allowing is for Greenard to flourish.

Greenard is typically the Buck, meaning that he isn’t one of the three down-linemen in Grantham’s 3-4 scheme. When Jabari Zuniga first went down, Greenard played a lot of defensive end because the Gators didn’t have anyone else to step up.

But now they have Carter stepping into that role.

It isn’t so much what Carter does on this run. It’s that he allows Greenard to go one-on-one against Missouri’s right tackle. That was clearly a mismatch for the Gators and Greenard drives Missouri running back Larry Rountree for a loss of five yards.

Luke Ancrum was on the field at the defensive end position a lot in the first quarter. Carter came in and earned a lot more playing time as the game wore on. He even slipped inside to tackle on passing downs and was able to hold up when Missouri decided to call QB draws.

That kind of versatility is going to be needed with Greenard, Zuniga and Adam Schuler gone next year.

Takeaway

Florida is exactly where most rational people thought they’d be this season after improving to 9-2 with the win at Missouri.

That’s with a catastrophic injury to its starting QB, its star defensive end missing most of the season and having to face both Auburn and LSU in cross-division match-ups.

In reality, the Gators have outperformed its metrics, ranking 20th in yards per play differential. But they’ve made the plays when they’ve had to and now stand with a week off to prepare for a bout with Florida State to confirm they are State Champions.

That isn’t exactly the championship Gators fans were hoping for coming into the game against Georgia, but I do think it’s something most fans – if they’re being honest with themselves – would have been thrilled about at the start of the year, or even at halftime of the game against Miami.

There is still work to do. Mullen is going to have to beat Georgia. The defense will have to get off the field when playing against elite opponents. Trask has to take the step forward that his statistics indicate might be on the horizon.

But I remember leaving the Swamp last season after the performance against Missouri completely deflated. At that point in time, the Gators were 6-3 and appeared to be just as desperate at the QB position as they were at any time under Jim McElwain.

There were plenty of people questioning Mullen’s decision to stick with Feleipe Franks. Both Franks and Mullen shut those people up by winning the Peach Bowl.

It’s quite possible we’ll be able to say the same thing about Mullen and Trask about the Orange or Sugar Bowls in a few weeks.

Featured image used via Creative Commons license courtesy Photo-Gator