Can Florida build on last year’s 41-14 domination of Florida State?

At first glance, this rendition of Florida vs. Florida State looks like a pretty big mismatch.

After all, FSU is 6-5 with an interim coach, having jettisoned Willie Taggart after an embarrassing 27-10 loss to Miami.

However, the Seminoles have looked far more competent going 2-0 under that interim coach – Odell Haggins – than they ever did under Taggart. Granted, those games were against a below average Boston College team and Alabama State.

But consider that this is a team that barely escaped against Louisiana-Monroe by a missed extra point in overtime and it’s clear that this team is better than it was just a few weeks ago.

Florida is 9-2 and ranked 11th in the most recent playoff rankings. Vegas has the Gators favored by 17.5 points. I wrote a couple weeks ago about Florida winning the games it’s supposed to win the way it’s supposed to win them against Vanderbilt and Missouri.

Ever since Urban Meyer was hospitalized after losing to Alabama, Florida State has been the bully in the rivalry. The ‘Noles are 7-2 in the last nine meetings and haven’t won in Gainesville since Tim Tebow’s swan song.

This is a game the Gators should win and win handily. Fans expect it. The seniors deserve it. Recruits need to see it.

So can they get it done?

Offense

Most of the time, you can look at QB play as the deciding factor in a game.

Florida’s two losses are examples of that, as Joe Burrow and Jake Fromm outplayed Kyle Trask in both contests.

That doesn’t mean that Trask played poorly. Particularly in the LSU game, he played well. But the reality is that he was outplayed in both games.

While James Blackman is not Joe Burrow, he hasn’t played as poorly as you might think considering that he lost his job to backup Alex Hornibrook at times. But Blackman has actually been statistically better than Trask this season by some measures.

Using my Yards above Replacement (YAR) metric, Blackman has been better. That doesn’t mean he’s a better passer. He isn’t, as evidenced by Trask having the advantage in passer rating (158.0 to 147.8). But the discrepancy between the two in YAR is due to all of the sacks that Trask has taken and his negative rushing average.

And this difference can’t just be blamed on Florida’s offensive line. Certainly, a lot remains to be desired from that unit. But the Florida State unit is even worse.

Football Outsiders tracks advanced statistics for offensive lines in both the running and passing games. If you take the average of each of those stats, you get the following:

Florida’s offensive line has been much better against the pass than Florida State’s and they’ve both been about equally bad in the run game. Thus, Trask’s rushing yardage is on him holding the ball longer than Blackman and not having the same ability to escape the pocket.

He’s going to have to avoid taking drive-killing sacks for Florida’s offense to succeed.

The good news for Florida is that this game is in the Swamp. Offensive lines have a major advantage in pass protection at home as they can hear the snap count. With this being the emotional final game for a bunch of seniors for Florida, the crowd should be amped up, which should affect Florida State.

We see the effect the crowd can have if we look at the home and road splits of each quarterback.

Here we see that Trask goes from a near-elite QB at home to a below average one on the road. Blackman has the same exact split, though more extreme. Note how Blackman’s per-rush average goes from 2.4 to 0.9.

But the bigger point is how the yards per completion drops for both QBs on the road. At home, Trask is elite through the air, averaging 9.2 yards per attempt. Blackman is at 7.2, which is basically average. Combine that with Florida State’s running game and that’s why you have a team that averages almost 34 points at home but only 24 away from Tallahassee.

Blackman likes to throw deep, particularly to his right. Boise State played right into FSU’s hands in the first half of the season opener and Blackman was able to take advantage.

Here Boise State is in a 3-4 defense with four true linebackers on the field. But Florida State has a four wide receiver formation. Even though Boise only rushes three linemen, the linebackers drop into a zone because they aren’t fast enough to cover the receivers in one-on-one coverage.

It doesn’t matter that Boise has eight men in coverage because wide receiver Keyshawn Helton (#20) runs right past the safety who ends up on one-on-one coverage.

But Boise adjusted in the second half and Florida State didn’t, which is what allowed the Broncos to stage the comeback win.

This play was the second right after Boise had scored a touchdown to come within five points. On first down, Blackman tried to throw deep against this same coverage to Temorrion Terry. On this play, he tries to go deep again, but that’s a problem.

It’s a problem because Boise is in a cover-2 defense, meaning that they have both the corner and safety assigned to the deep route. The right read is to throw the ball to the receiver you can see crossing over the middle of the field as the deep shot sails past him. That’s because the weakness of a cover-2 scheme is in the middle of the field.

But Blackman had made up his mind where this ball was going before the snap. He was taking the deep shot regardless of the coverage.

That can work when you play inferior opponents, but Florida State will struggle against teams with the talent in the secondary to stay with their receivers because I haven’t seen Blackman willing to be patient enough to pick apart a defense underneath.

It also means that Florida State’s offense is feast or famine. If they hit big plays, they score. When they don’t hit big plays, they struggle.

That’s critical because Florida State is terrible running the ball. The Seminoles rank 108th in yards per rush against FBS opponents, which is worse than Florida (101st).

You wouldn’t think that would be the case with a player like Cam Akers, but Akers has been limited to 4.9 yards per rush this season. But that hasn’t prevented Florida State from calling on Akers.

FSU is running the ball 51.3 percent of the time. Compare that to the Florida offense, which is running the ball only 45.7 percent of the time.

While I’ve been critical of the strategy at times, Dan Mullen has clearly embraced that the strength of his team is through the air. Florida State has yet to make that admission.

What the Seminoles have done since Taggart was dismissed is introducing one new wrinkle into its run game.

Transfer QB Jordan Travis has become a weapon over the last two games. After not getting any playing time all season, Travis has run the ball seven times for 163 yards and 2 touchdowns in the last two. It’s was needed for the Seminoles to beat Boston College and won’t catch Florida by surprise, but it is something to watch for as one reason Florida State might be able to get something going on the ground.

But this is the statistic I keep going back to. If we look at YAR for both teams organized from least to most against non-cupcake teams (higher YAR is better here), Florida has had the better overall QB play in seven of nine games. Blackman’s overall YAR is higher than Trask because of performances against Boston College and Louisville, both bad defenses.

The really negative values came once Florida State played better defenses (Clemson and Miami) and the offense collapsed. While Florida’s best two performances came against Vanderbilt and Tennessee, the next two came against Miami and LSU.

So Florida’s offense gets less variability at QB play, better QB play at home than FSU gets on the road, performs better against better defenses and relies less on its poor running game.

Advantage: Florida

Defense

Florida’s defense may not be Clemson quality, but it’s a heck of a lot better than Louisville. That means that FSU’s offense is likely to struggle if past history is any indication.

But Florida’s defense is also a heck of a lot better than Florida State’s.

If we chart non-cupcake QB play against each defense (this time, lower is better) in much the same way we did for the offenses, Florida’s defense outperformed FSU’s in seven of nine games. The only times Florida gave up a positive YAR were the games against Georgia and LSU, whereas Florida State gave up a positive YAR in five of nine games.

I don’t want to dismiss the Georgia and LSU data points. It does indicate that Florida’s defense has some weaknesses that can be exploited. Particularly we’ve seen that at safety, where bad angles have turned short gains into big plays.

This is a relatively simple slant. But Boston College misses the tackle and then the safety slips after overpursuing. This should have been a 7-yard gain. Instead, it goes for a 60-yard touchdown. This is the kind of thing that can keep FSU in the game.

But Florida State has its own issues.

The first is that while the ‘Noles rank 40th in yards per play allowed, they rank 96th in yards per game allowed. That can only happen if you’re really bad on third down.

Indeed that’s the case, as FSU ranks dead last in 17.2 third downs per game and is allowing 41.3 percent of those third downs to be converted. Compare that to Florida, who allows 14.2 third downs at a 34.4 percent conversion clip.

That has led FSU’s defense to be on the field for an astounding 85 plays per game (68 for Florida). What this means is that big plays haven’t been what’s killed the Seminoles, but sustained drives that end in points. Florida is pretty good at those.

The second issue Florida State has is that they don’t get much of a pass rush.

The pass rush will already be neutralized by being on the road. Trask has only really made poor decisions when under pressure. But Florida State only has 29 sacks on 864 plays, a rate of 3.4 percent.

They also aren’t making a bunch of plays in the backfield, with only 66 tackles for loss (7.6%). Contrast that to the Gators, who have 72 tackles for loss (10.3%) and 38 sacks (5.4%) on 700 plays.

The other thing you see when you watch film of the FSU defense is that they aren’t always on the same page. Early in the year that was attributable to switching from a 4-3 to a 3-4 defense that defensive coordinator Harlon Barnett wasn’t familiar with.

But there’s no excuse now. On this play, the slot corner comes on a blitz. If that’s the call, the safety has coverage responsibility for the slot receiver. But the safety drops back into the end zone at the snap.

It’s impossible to know who was wrong here. But that’s something that shouldn’t be happening in game 2, let alone game 10.

Florida has had an issue with busted coverages at times too. But I’m much more confident that Trask will be able to exploit this than I am that Blackman will. And with no running game and (presumably) a healthy Jonathan Greenard and Jabari Zuniga, I fully expect Blackman to be under more pressure.

Advantage: Florida

Takeaway

There’s not a lot of drama in this pick. Florida has the advantage on offense, defense and in coaching experience and ability.

The only thing that makes this game winnable for Florida State is hitting two or three big plays early that go for touchdowns. If the ‘Noles settle for field goals, the game is over.

Still, 17.5 points is a really big point spread.

Undoubtedly, Florida State is going to come in hungry to avenge last season’s loss and the Florida players celebrating wildly on their field. Additionally, Florida has only averaged 30 points per game in non-FCS games. The Gators have also struggled on third downs and in short-yardage, which is where FSU has been exploited this season.

But at the end of the day, Dan Mullen has had two weeks to prepare for this game. His team is relatively healthy and has the home-field advantage, where they’ve played much better this season.

Florida State may be better under Haggins, but the bad habits ingrained under Taggart are still there.

I think Mullen comes out ultra-aggressive trying to put this one away early. Expect a flea flicker or some sort of misdirection involving Kadarius Toney. Don’t be surprised if Emory Jones is the backup QB who ends up making a big play early as opposed to Jordan Travis.

Last season it was apparent that FSU couldn’t block Florida’s defensive line, even though the game was close at the half. Expect to see the same thing this Saturday.

Florida (-17.5) wins, 41-14 (again).

Picks this year: 10-1, 5-5-1 ATS