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RIP Edward Aschoff
News came out on Christmas Eve that Edward Aschoff – a college football reporter for ESPN – had passed away after a battle with pneumonia at 34 years old.
Aschoff attended UF, getting a degree from the journalism school and cutting his teeth as a reporter with the Gainesville Sun. He was an excellent reporter, but more than anything, I’ve been struck by what others who have interacted with him have had to say in the wake of his death.
I was in graduate school when Aschoff was working at the Sun. It was the first time I’d moved that far away from home and he was an anchor who kept me rooted in Gator football during the Urban Meyer years. He also covered recruiting for those teams, and anybody who’s read my stuff knows how important I’ve come to believe that is. Ed Aschoff’s writing was part of what led me to inquire more deeply about its effects.
That’s what good writing does. It makes you question what you know. It helps you connect to a team or a program. It makes you feel like you know a reporter who covers your favorite team, even if you don’t.
I didn’t know Ed, but the outpouring of emotion at his passing makes me wish I had. I can only hope people say the same thing when I go to meet the Lord.
Game Preview
On Monday night, the Gators make a quick trip down to Miami Gardens to take on the Virginia Cavaliers in the Orange Bowl.
While Gator Nation has seemed underwhelmed by the matchup, it is one last chance for Florida to take another step towards true national prominence. The Gators enter the game ranked 9th by the playoff committee. But those rankings don’t really matter now that the bowl matchups have been set.
Instead, it’s worth looking at where UF stands in the AP and Coach’s polls, as those are the ones that are official at the end of the season.
There, the Gators rank sixth and seventh. And with Georgia playing Baylor and Oregon playing Wisconsin, a convincing win over Virginia could catapult Florida to a top-5 ranking going into the offseason.
The ACC is viewed largely as Clemson and a bunch of also-rans. That is somewhat true, but Virginia was the best of the also-rans. The question is whether that will be good enough to give the Gators a tighter game than the experts think?
Overall
If there’s one stat that really jumps out to me about the Gators matchup with the Cavaliers, it’s this:
Florida has faced nine top-50 opponents (by ESPN’s FPI) and has outscored those opponents by an average of 9.3 points per game. Virginia has faced six top-50 opponents and has been outscored by 7.5.
Yes, that does include the 62-17 demolishion from Clemson in the ACC title game, but even subtracting that and Virginia has a net-zero point differential against the remaining five teams.
That’s a big reason why Virginia is ranked 45th in the FPI coming into this game.
All other big-picture statistics favor the Gators as well.
- The average FPI of Gators opponents in 2019 was 32.6. It’s 58.9 for Virginia.
- Virginia scored 25 more points than Florida (in one more game), but gave up 171 more points.
- If we subtract cupcakes, Florida has outscored Virginia by 9 points and given up 127 points less.
- Miami and FSU were common opponents, and Florida outscored the Hurricanes and Seminoles by 27 while Virginia was outscored by a point.
When comparing the overall statistical profiles of the teams, this is a big mismatch as well.
Offensive and defensive statistics for 2019 for Virginia and Florida. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
It’s no secret that the Gators struggle to run the ball. But Virginia is just about as bad as Florida. Yet while the Gators make up for it by having Kyle Trask throw the ball all over the place, Virginia has not been able to do the same with Bryce Perkins.
The result is that Florida has an offense ranked 33rd in the country while Virginia’s is ranked 90th in yards per play against FBS opponents. On a points-per-game basis, Virginia is much better. The Cavaliers rank 44th in that category while the Gators rank 37th.
The discrepancy between yards per play and points per game indicates that Virginia has outperformed its underlying statistics. In other words, the Cavaliers are worse on offense than the point differential indicates.
Conversely, the Gators are exactly what we would expect, with the 37th best scoring offense and the 33rd best in yards per play. Just because these teams scored a similar amount of points this year doesn’t mean they have similar offenses. Florida’s is much better.
Virginia is exactly what we would expect on defense. The Wahoos rank 55th in yards per play allowed and 57th in points per game allowed. The Gators have outperformed their underlying metrics here a little bit, ranking 18th in yards per play allowed and 10th in points per game allowed.
Regardless, Florida has a much better defense.
That actually wasn’t always the case. Virginia started out the year playing really well on defense, limiting a pretty good Pittsburgh team (just ask UCF) to 4.5 yards per pass attempt. Through the first seven games of the season, Virginia gave up an average of 6.1 yards per pass attempt.
But in the sixth game of the season, corner Bryce Hall went down against Miami with a season-ending injury. Safety Brenton Nelson suffered a season-ending injury against Louisville. And prior to the season, Junior defensive back Darrius Bratton tore his ACL.
Think about if that had happened to Florida. If C.J. Henderson, Marco Wilson and Brad Stewart had been lost either before or during the season, what would have happened to the Gators’ pass defense?
Well, for Virginia it translated into giving up 10.2 yards per pass attempt in the final six games of the season. That also correlated into a jump from giving up 19.7 points per game in the first seven games to giving up 34.3 points per game in the last six.
Unfortunately for Virginia, Hall, Nelson and Bratton aren’t coming back to rescue the Cavaliers.
Henderson will be missing the game for Florida as he prepares for the NFL Draft. But Jonathan Greenard and Jabari Zuniga are both expected to play. This is as healthy as the Florida defense has been since the opener against Miami, where the Gators totaled 10 sacks and 16 tackles for loss.
Even with Henderson out, it may be a long day for Virginia QB Bryce Perkins.
Virginia Offense
Perkins has been a huge part of what Virginia has tried to do on offense.
He’s had to be, as the Cavaliers leading rusher other than Perkins is sophomore running back Wayne Taulapapa. But Taulapapa has averaged just 4.1 yards per rush on 111 carries. That has left the yeoman’s work to fall on Perkins.
Perkins has played decently depending on what metric you look at. He completed 64 percent of his passes, which is really good. But his passer rating of 131.5 on those throws indicates that he isn’t very efficient on those throws.
That is indeed the case as Perkins has averaged just 7.1 yards per attempt. That would be fine if he were an explosive runner, but that hasn’t proven to be the case either. On 213 rush attempts, Perkins has averaged just 3.5 yards per rush. That is good, but it is not dynamic (for reference, Feleipe Franks averaged 3.2 yards per rush last season).
The film indicates that Perkins is a much better runner than those stats would otherwise indicate.
On this play, Perkins is flushed from the pocket and is able to weave his way to the sideline. He then shows impressive speed to outrun Carolina’s defense and take the run all the way to the house.
Florida would be wise to pay attention to this play. The Virginia offensive line isn’t great, and so I suspect that much of Perkins’ average is attributable to sacks (OL ranks 102nd in sack rate allowed) and inefficient Wildcat-type runs. When the play breaks down, Perkins clearly has the ability to make a play.
Those Wildcat runs do serve a purpose. They open up the passing game for Virginia substantially.
On this play, Perkins executes a run-pass option perfectly. When he sees the defensive end crash to tackle the running back and the linebackers come up to make a tackle against the run, he pulls the ball and makes the throw to tight end Tanner Cowley (#44) streaking down the middle.
This was a theme against Carolina, as the Tarheels linebackers were unable to stay back and Virginia repeatedly took advantage of it.
This play should look pretty familiar to Gators fans.
One way to combat this type of thing is to put a safety in the middle of the field to take away the throws up the seam or to blitz and have the linebackers (or nickelback) stay home. The problem with that is that Virginia has a counter.
On this play, Virginia gets Carolina’s safety against a wide receiver in one-on-one coverage deep outside because the Tarheels sent a blitz. That receiver is Hasise Duboise (#8), who is 6’3” and 215 pounds against a defensive back Myles Wolfolk (#11), who is 5’11”. That four-inch height advantage makes a difference on deep throws, and Perkins just throws it up for grabs and creates an explosive play for the Cavaliers.
Virginia’s passing offense is focused through three players. Dubois (65 catches, 979 yards), Joe Reed (70 catches, 627 yards) and Terrell Jana (67 catches, 760 yards) are all over 6-feet tall and have accounted for 65 percent of the team’s receptions and 62 percent of the touchdown receptions.
Florida has obviously struggled with larger receivers. The one who comes to mind immediately is Ahmad Wagner for Kentucky, who was a big reason that the Wildcats had the lead that Kyle Trask had to rescue the Gators from.
I know that Florida fans loathe when Todd Grantham has his defensive backs lay back and play zone coverage. Everyone likes aggressive defenses aimed at forcing a QB into quick decisions.
But Florida can stop Virginia’s offense completely if it keeps Perkins in the pocket and minimizes his chances to hit jump balls. That means playing a lot of zone, specifically cover-2.
Virginia Defense
I’ve already outlined the situation at defensive back for the Cavaliers.
Sometimes these kinds of stats get skewed by one or two bad games, especially if you have to play Clemson. That’s why you take a look at the film. Well, after doing that I can confirm that Virginia is as bad as advertised in the secondary.
If you’re going to play off-coverage, you have to make the tackle. But on this play, Virginia defensive back Jaylon Baker (#39) starts nine yards off and backpedals at the snap. This is an easy 12-yard gain for Carolina except that Baker and safety Joey Blount (#29) completely whiff on the tackle, allowing a huge gain.
This wasn’t an isolated incident.
Here, Carolina receiver Dyami Brown (#2) catches a short hitch. The defensive back was playing press coverage and apparently didn’t have deep safety help. He misses the tackle and Brown takes the throw to the house.
Carolina even torched Virginia’s defensive backs when the defense was specifically called to stop the deep throw.
Look at the defensive backs at the snap. There are five of them, and they are all at least 10 yards off of the line of scrimmage. I don’t know how you get beat deep – let alone get beat by three yards by a wide receiver – from this defensive setup. The only answer is that the defensive backs didn’t know what they were supposed to do and so it opened up the opportunity for North Carolina to go deep.
Again, were this just one game you might be able to excuse it as a bad day. But Virginia gave up 9.5 yards per attempt vs. Louisville, 12.2 to North Carolina, 10.4 to Georgia Tech, 10.4 to Virginia Tech and 14.1 (!) to Clemson.
On the Florida side, they have struggled to run the ball as well. But in response to that, Dan Mullen has largely abandoned that part of the game plan. In 2018, Mullen ran the ball 61 percent of the time to fit an offense led by Feleipe Franks. That has completely flipped this season under Kyle Trask, as Mullen has run the ball just 44 percent of the time.
The results have been overwhelmingly positive. Kyle Trask has averaged 8.4 yards per attempt on 315 throws, has a 4:1 TD to INT ratio and has significantly improved his ability to hold on to the ball when sacked, something that he struggled with early.
For frame of reference, Gator Country’s Nick de la Torre tweeted out a list of Gators QBs this decade.
Guys that threw at least 50 passes for the Gators this decade:
John Brantley
Jacoby Brissett
Jeff Driskel
Tyler Murphy
Skyler Mornhinweg
Treon Harris
Will Grier
Austin Appleby
Luke Del Rio
Feleipe Franks
Malik Zaire
Kyle Trask— Nick de la Torre (@NickdelaTorreGC) December 24, 2019
The average yards per attempt for those other QBs is 7.0. The best is 7.8 by Treon Harris. Again, Trask is at 8.4 this year, on an almost 68 percent completion clip.
And while Virginia relied heavily on its three main receivers, Trask has been excellent spreading the ball around, with five players with more than 30 catches and Kyle Pitts the leader at 51.
The result is that Florida’s strength is directly targeted at Virginia’s weakness. The Gators are going to be able to target the Cavalier’s secondary and those players won’t know who is going to get the ball because Trask will throw to the man that the coverage dictates.
If Florida can avoid turnovers, they should be able to move the ball up and down the field at will.
Coaching
In most circumstances, this is a mismatch for Florida.
In his time at Mississippi State and now at Florida, Dan Mullen has proven that he is an excellent in-game coach and can get his team to outperform its talent level.
But so has Virginia head coach Bronco Mendenhall.
Mendenhall took over a BYU program in 2005 that had been struggling to maintain the success generated under LaVell Edwards. He opened with a similar 6-6 season to what BYU had become accustomed to but then immediately won 32 games over the next three seasons.
His teams averaged national recruiting rankings of 57.9 but his teams had an average FPI ranking of 33.4 while at BYU.
He moved to Virginia in 2016 with the Cavaliers coming off a 4-8 season and immediately went 2-10, not exactly a ringing endorsement of his abilities. But Virginia has slowly built under Mendenhall, improving to 6-7 in 2017, 8-5 in 2018 and now 9-4 in 2019.
That’s probably the ceiling for his teams, as he has averaged a recruiting ranking of 54.8 nationally at Virginia, very similar to what he averaged at BYU. But as far as the Orange Bowl goes, it does indicate that Mendenhall will be able to get his team up to play the Gators.
Mullen has very similar numbers, slightly underperforming (30.6 FPI, 26.8 recruiting) while at Mississippi State but overperforming (9.5 FPI, 11.5 recruiting) at Florida. He has also shown to be a great in-game coach schematically and to get more out of his players than others (see, Feleipe Franks).
Florida is a heavy favorite in this game for good reason: the Gators are the vastly superior team. The question is whether Mullen is going to be able to motivate his guys the same way that Mendenhall will be able to motivate his.
Undoubtedly the Virginia players have been hearing about the big, bad SEC and how Florida is a 14.5 point favorite. Will that be enough to overcome to the difference in ability?
Takeaway
The only way the Cavaliers stay in this one is if the Gators take them lightly.
This is actually where the location helps the Gators. There are going to be a ton of Florida players playing in front of family and friends. Yes, that might mean some distractions. But it also means incentive to play well.
I have no doubt that Mendenhall will have his guys ready, but I think Mullen will have the Gators ready as well.
And if that’s the case, then Florida is going to win this one going away.
Virginia’s biggest strength is its run defense. That doesn’t matter at all to Mullen, who abandoned the running game a long time ago.
Virginia’s biggest weakness is its pass defense. Mullen has an effective trigger man in Kyle Trask at QB and a hoard of wide receivers looking to go out with a bang.
One thing that made me think Florida would be focused last season against Michigan in the Peach Bowl was that Chauncey Gardner-Johnson decided to play the game even though he declared for the NFL Draft.
This season, it would have been easy for Jabari Zuniga to sit this one out, figuring that he needed to get healthy for the combine. It would have been really easy for Jonathan Greenard to stay home, as he has probably played his way into being a first round draft pick.
But those players have decided to attend. I don’t begrudge C.J. Henderson’s decision to not play, but the fact that others – who could have looked out for their own well-being instead of the team – have decided to play bodes well for the culture that Mullen is building within the program.
This is essentially a home game for Florida. The Gators outscored opponents 237-33 at home. Virginia was outscored in road/neutral games by a 135-187 clip. That, more than anything, is why I think Florida is going to win this one big.
Florida (-14.5) wins, 52-17.
Picks this year: 11-1, 6-5-1 ATS
