Explosive: Why the Gators might not miss their senior wide receivers as much as you might think

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Special thanks to www.secstatcat.com, an integral source of the throws by distance used in this article.

Freddie Swain, Josh Hammond, Tyrie Cleveland and Van Jefferson have been a huge part of the Florida program ever since Dan Mullen came to town.

Those four accounted for 44 percent of the Gators receptions, 48 percent of their receiving yards and 49 percent of their receiving touchdowns. Clearly the Gators have to replace that production.

Those four (and Lamical Perine) were an incredibly important part of the offense last year. So they’ll be really hard to replace, right? After all, Georgia lost a ton of its receivers after the 2018 season and look at how Jake Fromm struggled.

Well, looking at those Georgia teams – as well as last year’s Florida and LSU teams – I think gives reason to believe that perhaps Florida is in a way better position than the Bulldogs were a year ago.

Explosive Plays

It’s pretty obvious that explosive (20+ yard) plays are important to offensive success.

But it’s important to understand exactly how important.

I’ve shown this before, but it shows the correlation between scoring and yards per play in 2018. I don’t show it here, but the same correlation exists if you look at 2019, or 2017 for that matter. The point is clear: yards per play correlates strongly with scoring, and the best way to do that is by hitting explosive plays through the air.

A lot has been made of the leap that Joe Burrow made from 2018 to 2019. Nowhere is that leap more apparent than in his explosive plays. Burrow hit 23 explosive plays on 185 targets to his top four wide receivers in 2018, good for a 12.4 explosive play percentage. But Burrow hit on 63 explosive plays to his top four wide receivers in 2019. That was on 340 (!) targets, but was 18.5 percent of his attempts to those four.

But it isn’t just Burrow where this shows up.

The above chart shows the explosive play percentage versus yards per attempt rank for the SEC in 2019. There’s clearly a strong correlation between the two.

Explosive Plays: Florida’s Senior Wide Receivers

Florida improved from 71st to 23rd in yards per pass attempt from 2018 to 2019. Not surprisingly, the Gators explosive play percentage from it’s top-four wide receivers increased from 11.8 percent in 2018 to 13.8 percent in 2019.

But it’s how they improved that I think is interesting.

Van Jefferson had a relatively pedestrian explosive play percentage in 2018 and that continued in 2019. Josh Hammond increased his percentage somewhat, but that’s because he was targeted slightly less. Tyrie Cleveland increased his percentage significantly, but that shouldn’t be a huge surprise as he struggled to stay healthy in 2018.

The reason Florida’s offense was so much more explosive can be attributed to one player: Freddie Swain.

Swain showed explosiveness in 2018 but he just didn’t get the ball all that much, as he was only targeted 20 times.

But in 2019, Swain was targeted 58 times and turned that into 10 explosive plays.

If Swain had had his 2019 target rate in 2018, he would have contributed eight more explosive plays (assuming his 17% rate). That would have put the Gators top-four receivers at a 15 percent explosive rate, which is pretty close to where they ended up in 2019.

The take-home is that we should have seen Swain’s breakout season in 2019 coming because he was showing significant signs of it in 2018.

Application to 2020

But Swain is gone, as are the rest of those guys. So, should Gators fans be worried?

Well, maybe not.

Anybody who has watched Kadarius Toney knows he makes the offense go. He obviously had some trouble staying healthy in 2018 but he needs to see the field. But even without Toney, Jacob Copeland and Trevon Grimes showed good explosive play percentages even with the ball getting spread around.

Kyle Pitts was responsible for the most explosive plays of the group. But Pitts’ percentage is limited somewhat by all of the short routes that he is asked to run in the offense.

This offseason, Gators fans have been asking which wide receivers are going to have to step up. I highlighted the “s” there because the implication is that Florida needs multiple guys to step up and be playmakers.

But I don’t think that’s really the case.

Whether it’s Dionte Marks, Ja’markis Weston, Trent Whittemore, Xzavier Henderson, Jaquavion Fraziers or Justin Shorter, Florida only needs one guy to step in and be explosive because there are enough explosive receivers coming back.

Takeaway

Florida has some concerns coming into 2020.

The defensive line is going to be missing Jabari Zuniga and Jonathan Greenard. The team will miss the leadership of David Reese, those senior wide receivers and Lamical Perine.

But this isn’t the same situation as Georgia losing all of its wide receivers after 2018. The 2019 Bulldogs lost Mecole Hardman (16.1 EP%), Riley Ridley (11.1%) and Terry Godwin (23.3%). After losing JJ Holloway due to disciplinary reasons, Georgia didn’t have any experience at all at wide receiver.

That’s why Kirby Smart went out and got transfer Lawrence Cager from Miami. Cager performed really well for the Bulldogs (17.9%) as did freshman Georgia Pickens (13.0%). The problem with Georgia is that Pickens and Cager were all they had. Their next two wide receivers weren’t explosive at all, as Demetris Robertson (5.5%) and Tyler Simmons (8.8%) contributed only six explosive plays despite being targeted 91 times.

Florida got 14 from Toney, Copeland and Grimes in 95 targets, despite those players all (arguably in Grimes’ case) being backups. So anybody counting on Florida’s offense – or Kyle Trask – taking a huge step back because of the loss of those senior wide receivers is likely going to be disappointed.

The Gators’ offense is going to be explosive because the receivers coming back have a proven track-record of making explosive plays.

In Times of Crisis

At my core, I am a scientist.

It’s why I lean on statistics and reason in my writing. And it’s why it is difficult for me to become too fatalistic about most issues as I believe that typically science is the tool that human beings have developed to overcome lots of life’s hardships.

But this…is disturbing.

That’s the death rate of the COVID-19 coronavirus. I always assumed that as more testing became available we would find that we had a lot of asymptomatic and mild cases of the disease and they would increase the denominator. That may still happen, but anybody telling you this is a hoax isn’t looking at the data.

It is true that COVID-19 disproportionately kills older people. It’s also true that in 1920 – just 100 years ago – the average life expectancy in the U.S. was 54-years old. Now that life expectancy is nearly 79 years. The people that the coronavirus is hitting the hardest wouldn’t have even been around to be at-risk a mere century ago.

But of course, they do have that chance today. In large part, that’s because of scientific advancement.

It’s because we no longer glorify smoking in our society. It’s because we have new cancer treatments that nobody could have even dreamed of years ago. It’s because our communications systems allow us to teach people how to take care of themselves and to make sure emergency personnel can get to a situation quickly when necessary.

But science has its limits.

It can be anxiety-inducing to sit in your house, watch your 401k dwindle and wonder whether you or your parents are going to get sick. My father – in particular – is a physician and so at some point is likely to be exposed to this virus.

It can be heartbreaking to have to tell your daughter she won’t be able to go back to school, see her friends and get her fifth-grade yearbook signed or participate in her colonial fair.

It can be incredibly difficult to forgive the neighbor after your son comes into the house terrified that he has the coronavirus because he was told he did because he is half Chinese.

It sucks to have zero control. And as much as I believe in science and as much as I believe that scientists will find a way to cure this eventually, I also know that there are no sure things.

So there’s only one thing I can think to do: pray.

Had you asked me three weeks ago about my faith, I would have told you that it was on pretty shaky ground. I have had significant issues with multiple churches that I have attended. I have battled constant doubts as I have read both sides of the scientific debate about the existence of God, and Christianity specifically.

And if I’m completely honest, I have a pretty gigantic ego that sometimes crowds out my need for anything other than my skills and abilities.

But in times of crisis, you find out a few things about yourself.

For instance, I’ve found that I don’t really care to place blame on anyone – not China, Republicans or Democrats – for the spread of the disease. Unfortunately, that has meant that I have had to log off of Twitter quite a bit during this time.

I’ve found that as someone who is pretty introverted, I still miss my friends, even after just a short time away. Part of that is connecting with you all over football and Gators sports. After months of thinking it was stupid, I’d give a lot to have a “#FireMikeWhite” debate on Twitter be my biggest source of annoyance.

And I’ve found that perhaps my faith isn’t as weak as I thought it was. There’s a calm in me with this pandemic that I can’t really explain, other than I truly believe that while I have zero control, God does.

So I’m praying that people stay inside and respect the social distancing protocols that are being put in place. I’m praying that a vaccine can be developed quickly to eliminate the spread of the disease. I’m praying that antiviral drugs can be developed just as quickly to treat those who are sick.

And I’m praying that some of you who came here to read about football will consider what role your faith plays in this pandemic. It may sound hokey and you may think I’m stupid to believe in fairy tales. You may be right.

But even if you think I’m stupid, I’d ask that you give it a chance. After all, the promises are pretty appealing given current events.

Phil 4:6-7 – Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Stay safe, everyone.

Note: My friend Matt Silver started a church in October. I don’t think it was a coincidence that he started a church just in time for a pandemic. I don’t want you to give him money. I don’t want you to give him anything. But if my words made you want to explore your faith, check out his sermon this morning at www.experiencecc.org.

Help a Gator in times of need

If you’re a member of Gator Twitter, you may have come across this. But if not, I wanted to point it out to you.

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Job just closed. 😟

Cup business is now my only source of income. Thank you to everyone who has supported me and my family. Love you guys.

I have a lot of free time now.
Cup store is still open. 🤞🙏

— STEED DESIGNS (@SeanSteed) March 19, 2020

I met Sean through Twitter. He’s a huge Gator fan and is the one who designed Read and Reaction’s logos for me. He also makes some pretty cool cups.

I realize a lot of you are being impacted by the coronavirus and may want to help but cannot. But perhaps you’re sitting at home wondering how you can make a difference.

If that’s the case, reach out to Sean on Twitter (@seansteed) with your custom cup request.

It may not seem like much, but the only way to help is one person at a time. And I know it would mean a lot to Sean.

Thanks!

Featured image used under Creative Commons license courtesy Arctic Whirlwind