Florida remains undefeated with two-touchdown win over South Carolina

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Dan Mullen’s Gators moved to 2-0 with a 14-point win over South Carolina that was never really in doubt. Yet, there’s definitely a tenor of “it doesn’t look good enough” rumbling through the fan base.

That’s understandable considering the way the season has started. Against Ole Miss, Florida gave up over 600 yards and still had the starters out there even after heading into the fourth quarter with a 41-21 lead. It felt again like the Gators lacked intensity late Saturday against South Carolina, as the Gators held a 38-14 lead late in the third quarter and held on for the 14-point victory.

First, some perspective.

In 2018, Florida beat one SEC opponent by 14 points or more (Tennessee). In 2019, that number increased to three (Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Missouri). This season, the Gators are two for two.

So yes, there are reasons to be concerned about the defense. And the offense didn’t do much of anything (9 total yards) in the fourth quarter against the Gamecocks.

But anybody writing off this team as a real contender needs to take a step back and examine what they consider success. Because the taste a lot of fans have left in their mouth after the win over South Carolina is that the team took its foot off the gas.

But the Gators can only do that this year because the accelerator in this particular car has a lot more power.

Now, on to the game analysis.

Defense

This was the unit that got the brunt of the fan’s ire on Twitter, but I’m not sure it should have.

The unit surrendered 329 yards, but 99 of those came in the fourth when the game was pretty much already secured. The Gators defense also only surrendered 4.0 yards per play, which would have ranked second in the country last year against FBS opponents.

The Gamecocks only had 117 yards rushing (3.3 yards per attempt). South Carolina’s QB – Collin Hill – completed less than 60 percent of his passes for only 4.5 yards per attempt. Hill’s Yards above Replacement (YAR) for the game was -3.20, which is just abysmal (zero is average).

So why did it feel so much worse?

Well, first look at the Gamecock’s scoring drives.

• 12 plays, 75 yards (touchdown)
• 9 plays, 48 yards (touchdown)
• 11 plays, 47 yards (field goal)
• 11 plays, 39 yards (touchdown)

The first thing to note is that two of those touchdown drives came on short fields, aided by turnovers from the Gators offense. The other thing to note is that the drives averaged 10.8 plays, which meant that it felt like they took forever (South Carolina dominated time of possession, 36:23 to 23:37).

Florida only gave up two explosive (20+ yard) plays after surrendering nine such plays against Ole Miss last week. That’s significant progress.

But there are two places where the Gators defense is searching for answers. The first is defensive tackle.

It’s not always a defensive tackle’s job to get penetration (though it is nice). Instead, the DTs job is often to occupy multiple blockers to free up the linebackers to make plays. That….did not happen here.

On this play, Marlon Dunlap (#91) and Zach Carter (#17) get stoned by one offensive lineman each at the line of scrimmage, as does defensive end Jeremiah Moon (#7). That allows center Jovaughn Gwyn (#54) and the pulling guard (#50, Sadarius Hutcherson) to get to linebackers James Houston (#41) and Amari Burney (#30).

That means the first person to meet South Carolina running back Deshaun Fenwick (#14) is Kaiir Elam (#5), a cornerback. When defensive backs are active in the running game – especially 10-yards downfield – that’s not a good sign.

But it wasn’t just in the running game where this was an issue.

On this play, Moon (#7) and Brenton Cox (#1) do their jobs, forcing Hill up into the pocket. But there’s nobody there to help because Carter (#17) and Tedarrell Slaton (#56) are completely handled. That allows Hill to step into his throw and nearly complete a big pass towards the end of the first half if not for a nice play by Marco Wilson (#3). This wasn’t the only time this was an issue.

So what can the Gators do to fix this? Well, the first thing is they can ask for more out of their defensive tackles. When they were able to get pressure up the middle, Hill really struggled.

This is a great individual play by Slaton (#56). He wins the one-on-one battle with the center, getting into Hill’s field of view and preventing him from moving in the pocket. His only choice is to look for his check-down, who is well covered.

You can also manufacture pressure by bringing pressure.

I’m actually not sure the Gators needed the blitz on this play. Kris Bogle (#8) beats the guard (#50, Hutcherson) right off the snap and the pressure comes right up the middle. Hill doesn’t know what to do and takes a big sack.

The other thing you can do is ask for help from the linebackers.

On this play Carter (#17) and Dunlap (#91) get blocked to the outside, but their alignment suggested they were giving up the middle. That means that either Burney (#30) or James Houston (#41) need to take on the oncoming offensive linemen and hold their position until the defensive linemen can catch up.

That doesn’t happen at all, as both linebackers get pushed back behind the first down marker before Carter can catch up to make the tackle.

And I know there was quite a bit of chatter about Amari Burney on Twitter. Burney didn’t have a great game, as illustrated here.

This clearly isn’t good. Burney immediately runs to the outside for reasons that are unclear. When South Carolina running back Kevin Harris (#20) cuts back towards the middle of the field, Burney is done.

But I want to caution jumping too hard on Burney. There’s a reason he was out there, and that’s because everyone is making mistakes at that position right now.

On this play, corner Kaiir Elam (#5) is lined up right over South Carolina’s wide receiver, Xavier Legette (#17). This usually means man coverage. Safety Donovan Stiner (#13) is also lined-up to that side, indicating Legette is taken care of.

But at the snap, linebacker Mohamoud Diabate (#11) jumps back to take Legette, leaving Harris (#20) wide open.

And you don’t want to get down on Burney too much because of what he can do for you when it starts to click.

On this play, with South Carolina facing a third-and-13, Todd Grantham shows heavy pressure. But at the snap, Burney (#30) drops back to play safety, allowing safety Shawn Davis (#6) to close aggressively on South Carolina tight end Keveon Mullins (#80).

That kind of versatility is why Grantham is sticking with Burney.

Offense

It’s weird for me to say for a team that put up 38 points, but if you were to point to the problem with putting this game away, it wasn’t on the defensive side of the ball.

The playcalling was really weird. Dameon Pierce dominated the opening touchdown drive and finished the first quarter with 5 rushes for 27 yards. He only got four more carries (for 24 yards). The Gators had four explosive plays in the first half, but the only one in the second half was the 57-yard pass to Toney.

And the Gators went into halftime with great balance, with 17 pass attempts versus 14 rush attempts. Yet, if you exclude the three kneels at the end of the game, the Gators finished with 29 passes to 21 runs.

Kyle Trask’s stats looked awesome yet again (YAR of 1.62), but he was below average in the second half, averaging only 7.8 yards per throw and throwing an INT that allowed the Gamecocks to hang around. But Trask got hit a lot, even while he was being effective and I do wonder whether that started to take its toll.

This is a relatively easy pitch-and-catch to Pitts early in the game. But notice that Trask gets drilled by Gamecocks defensive end Jabari Ellis (#99) right as he releases the ball.

That wasn’t the only time the pressure got to Trask.

This is a quick read to get the ball out to Justin Shorter (#89). But Ellis (#99) beats right guard Richard Gouraige (#76) right at the snap and hits Trask right as he releases the ball. I think it’s worth noting that Trask is right on target (as opposed to Hill earlier with pressure in his face), but this kind of thing eventually gets to a QB.

In fact, it might have cost the Gators a touchdown on the very next play.

Tight end Kyle Pitts is open with only a safety to beat on this play. Trask gets flushed by the blitz coming up the middle and does a really nice job of side-stepping the rush. But he then delivers the ball a little bit high and behind Pitts. Pitts makes a great catch, but all of the open space in front of him closes once he has to slow up a little bit.

This play came right after he had been blasted on a throw where Pitts’ toes was just out of the end zone. Here, Brett Heggie (#61) and Richard Gouraige (#76) don’t pick up the stunting defensive end and Trask misses Pitts by about 10 feet.

This isn’t to rip Trask. He played well. That goes double considering how often he got hit.

But he’s going to get hit against Georgia and potentially Alabama, and he’s not going to have the luxury of being able to flinch. The Bulldogs will hit Pitts in the ribs if he goes up for a pass like that against them, and an overthrow that bad in the end zone may not always fall harmlessly to the ground.

Considering Trask accounted for two turnovers in this one, the Gators are going to have to do a better job of protecting him, and he’s going to have to get just a tick better in these situations.

Is this nitpicking with Trask? Absolutely. It’s also not really his fault.

But with the defensive limitations of this team, there isn’t going to be much room for error when the games against the Big Boys come.

Takeaway

If you had told me the Gators would score 51 and 38 points in their first two games and win each by at least 14, I would’ve taken it. You would’ve too.

So regardless of the areas for improvement, this should be a happy Sunday for Gators fans. The team is 2-0, playing at a high level, going to be ranked in the top-5 and might even be able to beat Tulsa or Jacksonville State if things fell just right.

I pointed out the defensive line struggles, but if Kyree Campbell can return, that should help a lot. And Kyle Trask is off to a start no Gators QB has seen since Rex Grossman in 2001 (and some guy named Tebow won a Heisman after that).

There are things to clean up, no doubt. But after watching the debacle of game management that was the Will Muschamp experience*, having Dan Mullen on the sideline rather than that clown is an unbelievable upgrade.

*I mean, he did it twice. First, going for a field goal late in the 3^rd quarter on fourth-and-2 after going for a fourth-and-1 deep in his own territory. Then, running 7:23 off the clock on an 18-play drive while down 14 with eight minutes left.

We all knew that this season was probably going to come down to a showdown with Georgia, and it looks much more like that is true after the Bulldogs took Auburn behind the woodshed. That means the Gators don’t have to be perfect against South Carolina.

They just need to be building to hit on all cylinders at the Cocktail Party.

Dr. Michael Waters

If you’ve ever enjoyed anything I’ve ever done either on Gators Breakdown, SEC Country or Read and Reaction, you have been impacted by Mike Waters (no relation to Dave).

I met Mike in 2009 when I started a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Maryland. Prior to NIST, Mike was a member of the United States Marine Corps for eight years, then got his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Oregon and his Ph.D. from Southern Cal. He spent the last decade at the FDA as a leading scientific reviewer, and has been instrumental in making sure that information regarding Covid-19 is available and reliable ever since the pandemic hit in March.

His thought process could be completely disorganized, but he was brilliant. He would launch into really complicated topics without slowing down to explain any of the fundamentals to me. It was up to me to catch-up (sometimes by stopping to ask questions and sometimes on Google afterwards). Sometimes, I just couldn’t keep up.

He described himself as a loner, but he and I became quick friends. He would regale me with stories from his time growing up in Columbia, and the risks that seemed so crazy to me that were just a part of his daily life. And right before my family moved to Chicago after I got a new job, his family – along with two others – spent the evening over at our apartment just reliving the last two years of our lives, not wanting that particular season of our lives to end.

You always think you’ll have an opportunity to recapture those times, but the truth is that they normally end up dulling over time. That’s part of why I love writing about football. Those years at Florida were some of the best I ever had, and in some part, I get to re-live that every Saturday in the fall.

Last Sunday, Mike passed away suddenly, leaving behind his wife and three small children (10, 8 and 2).

It still takes my breath away to write it.

When I struggled with the career I’d chosen, he was the one to assure me that I was good at it and I just needed to keep working. When I started writing for SEC Country and told him about it, he just assumed that I’d switched professions because he couldn’t imagine that I would do anything less than 100 percent. And when I decided to start Read and Reaction, it was, in large part, because of many different conversations that he and I had about starting something that we would own.

The last time we talked, I had him on Bluetooth in the car and told him we were going to have another child, and he celebrated with a joy in his voice that I just can’t describe, and loud enough that my son – who we hadn’t told yet – started wondering what in the hell was going on.

Because that’s who Mike was. He was everyone else’s biggest cheerleader.

There’s a GoFundMe set up to help his family, and I’d be humbled if some of you would help by donating. But more than that, I hope that if you read this that you’ll go find that person who you connect with and be the cheerleader in their life.

Because one day, your life is going to end too. And I can only hope that you’ve impacted someone’s life half as much as Mike Waters impacted mine.

Love you buddy.

Featured image used under Creative Commons license courtesy Photo-Gator