Why Florida is going to blow away Texas A&M to move to 3-0

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Florida is 2-0, with two 14-plus point victories, but you might not know it from all of the concern out there.

The defense has struggled to get off the field through two games. After getting torched against Ole Miss for over 600 yards, the Gators defense spent the entire fourth quarter on the field as South Carolina limped up and down the field.

Even Vegas seems to be doubting the Gators.

A 2-0 team that is averaging 44.5 points is only a 6.5 point favorite against a team that has only scored 41 points in its two games. Yes, one of those games was against Alabama.

But one of those games was a 17-12 squeaker over the juggernaut that is Vanderbilt……at home. Yikes!

The truth is that Jimbo Fisher hasn’t even come close to earning that huge paycheck that he got for jumping ship from FSU to join the Aggies. Texas A&M is now 18-10 overall and 10-8 in the SEC in his time at A&M. Compare that to Dan Mullen, who joined the Florida program the same year that Fisher started at A&M and is now 23-5 overall and 13-5 in conference.

Perhaps the biggest difference is that while Mullen is getting (valid) criticism for not being able to beat Georgia to this point, he is 5-3 against ranked teams as well as going 4-1 against the SEC West. Fisher is 3-8 against ranked opponents, also going 4-1 against the SEC East.

I know a lot of Gators fans are nervous about this one. Kyle Field, at noon on the road, and a team desperate after getting thumped by Alabama.

But I’m not.

Offense

Any offensive analysis begins and ends with the quarterback. That’s why Texas A&M is in trouble.

I wrote a lengthy piece in the offseason about Kellen Mond, essentially saying that he is who he is: an average QB who failed to get better between 2018 and 2019. So what about 2020?

In the two games this year thus far, he’s the exact same QB that he has been in 2018 and 2019. And you can’t blame that on Alabama. He actually played better (QB Rating of 135.5) than he did against Vanderbilt (129.2).

And if you looked at Mond’s high school stats, you’d understand why I didn’t expect much progression for Mond. He completed 55.6 percent of his throws his senior year. So he hasn’t been accurate at any level thus far, so why would we expect it now?

Last year, Mond was terrible on third-and-long, going 9 of 24 (37.5%) and averaging 6.4 yards per attempt. This season, he’s at it again through two games (h/t to www.secstatcat.com for the statistical search tool).

He’s actually not bad on second down, but he’s only completed one of those 13 attempts for a first down. But there he is again, right at 37.5 percent completions, just like last year. There isn’t much Alabama bias with this one either, as Mond was 0-2 against Vanderbilt in third-and-long situations.

So what about his counterpart? Well, this was one of my favorite stats about Trask this offseason. Overall, Trask completed 66.9 percent of his passes for an average of 8.3 yards per attempt. On third-and-10+, Trask completed 78.6 percent of his passes for an average of 8.7 yards per attempt.

He was better on third-and-long than just normal situations!

This season is no different. Trask has upped his game, completing 80 percent (4 of 5) of his passes on third-and-long for 9.4 yards per attempt. That matches the increase overall, as he’s completed 71.8 percent of his throws for 9.6 yards per attempt.

But Mond is such a good runner that he can offset what Trask provides in the passing game, right?

You might have said that last year, when Mond ran for 501 yards. But you can’t say that in 2020, as Mond has run 15 times for 37 yards, 18 against Vanderbilt and 19 against Alabama. And even in 2018 and 2019, while Mond ran for a combined 975 yards, he only averaged 3.5 yards per rush. That isn’t terrible, but it isn’t what you think of when you think “dual-threat QB.”

For his part, Trask has actually been in the positive on the ground this year, with 9 carries for 24 yards. I’m not looking for huge yardage from Trask, but what this does indicate is that he’s not taking any sacks.

I could talk about wide receivers, running backs and the offensive line. I actually think Florida stacks up pretty well in those areas as well. But when the gap is this wide at QB, I don’t think you really need to go much further than that.

Advantage: Florida (by a wide margin)

Defense

So if A&M is behind Florida on offense, it’s going to have the make up the difference on defense. Can it?

This one’s a little bit tricky. The Aggies had a pretty good outing against Vanderbilt, giving up 12 points and holding Vanderbilt QB Ken Seals to a QB rating of 110.0, well below average. But I struggle to assess that too much because Seals just put up a QB rating of 79.2 – absolutely dreadful – against LSU. This is the same LSU defense that gave up 623 yards to Mississippi State a week earlier.

And the Aggies got absolutely drilled by Alabama last week, giving up 16.1 (!) yards per attempt to Mac Jones. I had to take a second look when I saw that Jones threw for 435 yards on only 27 attempts. That means the Aggies were giving up a bunch of explosive plays – the kinds of plays that Florida has been putting up recently.

The safety play for A&M against Alabama was just awful. The Tide’s first drive ended this way.

On this play, the safety is initially in a cover-two look. I can’t imagine that they’re supposed to shift to a single-high look with the other safety dropping into the middle considering that Alabama has three receivers to the wide side of the field.

Regardless, the A&M safety jumps the short route, leaving the deep route wide open for an easy TD.

On the third play of the second half, A&M’s safety drops at the snap, presumably to take deep responsibilities. The Alabama wide receiver runs a double move and the safety bites. Jones overthrows his receiver, but Alabama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian took note.

This is the same general defensive alignment and Alabama runs almost the same play. Again, the A&M safety bites and it ends up being an easy TD throw to Jaylen Waddle.

The deep miss came on third-and-8 and the one to Waddle was on second-and-22. The safeties were cheating because they thought Alabama was going to try to just go to the sticks on the first one and gain a little bit back to make third down more manageable on the second.

Florida is going to have some opportunities for deep shots in this game. And if A&M has fixed this particular problem, it’s just going to open up Karadius Toney and Kyle Pitts over the middle.

Florida’s defense hasn’t been much better than A&M’s. The Gators had a horrid game against Ole Miss, giving up 9 explosive plays and making Matt Corral look like a Heisman Trophy-level QB. They tightened up considerably against South Carolina, but that’s a Will Muschamp offense, so you would expect that.

So the Jekyl/Hyde phenomenon with A&M is there with Florida as well.

But whereas Florida has already shown the weapons to take advantage of the things that Alabama did to torch the Aggies, I don’t see A&M having the skillset to exploit the Gators defense in the same way.

My biggest worry is that Florida doesn’t get much push up-front. A&M was able to get 183 yards rushing on 27 carries against Vanderbilt, including 8 rush for 117 yards for Isiah Spiller. I think it’s likely that he hits a big play or two against the Gators defense in a way that he couldn’t against Alabama.

But the place that Ole Miss was able to target was Florida’s safeties, forcing miscommunications leading to wide open receivers running deep. South Carolina couldn’t do it and I’m not sure how A&M is going to do it either.

Jake Wydermyer is the Aggies leading receiver. He’s a tight end. Ainias Smith is the Aggies most explosive player (18.8 yards per reception). He’s an all-purpose back. Smith should be Florida’s biggest concern, as he might at some point get matched up on a Gators linebacker.

Florida is going to give up some yards. The Gators might have some trouble getting off of the field. But that’s probably going to be design in this game as well.

Because if you make A&M go on 10, 12 or 14-play drives, you’re making them rely on Kellen Mond not making a mistake.

Advantage: Gators (slight)

Takeaway

I know a lot of people are concerned about this game.

A&M came into this season with high hopes and high expectations. But those expectations came from hoping that Kellen Mond would take a step forward and that Jimbo Fisher would be able to get the offense humming in his third season as coach.

That hasn’t happened thus far.

On the Florida side, the Gators came into the season with high hopes and high expectations as well. And while the defense has been a disappointment thus far, the offense has been downright explosive. Dan Mullen has been able to get his offense humming in his third season as coach.

Kyle Field is a tough place to play. But there aren’t going to be a ton of fans there. And you know Kyle Trask is going to be motivated considering he wanted to be an Aggie growing up (and is apparently named after the stadium).

In 2018, Texas A&M went 5-3 in SEC play, but were outscored 251-242. In 2019, the Aggies went 4-4 in SEC play, but were outscored 224-202. Conversely, Florida went 5-3 in 2018 and barely outscored its opponents 209-205, but in 2019 went 6-2 and outscored its opponents 249-136.

The Gators improved from 2018 to 2019. The Aggies did not.

Trask has improved from 2019 to 2020. Mond has not.

I can’t believe the Gators are only 6.5 points favorites in this game. I don’t see any way Texas A&M can stop the Florida offense. And I don’t see any way Mond can help the Aggies keep up.

The Gators move to 3-for-3 with two-touchdown plus victories over SEC opponents.

Florida wins (-6.5), 45-24.

Predictions this season: 2-0 straight-up, 1-1 against the spread (ATS)

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