Film study: Trask improved in 2020, but still one more gear to go

Embed from Getty Images

Kyle Trask’s play has suddenly come under a little bit of fire.

During the offseason, Pro Football Focus put forth the idea that Trask was overrated, based on a few things. The largest thing was that he was throwing a lot of passes that PFF considered to be interceptable.

This was backed up by friend of the site SEC Stat Cat, who had Trask at a 1.98 interception percent in 2019 but a 7.63 interceptable percentage, indicating that Trask had gotten lucky to avoid turning the ball over more.

This year, Trask has only thrown one interception (0.97%), but he’s up there again in interceptable percentage (6.8%), indicating that is still an area that he has to work on. And recently PFF doubled-down on its analysis of Trask, essentially giving credit for Florida’s scorching offense to the Gators playmakers and Dan Mullen.

But Trask has improved. He has increased his completion percentage (66.9 to 71.8), yards per attempt (8.3 to 9.7), QB Rating (156.1 to 196.0) and even rushing yardage (0.1 yards per rush to 2.0 yards per rush). That last one is an indication that Trask is getting the ball out rather than taking a sack.

But those are just statistics. What does the film say about where Trask has improved, and where he still needs to make some strides to cement his status as an elite, Heisman-level QB.

Pocket Presence

One big criticism of Trask in 2019 was his lack of pocket awareness. You could see that creep up at various times against better defenses and when his inexperience would show.

On this play, Trask has an opportunity to escape the tackle box and throw the ball away. Down 16-3 to Georgia already, Florida really needed points on this drive. But because he doubles back and stays in the pocket, he has to take the sack rather than just throwing the ball away and keeping the Gators in field goal range.

This is another example of pocket presence issues. Tennessee brings a corner blitz, and it looks like to me that Trask expects Jacob Copeland to sit on a hot route. Copeland doesn’t, but then flashes open across the middle. Trask double clutches, unable to pull the trigger and get the ball to Copeland and fumbles when he’s hit.

But that has improved this year considerably.

On this play, Trask identifies the blitz and is already drifting away from it the moment he gets the snap. That allows him to escape to his right and throw the ball away.

On this play, Trask helps running back Nay’Quan Wright by moving to his right to avoid the blitzing linebacker. This isn’t a great blitz pick-up by Wright, but the shift by Trask allows him to get the throw off to Pitts for a first down.

This is perhaps my favorite Trask play of the season. He knows he’s going to get hit. But he also knows he has Kadarius Toney in one-on-one coverage and just has to buy him time. So Trask drifts backwards at the first sign of pressure. That buys him enough time to get the ball to Toney and convert the first down.

Arm Strength

One of the main criticisms of Trask is that he “doesn’t have an NFL arm.” Well, he’s worked on that this offseason.

On this play, Trask babies the ball outside to his wide receiver against South Carolina. Now, this game was in the rain and he did need to get the throw over the underneath defender. But look at Trask’s hips at the throw. They’re wide open, preventing him from driving through the throw and eliminating velocity.

Trask clearly spent the offseason working on his mechanics, as he has a lot more zip on the ball in 2020. And for the most part, that’s because he’s using his hips when he has to put a little bit extra on the throw.

On this play, Trask has to fit the ball into a zone between three defenders to Trevon Grimes. Watch how Trask doesn’t open up his hips prior to throwing the ball like he did in the previous play. Instead, he stays perpendicular to his target until his arm comes firing through. That’s why he’s able to fit the ball into the tight space.

All of those back shoulder throws we’ve seen him make this year, they all have a lot more zip on them than they did last year.

Reading Defenses

It’s ironic that this is what I would have said was Trask’s strength last season by far, but I actually think it’s the area where he’s struggled (at least a little bit) in 2020.

That doesn’t mean he’s been bad at it. Take this play for example.

On this play, Trask thinks he has Kyle Pitts one-on-one versus a safety. But Ole Miss drops one of its linebackers right into the zone where Trask wanted to hit Pitts. Trask pulls the ball down and Pitts wins a scramble drill, but this could have very easily been an interception had Trask not identified the defense.

And on this play, Trask immediately identifies that two men follow Malik Davis into the flat, leaving Kadarius Toney in one-on-one coverage deep. Trask makes a beautiful throw to Toney for the touchdown.

But Trask has been locking on to his receivers more this year than I remember last year. Maybe that’s just because I expect perfection from him at this point, but it does feel like this has happened more this year. The obvious example is when he gave up an easy completion to Malik Davis to throw all the way back against the field to Kyle Pitts in the end zone, but that wasn’t the only time that cropped up against Texas A&M.

This interception was called back for an illegal hands to the face penalty on Texas A&M. But this is a throw Trask can’t make. The safeties are showing zone at the snap and both of them backpedal at the snap. If you’re going to throw this ball, you can’t throw it to Toney’s right shoulder. It has to be over his left. Plus, Trask is locked onto Toney from the minute the ball is snapped.

On this play, Trask nearly throws an interception that is broken up by Jacob Copeland. But why was the defensive back so easily underneath Copeland? Well, it’s because Trask read the defense wrong.

The safety alignment at the snap should tell Trask that the free safety has deep responsibilities. Post-snap, the strong safety comes up a little bit, again indicating that the free safety is going to be deep. That means that the corner knows that he has safety help…and can cheat underneath against a back-shoulder throw.

Trask doesn’t make a great throw. It’s not far enough outside. But the defender is right there because that’s what the defense calls for.

Trask does the same thing on the very next play.

This actually might be graded a good decision by Florida’s coaches. The safety is deep again, but that means Toney has one-on-one coverage underneath, which is an opportunity for Florida to win down the field.

The issue is the same though. Because the corner has deep help, he can play underneath Toney and aggressively break-up the pass. More than that though, this is second-and-10 with a 21-point lead. Dameon Pierce is wide open for a gain of six or seven years. From a game management perspective, I want Trask to take the check-down here.

Takeaway

I show some of those decision-making plays not because Trask is bad at it, but to point out that there’s still room to improve. Trask has significantly improved his pocket presence and his mechanics (and consequently, his arm strength).

But the decision-making is still questionable at times. That’s okay against the Tennessee’s and Kentucky’s of the world, but it’s not going to be good enough against Georgia.

Last season, Joe Burrow had an INT percentage of 1.14, not much lower than Trask. But his interceptable pass percentage was 3.42. That was down from 6.71 in 2018, an indication that Burrow had figured out how to go downfield aggressively without throwing the ball up for grabs.

We’re only three games in. Trask certainly has time to improve that part of his game, and three games is just a small sample size. He’s a really, really good QB. And the Gators offense is explosive with him at the helm.

But to go from really, really good to elite, and for this offense to go from explosive to “holy crap, LSU’s defense can’t stop anybody but Burrow’s the QB so it doesn’t matter” level good is going to require one more step.

I think Trask actually has it in him, and ironically it means relying on his newfound ability to fit the ball into tight spaces and instead to rely on checking the ball down when he needs to fit the ball in.

So while I’m concerned about some of the decision-making, I’m encouraged that there is still another level for Trask to go. Because the Florida offense is currently averaging 42.3 points per game.

But imagine how explosive they’ll be when Kyle Trask takes that next step.

FEATURED IMAGE USED UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE COURTESY GAMECOCKCENTRAL.COM