The All-SEC Project: Part 1 – Establishing a Championship Template

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For a long time now, I’ve been curious about the relationship between individual All-SEC football players and teams that win SEC Championships. I’ve often pondered questions, like how many All-SEC players does a team need to win the conference? Which positions do they need to play? Or does it even matter? Or, are there certain positions where recruiting stars are less-accurate predictors of All-SEC potential? At some point this summer, my curiosity gave way to action, and I began digging into the numbers for answers.

Things started off fairly tame, as I reviewed recruiting profiles and the home states of recent All-SEC selections. But then it hit me. This is 2020. If there was ever a time to get crazy, that time is now. So, as you might expect, down the statistical rabbit hole I went. Analysis on Redshirts, early NFL departures, and relative positional importance soon followed. I compared teams, states, and made a deep dive into Dan Mullen’s history of producing All-SEC players. I even compiled a ranking to see which high schools produced the most All-SEC players (as in… I ranked all of them). In total, the data I pulled included the past 10 years of post-season AP All-SEC teams (nearly 550 player selections), with analysis based on dozens of statistical metrics. Now that I’ve regained my sanity emerged from the rabbit hole, I’m ready to write about what I discovered.

In this 6-article series, I intend to present this All-SEC analysis as a new lens through which to view UF’s efforts to build a championship football team. In part 1, we’ll examine the All-Conference selections of recent SEC champions to establish a potential template for UF to follow. From there, we’ll spend the remainder of the project exploring how UF can go about successfully following that template to victory in Atlanta. This starts in part 2, when we’ll find out where All-SEC football players come from, geographically speaking. In Part 3, we’ll explore the timing factors of building a championship nucleus of All-SEC players. In part 4, we’ll discuss All-SEC-based program identity, when we find out “Who’s the real _ _ U?” In Part 5, we’ll dive into recruiting All-SEC players, by the numbers. And finally, in part 6, we’ll take a close look at the All-SEC resume’ of Dan Mullen. In each installment, I’ll aim to answer common questions, challenge typical assumptions, and of course, apply the findings to Gator football.

So, buckle up, and get ready, the tip of the iceberg is straight ahead…

Part 1 – Establishing a Championship Template

Since this series is about how All-SEC players impact UF’s path to conference supremacy, an examination of recent SEC Champions seems like the logical place to start. This isn’t meant to suggest Mullen’s Gators have to win like everybody else, but let’s be realistic here. If most (or all) teams are winning the conference with a lot of All-SEC players at the same positions, there’s probably something to that. Let’s find out if that’s the case by looking at some basic All-SEC numbers of conference champs for the past 10 years:

How Many All-SEC players do you need to win the conference?

The first thing to note from the chart above is that recent SEC Champion teams average a whopping 8.6 All-SEC selections per year (that’s 1st and 2nd teamers combined). This eye-popping number represents about 36% of the teams’ starting lineups when including kickers and 37% when removing them from the equation.

While some will inevitably point to Alabama as distorting these numbers upward, I will counter on 2 grounds: First, Alabama is a reality and this author presumes that Gator fans haven’t thrown in the proverbial towel until such time as Nick Saban retires. Second, LSU’s All-SEC selection totals in 2011 and 2019 constitute the 2nd and 3rd highest of the past 10 years. It is fair however, to suggest that the lower totals of 2013 Auburn and 2017 UGA (Each had 6 selected players) prove the viability of a lower possible threshold.

Keeping this is mind, I’ll refer back to the higher average of 8.6 as the “ideal” total and the lowest recorded of 6 as the “historic minimum”. As we identify the ideal and minimum values for each section of this championship template, it should become clear where UF needs to be.

How many 1st Team selections do you need?

Now, let’s zoom in slightly to consider how many of these All-SEC performers were named to the AP’s 1st team. This is an important next step after all, as we begin to define the typical nature of a championship-level All-SEC player nucleus. As it turns out, about 55% of the All-SEC performers in question were named to the 1st team (47 of 86). While the 3 Alabama champs from 2014-2016 do appear to inflate this, removing them only drops the remaining team average to 48%. In either case, the ideal 1st team rate is somewhere close to 50%. Georgia’s 2017 championship team again serves as a minimum here, as their 2 first-teamers comprised only 33% of the team total (they had 4 second-teamers).

The more important takeaway from this metric however, is noting that every single SEC champion of the decade featured multiple first teamers among their All-SEC ranks. In fact, those teams averaged nearly 5 first-teamers per championship year (4.7). For the championship template, this average serves as the ideal number. While Georgia’s aforementioned pair of first-teamers serves as the minimum again, it should be noted that they were the only team with less than 3 first-teamers during the examined decade.

Offense, Defense, Special Teams: Does it matter?

Now for the kicker (or should I say the lack thereof): The All-SEC ranks of recent champs are consistently balanced between offense and defense, but not so much special teams. While the annual offense average (4.2 selections per year) is very close to that of the defense (3.9), special teams selections lag behind at 0.5 per year. That doesn’t tell the whole story, though. Each of the last 10 SEC champs have featured multiple all-conference players on both offense and defense. All of them have featured at least 3 offensive side selections, while all but one featured at least 3 on defense.

The lone exception was 2013 Auburn, which featured 4 offensive players, but only 2 defenders. In establishing our championship template for UF to follow, the ideal standard will be an even split of at least 4 selections on each side of the ball. As for the minimum, it will be at least 3 on offense and 2 on defense (but remember, the current total minimum is still at 6). As for special teamers, it’s important to note that I include All-Purpose selections in the offensive category, since they typically have offensive stats that contribute to the award. That is somewhat irrelevant though, as neither they, nor kicker/punters impact the data much, as we’ll discuss shortly. The bottom line here however, is that if you’re going to win the SEC, you probably need to find several All-SEC players on both offense and defense in the same year.

Which positions lead teams to SEC championships?

With the team-based aspects of our template established, let’s zoom in even further for a look at the impact of specific positions. In the chart below, you’ll notice each position is analyzed based on total selections, selections per year, number of years with at least 1 selection, and positional success rate (formula shown below that accounts for how many of each position are on the field at one time). With this data, we’ll identify which positions have mattered most over the past decade of conference play.

Three Positions that have made a big impact:

Quarterback – No matter how much football changes, the importance of a good QB seems to remain the same. Over the past decade, 6 of 10 SEC champions have featured an All-SEC QB, with 4 of those making the AP’s first team. The position also features the highest success rate (60%) of any position.

Running back – In 3 of the 4 years when SEC champions didn’t feature an All-SEC QB, they instead featured an All-SEC RB. The same could also be said of the combined All-SEC production from TE and WR, but those positions typically account for 4 of the starting 11 spots on offense. RBs typically account for only 1 and rotate, which is why the position’s success rate was second-highest at 50%.

Offensive line – While the position’s #1 ranking in overall selections (21) can be misleading (due to their being 5 starting OLs on each team), it’s hard to ignore the fact that 42% of the last decade’s SEC-Champion offensive linemen have made the AP’s All-SEC teams. That includes an average of OVER 2 per year, with every single champion team featuring at least 1.

Three Positions that haven’t:

All Purpose – Even though all-purpose selections tend to be those with genuine play-making electricity, they’ve been conspicuously absent from SEC Champion lineups. In fact, the only AP selection to play for a champion team over the past decade was Georgia’s Mecole Hardman in 2017.

Tight End – Over the past 10 years, SEC champion teams have only featured 2 All-Conference Tight Ends. Those were Auburn’s CJ Uzomah in 2013 and Alabama’s OJ Howard in 2016 (both were 2nd teamers). For whatever reason, recent champs simply haven’t featured conference-elite performances at the position.

Place Kicker/Punter – I’m lumping these two positions together, as All-SEC leg swingers rarely appear in the lineups of conference champion teams. With only 2 kickers and 3 punters over the last decade, they boast a combined positional success rate of only 25%. Also, note that neither of the two teams which set the minimum standard for total All-SEC selections (2013 Auburn & 2017 Georgia with 6 each) included a kicker or punter.

Where things get fuzzy:

DE / DT / LB – As schemes have changed over the years, the definitions of a defensive end and a defensive tackle have become blurred. The same is true for edge-rushing linebackers, but the AP ballots don’t always account for this. As a result, there’s likely some distortion within the data, and it’s hard to get an accurate read on these positions. It is this author’s suspicion that the defensive end / edge position is under-represented in the data (even though they are already the 4th highest in success rate at 40%), but that will have to be determined through further research. For now, here is a chart detailing positional groupings to help readers mitigate this issue and formulate their own conclusions:

A quick summary of the template:

Before we turn our attention to how this all relates to Gator football, take a look at the chart below for a quick summary of the championship template we’ve established through the data:

UF Outlook

UF’s recent past vs the template (we’ll make this quick, in the name of mercy)

Unfortunately, UF’s inability to follow the championship template from 2010-2019 mirrors its lack of football championships during the period. The Gator program was never able to meet the minimum standard of 6 non-kicker All-SEC selections in a single year, never had an All-SEC QB, and only once had an all-SEC RB (Gillislee in 2012). The decade featured only 4 All-SEC selections along the OL, with 3 of the 4 going to Martez Ivey (2016-2018).

The teams were dreadfully imbalanced, falling far short of the typical near-equal offense/defense distribution identified within the template. Instead, only about 20% of UF’s overall selections and 15% of the 1st teamers came from the offense. UF ranked 14th (yes, dead last) in the SEC in offensive AP All-SEC selections for the decade, but 4th overall on defense. As we all know, this led to teams with dominant defense, mostly-sub-par offense (until Mullen arrived), and little to show for their efforts. In this case the template and the results agree: This is not a path that leads to winning the SEC.

The 2020 Gators vs the template

As I write this, UF Football is currently 2-1, coming off a frustrating loss to Texas A&M, but still very much in the SEC Championship race. In view of this article, the question must then be asked: Do the Gators have the All-SEC horses to meet the parameters of our template and win the conference?

Well, I think almost all fans would agree that this season has largely been about the Kyle to Kyle show. While TE Kyle Pitts (the first and only post-Urban-Meyer offensive recruit to garner 1st team AP All-SEC honors) looks like a shoe-in, QB Kyle Trask is at least in the hunt. With the defense in its current sub-optimal state (See, I’m being nice), an All-SEC performance from Trask is going to be even more important down the stretch.

So, let’s assume those 2 make the cut. Where do you find your other 4 All-SEC players, with at least 1 more on offense and 2 on defense? For my money, an all-purpose selection of Kadarius Toney makes the most sense as the third guy. Also, as we have established, All-SEC offensive linemen are of huge importance. Could Brett Heggie prove to be among the conference’s best OLs as the season continues? What about on defense? Right now, I don’t see how you could possibly justify handing such an award to anyone sinking sailing upon the SS Grantham (ok that wasn’t nice). But the season isn’t over. Perhaps DL Zach Carter will emerge as the dominant force this unit needs up front. Maybe a logical end to the Charmin-soft coverage schemes will facilitate a huge rebound for Kair Elam.

Even if they do, we’re still talking about barely reaching some key minimums. The QB is there, the ball-side distribution would be there, but you’d also be relying on two positions (TE and AP) which have had little impact for recent champion teams. Then again, maybe Toney makes the cut as a WR. Either way, these would probably be my “most-likely” picks to get the Gators on the right side of that minimum threshold.

Where do we go from here?

While the fate of the 2020 UF football season is yet to be determined, the championship template we’ve identified should remain viable in 2021 and beyond. With that in mind, future installments of this series will begin to answer questions about how the Gators can go about walking that path and building a championship All-SEC player nucleus.

The next step in that direction is to find out where All-SEC players come from, geographically speaking. In part 2, we’re going to find out which states produce the most All-SEC players and discuss how the state of Florida stacks up in producing All-SEC talent at each position. We’ll find out where the Gators can most-commonly find All-SEC talent outside the home state lines, discuss how each school defends their state recruiting borders, and of course, apply it all to the Orange and Blue. So, get ready, because we’re just getting started…

***IMPORTANT NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR. PLEASE READ!!!***

This is by far the most ambitious research/writing project I’ve ever undertaken. Whether or not I pull it off, I’m swinging for the fence for one simple reason: I’m not playing for me this time. All of the writing proceeds from this series will be donated to a non-profit organization called First Coast Women’s Services. Located in Florida, FCWS provides 100% free care, support, and advocacy to young women who have experienced unplanned pregnancies. The women they serve face extremely difficult circumstances and the help they receive can both save and change lives.

My challenge to you, Gator Nation, is this: Will you please team up with me, change lives, and win a championship that matters? Thousands of people are going to read this article and together we can fully fund a young mom’s benefits from the program for just $1200. With that in mind, if you’ve enjoyed reading the article, please click HERE to check out the GoFundMe page. I know this crazy year has been tough on many of you, but if you have some extra cash, please consider giving what you can to change a life. Thank you so much in advance.

God bless & Go Gators,

Bill Sikes