With only around 60 scholarship players making the trip to Arlington, Texas for the Cotton Bowl, Florida is going to have to have new faces step up to beat Oklahoma.
The bad news is that just about every major component of an offense that ranked sixth in yards per play is out, as Kyle Pitts, Kadarius Toney and Trevon Grimes have opted out to prepare for the NFL Draft and Jacob Copeland is out because of a positive test for COVID-19.
The result is that Florida – who started as a three-point favorite – is now a four-point underdog.
Of course, the good news is that Florida does still have Kyle Trask at QB. Based on voting for All-America awards, Trask likely isn’t going to win the Heisman Trophy this season, but he has an opportunity in the Cotton Bowl to show that he should have.
With all of his main weapons gone, a good performance by Trask would prove that while Pitts, Toney and Grimes were huge parts of the offense, it was Trask who was the engine who made things run.
I actually think that’s a distinct possibility.
It is true that Pitts and Toney were his preferred targets, but part of that is because Florida purposefully schemed to get those two open because of their ability to win one-on-one battles and to run with the ball after the catch.
Florida has also been preparing for this scenario all year. Remember when the announcers were shocked when Kyle Pitts wasn’t on the field in the second quarter against Texas A&M? Trent Whittimore, Justin Shorter, Xzavier Henderson and Kemore Gamble have been on the field together and have moved the ball with Trask at the helm already in 2020.
Furthermore, the question coming into 2020 was how Florida was going to replace its wide receiving corps from 2019, as Van Jefferson, Freddie Swain, Tyrie Cleveland and Josh Hammond all left the program. Instead, the offense got better as Trask got better.
Oklahoma has a pretty good defense, ranking 27th in yards per play allowed. The Sooners are better against the run game (13th) than they are against the pass (43rd), which benefits Florida since the Gators are perfectly willing to abandon the run game when Trask gets things going.
Oklahoma has played four ranked teams and gone 2-2, while giving up 29 points per game and going 2-1 in one-score games. Add to that Oklahoma corner Tre Brown opting out (3 INTs, 6 PBUs) and I don’t think Oklahoma is set up to stop this Gators offense, even with all of the weapons Florida is missing.
So then it comes down to the defense, and that’s where we have an issue.
Marco Wilson has opted out, and there are some rumblings that Tedarrell Slaton may decide to do so as well. Whatever you think of those players’ level of play in 2020, losing depth from a defense that ranked 66th in yards per play allowed isn’t going to help things.
In particular, while Wilson was singled out as a weak point in the secondary by Gator fans, the entire secondary struggled, allowing 7.6 yards per attempt. While the shoe toss combined with poor play – particularly against Texas A&M – will make Wilson the player who is remembered for the defensive futility this season, there is plenty of blame to go around.
That’s a problem because Oklahoma is averaging 41.1 points per game if you eliminate their game against SW Missouri State. That compares favorably to Florida’s 41.6 points per game, especially when you consider that the SEC didn’t have really any elite defenses in 2020.
Of course, neither did the Big-12 as if you start going down the yards per play column, you reach both Georgia and Alabama before you get to the first Big-12 school (Oklahoma State at 26th).
But Oklahoma’s offense – led by redshirt freshman Spencer Rattler – has the look of a team that will give Florida fits.
The Sooners ranked 11th against FBS in yards per pass and 76th in yards per rush. Their strength is clearly through the air while Florida’s weakness is against the pass.
Of course, the other weakness for this Florida defense has been on third down. The Gators have allowed conversions on 40.9 percent of third downs, but have been particularly susceptible in losses, allowing a 59.1 percent conversion rate. That’s actually somewhat expected in two of those losses, considering that Alabama and Texas A&M ranked 1st and 2nd in the country in third down conversion rate.
We’ll ignore the LSU game (100th in third down conversion rate) both because much of that rate was attained without Max Johnson at QB and it seems like Florida was clearly looking ahead to the SEC Championship.
For an elite offense, Oklahoma is surprisingly poor at converting third downs, ranking 67th and converting 39.5 percent of the time. That means the Sooners are reliant on explosive plays.
Indeed, that’s what we see as Oklahoma is averaging 6.1 plays of 20+ yards per game and 19.2 plays of 10+ yards per game. For comparison, Florida is averaging 7.4 20+ yard plays and 19.1 10+ yard plays per game.
So will Florida be able to stop the Sooners? I don’t see why we would expect that to happen in this game when it hasn’t happened all year.
It may be that Gators defensive coordinator Todd Grantham is coaching his last game for the Gators, and he’s really in a no-win situation with the fans in this one. The reason is that fans have been clamoring for Marco Wilson to sit for younger players all season. Now that Wilson is gone, if the defense plays well, Grantham’s obstinance will be seen as a reason the defense didn’t improve. If the defense gets torched in Wilson’s absence, that’ll be Grantham’s fault as well.
But Florida does have an advantage at QB. Trask had a fantastic year, breaking a ton of Florida records and leading the country in a lot of different categories. Rattler has been good this year, but he hasn’t been near Trask’s level.
Trask has more than 100 more attempts and has been more efficient in those attempts, averaging 10.1 yards per attempt compared to 9.5 for Rattler. That puts Trask’s Yards above Replacement (YAR, my proprietary stat for measuring QB efficiency) at 2.04, or at Heisman-level. Rattler’s YAR is good (1.35), but that is more like a good Jake Fromm year at Georgia whereas Trask’s equivalent would be Tim Tebow’s 2008 or 2009.
So there are really two questions in this one. With no interconference play, do we believe that the SEC is significantly better than the Big 12? If we look at recruiting, the answer is clearly yes as the SEC has 10 teams ranked in the top-25 of the 247Sports 2020 roster rankings while the Big-12 has just two.
And the second question is whether Kyle Trask (and Dan Mullen setting the game plan) is good enough to offset the significant losses that the Gators have experienced for this game, along with the potential to come out flat after the recent loss to Alabama.
Florida has lost three games this year by a total of 12 points. All eight of their wins have been by at least two touchdowns. At some point, those close score games even out and Florida isn’t going to go o-fer in all of 2020.
I do think Oklahoma is going to be able to move the ball and score on the Gators. But I also think that Kyle Trask is about to prove that he is a huge reason that this offense is as good as it is.
Florida (+4) wins, 38-35.
Predictions this season: 9-2 straight up, 6-5 against the spread.
Oklahoma formation to watch for
Trask leads a Gators offense with 81 plays of 20+ yards, that vast majority of those through the air. Against Alabama, he took advantage every time the Crimson Tide went to a single-high safety look by going deep to the outside.
If Florida’s receivers can create separation from Oklahoma defensive backs on deep routes when the Sooners decide to bring pressure and leave only one safety deep, Trask will make them pay.
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