Major decisions loom for Dan Mullen in wake of disappointing loss to LSU

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LSU came into the game ranked 119th in yards per rush allowed and 106th in yards per rush gained against FBS opponents. Florida came into the game ranked 22nd in yards per rush allowed and 1st in yards per rush gained against FBS opponents.

So of course, the Tigers whipped the Gators up-front to the tune of 321 to 138 yards on the ground.

It wasn’t just the fact that Florida got beat. It was that they kept getting beat on the same play over and over. In fact, on the 25-yard TD run by Tyrion Davis-Price that put LSU up 42-35, announcer Todd Blackledge can be heard muttering what I think is “that’s the same play.”

Last season, an overmatched LSU team beat the Gators because of three backbreaking turnovers. The same could be said for this one, as the Gators fell behind early due to interceptions from both Emory Jones and Anthony Richardson.

When Jones started off the second half with a pick-6, Dan Mullen had seen enough and – with the exception of a few injury-related plays – rode Richardson the rest of the way.

I have interesting feelings after this game. I said coming into the week that I didn’t believe that this was Dan Mullen’s most important game as Gators head coach and I still believe that. Win in two weeks against Georgia – and do it with Richardson – and the inconsistencies and what the fan base views as poor decision-making at defensive coordinator and QB will be forgiven.

Still, to lose a game this way for the second year in a row to a clearly inferior team is understandably frustrating. There are a lot of places to put the blame, so we’ll go through them here.

Defense

Any time you give up 49 points, the defense is the place that you start.

First, I’ll put up a little bit of a half-hearted defense for the unit. Seven of the points were directly not their fault (the pick-6) and 14 additional points came on short fields after Gator interceptions. Still, it is the defense’s job to hold when put in those tough situations, and stopping LSU to a field goal on one or both of those turnovers would have been huge.

Instead, Florida was facing a 15-point deficit that required two improbable throws to Justin Shorter to cut the deficit to 8 by the half.

But let’s not pretend like the defense had it all together in that first half either. LSU hit both 71-yard and 50-yard passes to Brian Thomas, Jr. late in the first half, but both were called back by penalties. Both were legitimate penalties, but it felt like the defense was teetering on the edge of getting gashed.

But the gashing came in the second half, as the Tigers – who came into this game with 499 yards on 172 carries (or 2.9 yards per rush) – ran for 263 yards on 25 carries (10.5 yards per rush) in the second half alone.

If you wanted to pick one thing to describe this game, I think it would be that LSU scored two touchdowns and salted the game away in the fourth quarter and only had to throw the ball once. That one throw was the one-yard TD throw to Jaray Jenkins on fourth-and-goal.

Perhaps more disturbing though – and alluded to earlier with Blackledge’s muttering – is that LSU just destroyed the Gators on the same play over-and-over: the counter.

First, I think it’s useful to talk about what LSU is trying to do on the play. A well-executed counter isolates the running back on a deep safety, allowing him to break a big play should he be able to beat the safety.

Florida decided over-and-over to have five defensive backs on the field (a nickel defense) but sat in a single-high safety coverage (one safety deep), meaning that they had a numbers advantage up-front on every run.

LSU ran variations of this particular play, but the concept is that you don’t block the end (or linebacker) on one side and then run away from that player. That player then has the ability to either crash down and tackle the runner or hold back in case of a QB run. If the end doesn’t crash, then the numbers are even up-front as he’s taken out of the play.

At that point, it’s man-on-man blocking as the play-side tackle, guard and center slant towards the three down linemen. The pulling guard comes over to get the play-side defensive end/linebacker and the pulling tackle gets up-field to take on the linebacker. If he’s able to get to the linebacker – and the linebacker can’t force the back to cut back to the middle, the back has a running start towards the safety.

Here’s an example, with LSU’s left guard pulling to kick-out Brenton Cox (#1), the left tackle pulling and getting up to Ty’Ron Hopper (#28) and Mohamoud Diabate (#11) choosing not to crash and instead honor Max Johnson’s option to pull the ball and run. Hopper can’t turn the run back inside, which means safety Tre’Vez Johnson (#16) can’t get over to make the stop.

One way to stop this play is to have your backside linebacker (in this case, Diabate) crash to disrupt the play at the QB/RB mesh point. You see this often when a defensive end or linebacker catches a running back from behind.

Another way to stop the play is to have the contain player (in this case, Cox) attack the inside shoulder of the pulling guard. That forces the running back to extend the play and pushes them towards both the safety  (in this case, Dean) and the boundary corner (Elam).

Once neither of those have happened, you have to get a player to win a physical battle. Either Dean has to win his battle against the tight end (#82 Jack Mashburn) or one of Da’quan Newkirk, Gervon Dexter or Zachary Carter has to get penetration.

None of those things happened on this play or really on any run plays  in the second half.

This was with 10 minutes left in the third quarter. The same concept applies as above except that Florida only has four down linemen and so LSU’s left guard has to get the second level (Jeremiah Moon, #7) and does so successfully. Trey Dean gets blocked  by the tight end and LSU has an easy TD.

Here it is again and Florida again has six defenders in the box and five defensive backs. Cox gets kicked out again, Dean gets blocked by the tight end again and it’s another big gain for LSU.

Here’s a little bit of a variation. This time, Florida brings Dean up into the box but still behind the linebackers. LSU pulls the right guard and the tight end this time towards the run-side. Cox gets kicked out and Dean gets lost in all of the traffic and Davis-Price is able to get to the second level.

Finally, Florida brought Dean up fully into the box and was basically playing a full 3-4. This time the Tigers only pulled the tight end and had their wide receiver crash down to block Dean. Diabate (#11) gets kicked out by the tight end and Amari Burney (#2) gets blocked by the left tackle, opening it up for another big run.

It was incredibly frustrating to watch. Florida kept running out a 3-3-5 defense even though they were getting mauled up-front. Edge rushers kept running themselves out of the play. None of the defensive linemen got any sort of penetration. The linebackers kept getting knocked back by pulling guards and the safeties kept getting sealed to the outside.

The 3-3-5 part is the thing I take the most issue with when it comes to Todd Grantham. If your safety (who is essentially doubling as a fourth linebacker) is getting blocked one-on-one by a tight end, you need more size on the field.

But Davis-Price said LSU saw on film what they’d be able to take advantage of and I suspect it was the Buck position not holding the edge. Repeatedly they allowed the play to go inside rather than forcing it outside by taking on the inside shoulder of the pulling guard.

Offense (and the QB)

Florida scored 13 points in the first half, but 7 of them were on a Hail Mary to end the half.

Likewise, Emory Jones threw for 143 yards (on 15 attempts) in the first half, but 66 of those came on the last two plays of the half. The result is that Florida fans had plenty of reason to be frustrated with the offense (and both QBs)  in the first half.

When Jones came out and threw a pick-6 to start the second half, this basically turned into what amounts to Kyle Trask taking over for Feleipe Franks and leading the comeback against Kentucky, just coming up a little bit short this time.

The Gators had 201 yards of total offense when Richardson finally took over and proceeded to put up 200 yards of offense in the third quarter. Yes, he threw a bad interception to help seal the game for LSU, but he also was directly responsible for five explosive plays and a bulk of the 29 points that the Gators scored in the second half.

Prior to this game, some fans could point to AR’s lack of effectiveness against Kentucky and Vanderbilt as proof that he wasn’t ready for SEC play. You can’t do that anymore.

Emory Jones is what he is at this point. His QB rating of 130.7 – and his YAR of 0.19 – for this game is okay but not spectacular. Without being able to run the ball (10 attempts for 16 yards), he’s going to struggle to win on the road if he’s going to turn the ball over.

Richardson wasn’t perfect, but his QB rating of 157.5 (and 174.1 for the year) and his YAR of 1.60 was much, much higher than Jones. Mullen may have poo-pooed the idea that Richardson is a transcendent player, but his YAR of 5.84 this season suggests otherwise.

Looking at the film tells you why.

This was an incomplete pass where Florida was gifted 15-yards with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, but this is when I knew Richardson needed to be in there for the rest of the game. It looks like Florida had a double-move called to Jacob Copeland to the near side of the field. But look where the LSU safety is at? He read Richardson’s eyes and went over to Copeland.

That leaves Shorter in one-on-one coverage and is a beautiful throw. I personally think Shorter should have caught this one, but the idea that Richardson took a deep shot to the opposite side of where the play was called is what I took note of immediately.

You see the same thing here where his first read isn’t there and he calmly goes through his progressions to find a wide open Copeland. You know when a QB is finding open receivers that he’s seeing what the defense is trying to do and that was the case a lot for Richardson against the Tigers.

It wasn’t just Richardson either though. Dan Mullen did a really nice job of scheming things for him to move the ball as well.

They had just run the pitch to Pierce the other direction on the prior play. To fake it to Pierce, then fake the run, and then send Pierce down the field was just brilliant play design. Had LSU stayed home, Richardson would have had to make a play, but the defense parted like the Red Sea because of the play design.

I’m not sure why this level of creativity isn’t there with Jones at QB. With him in, the offense was really vanilla. But results are results, and Jones has accounted for 20 explosive plays on 260 touches (combined pass and rush attempts) compared to 13 for Richardson on 65 total touches.

If it feels like Florida’s offense has more energy when Richardson comes into the game, it’s not just a feeling. It’s true. Richardson has now accounted for 30 percent of all of Florida’s explosive plays despite just touching the ball on 13 percent of Florida’s offensive plays in 2021.

Maybe that isn’t transcendent, but it is the profile of someone who should definitely be the starter.

Takeaway

I’m sorry, but Todd Grantham just isn’t the answer at Defensive Coordinator.

He didn’t make any adjustments I could see in this game to give Florida a better chance to win. I thought it was pretty clear after last season that parting ways was the appropriate thing to do, but it should be abundantly clear now.

I looked at the statistics just like others did coming into this game, but knew that they didn’t completely reflect the eye test for this defense. Grantham’s strategy in the first quarter against Alabama cost Florida that game. I think his strategy in this game against LSU cost the Gators the game as well.

Mullen earned his Kirby Award against Kentucky while Grantham’s defense played well, but that still means that Grantham has been highly responsible for two of the Gators three losses.

If there was some track record for Grantham that suggested this was an outlier, I’d feel differently. But this is exactly who he has been at every stop in his career: an adequate but unspectacular coordinator.

For the Gators, only the rivalry games are left. Obviously, it’s an uphill battle against Georgia in a couple of weeks, but if you were going to make a change, the time to do it would be during the bye week.

The same can be said for the QB position. I admire Mullen’s desire to be loyal to Emory Jones. Jones has played okay or even well in spurts, but the 9 interceptions are just killers considering some of the limitations on the defensive side of the ball.

If Richardson wasn’t waiting in the wings, I’d preach patience, but here’s the thing. We’ve known all along that because of his sub-elite recruiting, Mullen was going to have to find an elite – perhaps even transcendent – QB to compete with Georgia and Alabama.

The hope was that Florida might be able to get away with less if Mullen were able to outscheme his opposition. But the three losses have really let the air out of that balloon.

Maybe Richardson won’t be good enough to lead Mullen to a championship. But after 7 games, we know the potential is there. That isn’t an indictment of Jones so much as a recognition of what has to happen for Florida to reach the next level.

And Mohamoud Diabate told us all we need to know about how the team feels about its defensive coordinator when he said, “We made the adjustments we were given to make,” and “When the general asks me to shoot, I shoot. I don’t ask questions. That’s y’alls job.” Yikes!

Fans are disappointed at 8-4 last season. They’re disappointed with 4-3 at this point in the season. That’s the way it is at Florida. You don’t get to lose 4 games a year and avoid criticism. That’s part of what makes this job special. It’s also part of what makes it hard.

Diabate is right when he says questioning schemes and adjustments isn’t his job. But he’s wrong when he says it is the job of the reporters asking him questions.

Dan Mullen gets paid $7.6 million for it to be his job.

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