What’s going to happen when Florida takes on Missouri this weekend? Your guess is as good as mine.
As we’ll discuss, every statistical indicator suggests that the Gators should win this one fairly easily. Missouri may have the same record as Florida, but they’re not as good of a team.
Of course, I’m saying this about a Missouri team that just beat the South Carolina team that took Florida behind the woodshed. I’m also saying this about a Florida team that is 2-4 in its last six games, with the only wins coming over Vanderbilt and Samford.
And that’s the problem. Statistics can measure a lot, but they don’t measure heart or leadership. They don’t measure whether players actually want to be there. They don’t measure whether a defensive end is willing to hold the edge on a counter or whether a linebacker is willing to blow up a pulling guard in the hole.
Those things have been missing from this Gators team for a while.
Things looked really bleak when Samford took a 42-28 lead with slightly more than 3 minutes left in the first half against the Gators. But then Florida came storming back on a 42-10 run to win the game fairly easily. As the story goes, the players rallied in the locker room – seemingly before Dan Mullen and staff got to them – and pulled things together.
Is that wishful thinking because the opponent was Samford? Or did leaders finally have the opportunity to step up without Todd Grantham and John Hevesy in the room?
We can’t answer that question right now. But we’ll be able to answer the question after about one quarter on Saturday.
Lies, Lies and Statistics
I mentioned above that Florida is the superior team to Missouri, and I wasn’t being biased. This Tigers team really isn’t very good.
Gators fans may have scoffed at Florida struggling with Samford, but two of Missouri’s wins are over FCS Southeast Missouri State (59-28) and North Texas (48-35). You’d better believe that Dan Mullen would have heard from Florida fans with those scores over those teams.
The Tigers did have one-score losses to Kentucky and Boston College. But they also got blown out of the water by Texas A&M, Georgia and Tennessee. Prior to last week’s win over South Carolina, Missouri didn’t have a win Florida wouldn’t have gotten either.
When we look at point differential, Missouri has actually been outscored by its opponents by 44 points. That suggests that this is more of a 4-win team rather than the 5-5 where they currently sit. Conversely, Florida has outscored its opponents by 61 points, suggested they should be sitting at 6-4.
The difference is that Florida has been bottoming out, but it’s not like Missouri has been great recently, going 3-4 in its last seven.
Most games come down to quarterback here, and Florida again has a huge advantage.
Missouri starter Connor Bazelak has thrown for 2,310 yards at a 7.1 yards per attempt clip. Emory Jones is at 2,138 at 8.5 yards per attempt. But Baselak has -12 yards rushing on the season, compared to Jones’ 628.
The main criticism of Jones has been turnovers, and it’s a legitimate criticism. He has thrown 10 interceptions this season, compared to 18 touchdowns. But Bazelak also has 10 interceptions as well against 15 touchdowns.
Jones certainly padded his numbers last week against Samford. But even if you subtract that game from his ledger, his QB rating would still be higher than Bazelak. And if we’re subtracting cupcakes, then we certainly have to take away Bazelak’s 346-yard, 3 TD performance against FCS Southeast Missouri State away as well.
The reality is that regardless of what measure you use, Emory Jones grades out significantly better than Connor Bazelak, and the team with the better QB wins the game most of the time.
So how does Missouri win this one? There are two key stats to look at in that regard. The first is Emory Jones’ rushing statistics in every game this year.
Emory Jones’ rushing average and game results for Florida in 2021. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
See a pattern?
When Jones is able to be efficient running the ball (> 6 yards per attempt), Florida wins. When he is limited in his efficiency (< 4.8 yards per attempt), Florida struggles. Jones ran for 76 yards against Alabama, but it took 19 carries to do so. It was almost enough, but many of the short runs came early when the Florida offense was sputtering.
The good news is that Missouri’s defense ranks 120th against the run, giving up 5.6 yards per rush. Jones should be able to hit a couple of big runs to open up the passing game.
On the other side, Florida’s run defense has clearly been a weakness, surrendering 4.5 yards per rush this season (86th overall). That actually understates how bad the unit has been, as they didn’t surrender any games above 4.7 yards per rush in the first six games of the year, only to give up 7.1 to LSU, 5.8 to Georgia and 6.8 to South Carolina.
Things are clearly trending in the wrong direction.
As for Missouri, the headliner is clearly running back Tyler Badie, who has run 200 times for 1,247 yards (6.2 yards per attempt). But as with Jones, there is a clear trend for Missouri and Badie.
Tyler Badie’s rushing yards and yards per rush compared to the game result for Missouri in 2021. (Will Miles/Read and Reaction)
Again, there is a pattern. Not only is Badie way more efficient in Missouri wins, but he’s averaging 192.8 yards per game in wins compared to 56.6 yards per game in losses. But that makes sense considering Bazelak has bene underwhelming. Missouri needs a huge game from Badie to compete.
So that’s why I said in the opening that we’d know in the first quarter who’s going to win this one.
Florida hasn’t stopped anybody on the ground recently and Missouri needs Badie to run wild to win. Missouri hasn’t stopped anybody on the ground all year and Florida needs Emory Jones to be efficient running the ball to get the offense going.
Just check rushing yardage and yards per attempt after the first quarter. That’s who’s going to win the game.
Film Study
What’s the best way to stop Emory Jones from running the ball efficiently? Well, it turns out it may be to force him to throw it, especially early.
Florida started off the game against South Carolina with 10 straight throws. This play is a big reason why.
This is essentially a cover-zero defense. The safety is in the middle of the field, but he’s only about 9-10 yards from the line of scrimmage. Jones fakes with a rocker step which holds that safety, meaning there are three defensive backs for three receivers.
This is a decent throw by Jones. Shorter beat his man by 5 yards and it could be a touchdown, but I don’t blame him for throwing it a little bit short because the big play is more important than the touchdown.
Why would you do this if you’re South Carolina? Well, there are two reasons that you see on film in that particular game. The first is a pretty simple thing that has been showing up every since the Kentucky game.
This is a read-option play. Jones is supposed to read the defensive end and decide whether to give the ball to Nay’Quan Wright or keep it. If the defensive end (highlighted) crashes, Jones keeps the ball. If he hesitates, Jones hands the ball off.
The end here crashes hard, but Jones hands the ball off anyway. There is a ton of space for Jones to run were he to keep the ball. Instead, Florida is facing second-and-13 after a tackle for loss.
I want you to look at what’s in front of Wright had the defensive end not crashed. He would have had at a minimum a 5-yard gain. The play was blocked perfectly. But you can’t do anything if you’re running sideways and the defensive end crashes, except trust that the QB is going to keep the ball.
The other reason that South Carolina loaded the box early is more subtle, but I think also significant given Jones’ limitations.
After messing up the first down play, Jones clearly wants to make up for it. He actually does here, completing a 61-yard pass to Marcus Burke. But this is the wrong read and the wrong throw.
The reason I say this is the wrong read is that South Carolina drops deep almost immediately upon the snap. Just look at all the empty space for Nay’Quan Wright had Jones decided to go to his check down.
Now, it’s hard to criticize a 61-yard completion, but it was throw into triple coverage. Yes, Burke was open. Yes, it was complete. But these aren’t high percentage plays, especially when you have a 100 percent chance of picking up the first down if you just dump the ball off.
I really believe that South Carolina decided early on they were going to try and bait Florida into throwing deep, trusting that once Jones started looking for those throws, he wouldn’t hit a high enough percentage to make them pay. They also knew that sometimes he makes a decision to hand off the ball to his running back regardless of what the defensive end does.
The result is that they were able to put Florida into multiple situations where they were behind the chains. On the throw to Burke, Florida was able to come through. But over the course of the game, those “hero plays” dried up and Florida couldn’t sustain anything on offense.
Takeaway
As depressing as it was to write that section, the reality is that Jones has the ability to torch an opponent if he can select the right play. That’s the beauty of a Dan Mullen offense. If run correctly, the defense will always lose.
Of course, running the offense right has been a challenge this year for Jones, particularly on the road. He has a Yards Above Replacement of 2.43 at home, but that drops to 0.44 on the road. His QB rating is 173.1 at home (with only 4 INTs) while it drops to 133.5 (with 6 INTs) on the road.
But I can write all I want about what’s happened this year, but the reality is that this one is on the Gators. They are the better team, but they have to come out and actually show it.
If they want Dan Mullen to stick around next year, they’re going to come out playing hard from the jump. And if some of the players took a step forward in the leadership department, that’s exactly what we should expect to see.
Of course, it could be that there wasn’t any advancement in leadership and it was just Samford. I’m not sure what to believe, but Vegas believes in the Gators, installing them as 9.5 point favorites.
I think I agree. Missouri just isn’t very good. Florida likely hit rock bottom at halftime against Samford. This isn’t a great Gators team, but it is better than it has shown the past month.
Florida (-9.5) wins, 38-24.
Picks this season: 6-3 straight up, 4-5 ATS