Florida had its Orange & Blue Debut (aka Spring Game) on Thursday night, and it was the first opportunity for fans to see Billy Napier’s squad in action.
It’s always a bit of a fool’s errand to try to take too much out of a spring game. After all, defenses are running mostly vanilla schemes, QBs can’t be hit and a lot of the players on the roster now may not even be on the roster come fall.
But that doesn’t stop us from analyzing various aspects of the game. And since Napier decided that this year’s contest would be an actual football game compared to what previous regime’s provided, I do think there are things you can take from the film.
Nowhere is that more apparent than the battle at the quarterback position. We have all suspected that Anthony Richardson was going to get the starting nod. Of course, that was dependent on Richardson picking up the offense quickly and being able to hold off Jack Miller, the Ohio State transfer whom Napier brought in almost immediately upon his start at Florida.
There was always the chance that Miller picked things up quicker. Or there was the possibility that Napier wanted to start with his hand-picked player at the position. But after watching the Spring Game, all of those questions have been answered and then some.
Barring some sort of injury or other outside force, Anthony Richardson will be the Gators starting QB in 2022.
The Reasons
The reason I say that with so much confidence isn’t that Richardson put up superior stats. That would be true too (Richardson went 18-24 for 207 yards, 2 TD, 0 INT compared to Miller’s 13-23, 121 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT), but it isn’t the reason.
Instead, I can pinpoint three specific times during the game where Richardson and Miller were asked to do very similar things, and Richardson showed the instincts and the decisiveness to point towards him being the definitive starter.
Each of these videos shows two plays, the first with Miller at QB and the second with Richardson at QB.
The first video shows each of them taking a deep shot.
What we see is that Miller reads the defense correctly. He sees the single-high safety towards the wide side of the field and decides to take a deep shot to his receiver on the boundary. But then he stares at that receiver from the moment he gets the snap. That allows the safety (Donovan McMillon, #13) to get over and it essentially looks like Miller threw into double coverage.
Compare that to Richardson, who sees the exact same look as Miller, yet after the snap is looking to his left, away from where he’s going to throw the ball. By the time he snaps back and releases the ball towards Justin Shorter, it is too late for the safety (Rashad Torrence, #22) to get over and have an impact on the play.
Both of these plays end up as incompletions. But only one had a chance to end in an interception (Miller’s), and only one required a perfect throw to succeed (Miller’s). Had Richardson made a perfect throw or underthrown Shorter just a bit, this is an easy touchdown.
Basically, his play reduced the variance of the play significantly, even if the end result this one time was the same.
The second video shows each of them with a flood concept (short, medium and long reads to one side of the field).
What we see with the play where Miller is under center is that he is looking at his intermediate read and just doesn’t pull the trigger. Jordan Pouncey (#86) is open and coming across the field. This should be a fairly easy 10 to 12-yard gain, maybe more. Instead, it turns into a 4-yard gain after a dump off to Demarkcus Bowman. It’s a positive yardage play, but not letting the ball go “cost” the Gators yardage.
Compare that to Richardson. He identifies the one-on-one of Trent Whittemore (#14) on safety Kamar Wilcoxson (#26) immediately. He lets the ball go right as Whittemore breaks across the field. And he hits him right in-stride even though Wilcoxson is much closer to Whittemore than any defender was to Pouncey on the previous play. This ends up being a 15-yard gain that jump-starts the Gators drive.
The first two plays require skill at reading the defense pre-snap and/or a willingness to let the ball go into a somewhat tight window. The third play just requires feeling comfortable letting the ball go.
On Miller’s play, Napier has exactly what he wants. His tight end – Keon Zipperer (#9) – is open in the flat after the play fake with space to run. But for some reason, Miller hesitates getting the ball to him, double-clutching before finally delivering the ball. The result is a completed pass for five yards, but the result is also Zipperer getting hit low with very little time to protect himself.
Compare that to Richardson. This throw to tight end Noah Keeter (#48) is the exact same play. Look at how quickly AR gets rid of the ball. The result is that Keeter is able to get around the edge and turn this into a big play down the field. Had Richardson hesitated like Miller did, the linebackers would have likely been able to catch up and keep this play to a small gain.
Takeaway
None of this means that Jack Miller won’t be a good QB for Florida. In fact, I think there are a lot of programs in the country who would take a player who is conservative, doesn’t force the ball and sometimes zones in on his receiver when he’s taking deep shots.
But Jack Miller isn’t the only QB on the roster.
And when you compare him to Anthony Richardson, it’s just clear that Richardson is not just the more physically gifted player, but the more advanced player as well when it comes to reading defenses and figuring out where to go with the ball decisively. That bodes well for Florida in 2022, as there are going to be deficiencies elsewhere.
Indeed, the fact that Richardson couldn’t be stopped by the Orange defense is a great sign for Richardson, but I worry that it may be a harbinger of things to come with the defense as it adjusts from Todd Grantham’s scheme to Patrick Toney’s. Additionally, we have to consider that with the lack of depth at defensive line, this may just not be a unit that can hold up long-term under the stress of an SEC schedule.
That means shootouts, and it means that Florida is going to need a QB who has the ability to put up points in bunches. The Spring Game seemed to confirm what we saw last year. When the Florida offense is in the hands of a “capable” QB, it can get some yards and drive down the field, but it sputters at some point because it just doesn’t have anyone who can put stress on the defense.
But when the Florida offense is in the hands of Anthony Richardson, it just feels different. It always seems like it is second-and-2. Even if it’s not, the threat of him running around the edge to get a big first down is always there. The linebackers are a step slow to cover the tight end out of the backfield because they have to worry about Richardson running as well. And the ball comes out fast, before the defense has a chance to lay a hand on AR.
Richardson isn’t perfect. He’s going to make mistakes in 2022 and because his margin for error is going to be small, that may cost Florida a game or two. But part of what was so disheartening about the McElwain and Muschamp regimes was that there was never any hope that the offense could overcome any mistake the defense made. That feeling crept back in last year, as Mullen’s offense wasn’t terrible, but certainly didn’t breed a lot of hope against Kentucky or Missouri with Emory Jones at the helm.
That won’t be the case in 2022 with Anthony Richardson as the starting QB.
Speeding Tickets and Perspective
The day after Richardson had his glowing performance in the Spring Game, the Tampa Bay Times’ Matt Baker released an article detailing how Richardson had received a citation for going in excess of 105 mph on Newberry Road west of Gainesville at 4am.
The first thing I want to say about this is a journalistic point. Baker had every right (and quite honestly, the responsibility) to release that article. Richardson is the starting QB of the Gators and so his being pulled over is a news story. You can quibble with the timing (which is I think what most people took issue with) or the inclusion of a quote from Billy Napier during the spring game about what a QB is to a team, which certainly implies that Richardson had fallen short of that definition. But the reality is that the star QB having any interaction with the cops is newsworthy.
We can’t complain that the media never gives us information about things inside the program until a coach is out the door and then also complain when they relay information that is a matter of public record. If you wondered why nobody knew the environment was toxic in the Florida locker room until after Mullen departed, that’s tied to access first, but fan reaction as well.
Where I depart from my journalistic brethren significantly are the folks who decided to try and compare what Richardson did to the situation of Henry Ruggs.
Just say you want writers to only write positive things about your team. Just read those kinds of writers. If you don’t want to know when guys get into trouble, that’s fine. It’s just speeding, you say. Google “Henry Ruggs” sometime.
— Greg Auman (@gregauman) April 15, 2022
Ruggs is the former Alabama and Raider receiver who was in a high-speed accident that injured himself, his girlfriend and killed another driver. Ruggs has been charged with driving under the influence resulting in death and reckless driving. Yes, Ruggs was going fast. But he was going 156 mph when he hit the brakes to try and avoid the crash. He also had a blood-alcohol content measured at more than twice the legal limit in Nevada.
Nowhere in any of the information gathered by Baker is there an inkling that Richardson was impaired in any way. He also was going more than 50 mph slower than Ruggs. Going over 100 is fast, but many of us have done it or come close. Rare are the people who’ve come close to approaching 150 mph.
To compare the two situations is irresponsible and wrong. Yes, speeding is immature and there should be consequences. But the idea that these two situations are even remotely similar is a bridge way too far.
The second thing I want to say about this situation is the life advice. One of my father’s favorite sayings when I was growing up was that nothing good happens if you’re out after midnight. He usually said that in reference to New Year’s Eve, but it was a common theme in our household.
My life experience indicates that sadly, he’s absolutely correct. Of course, the fact that I know he is correct is because of the stupid things I’ve done being out after midnight while ignoring his sage life advice.
As I tweeted after finding out about the Richardson incident, somewhere there is a record of me doing something similar (allegedly) in Lake City when I was 21-years old (or, two years older than Richardson).
So there is likely a record of 21-year old Will Miles getting pulled over doing 95+ in Lake City at 4am.
— Will Miles (@WillMilesSEC) April 15, 2022
So for me to get up on my high horse about how Richardson needs to do better or how these aren’t the actions of a leader would be disingenuous. More to the point, I don’t consider myself a bad person. I’m someone who made a mistake, did something stupid late at night, got caught and paid the fine associated with the mistake. Richardson will do the same.
And that brings me to my third point.
It isn’t lost on me that news of Richardson’s speeding – and the subsequent debate over whether it’s the type of thing a leader does – has come out on the precipice of Easter.
We live in a society that is very quick to judge people as “less than” and slow to realize that we all fall short in one way or another. I’m not condoning what Richardson was cited for. It’s stupid to go that fast that early in the morning. But the idea that I – and others – haven’t done similar stupid things when we were younger just isn’t true. It’s easy to look back in hindsight having the experiences we’ve had and say Richardson should have known better, but part of being who we are and why we know better is having gone through those experiences.
I have a friend who told me once that he prays every night for “inexpensive lessons” for his kids. His point is that he knows his kids are going to screw things up, make mistakes and push boundaries. In fact, he wants his kids to push boundaries rather than be afraid of taking chances.
But part of pushing those boundaries is going to be pushing right up against guardrails that are there for a reason. What that means is that my friend isn’t praying that his kids don’t make mistakes. He’s praying that the mistakes that they make are inexpensive, with high teaching value but low long-term consequences overall.
Anthony Richardson clearly isn’t afraid to take shots down the field. Part of that fearlessness comes from being willing to push boundaries that most of us would be too scared to breach. I suspect that often in elite athletes, that fearlessness to push extends into other areas of their lives. At a high-level, the speeding citation is hopefully an inexpensive lesson that puts a guardrail there in his life that wasn’t there before.
In some ways, that is the story of Easter. The crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus ensures all of us that pushing boundaries does not condemn us to an eternity of judgment, but rather means that even the worst decisions in our lives are, in the grand scheme of things, inexpensive lessons.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences to our actions. Legally, Richardson will have to pay for a significant citation. He’ll certainly have to deal with taunts when the Gators go on the road, and the articles that are inevitably coming (or have already come out) talking about how he needs to grow as a leader.
I don’t know Richardson. He may be an awesome leader or he may be a terrible one. But a citation for speeding two weeks ago shouldn’t change my opinion of him one way or the other.
Instead, this particularly story is a reminder to me to extend grace to the people around me because we all fall short of expectations. It’s a reminder that “inexpensive lessons” shouldn’t just be something that we pray for our kids, but for ourselves as well. And as the most consequential holiday on the Christian calendar approaches, it should be a reminder that there is only one way to truly ensure that we’re forgiven for our shortcomings.
Happy Easter everyone!
Other Content
In case you’ve missed it, here are a few other things that have come out from Read and Reaction over the past week.
First, Nick Knudsen and I recorded a short (for us) recap of the Spring Game over on our YouTube channel. You can find that at the link below.
We also had the pleasure of interviewing Kevin Kelley, the former coach of Presbyterian who is better known as the coach who never punts. We asked Coach Kelley about Billy Napier, relationships between college and high school coaches and how defense are going to combat the offensive surge we’re now seeing in college football.
Finally, Nick did a great job putting together a profile on Gators cornerback target Cormani McClain. McClain is a huge target not just because he’s a 5-star recruit and not just because he’s at an area of need. He’s a huge target because he’s from Lakeland, a place where Napier is going to have to succeed if he’s going to thrive on the recruiting trail.
If you like this sort of content and want to support us further, please consider going over to sign up on our Patreon page. We have some exciting things to announce in the next month and want you to hear it first there.
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