Utah vs. Florida Preview

What would you say if I showed you the following offensive statistics from two teams last season against FBS opponents?

Embed from Getty Images

I suspect you’d look at it and say Team 1 should have very similar results as Team 2. Both teams excelled running the ball and were average throwing it. Overall, the teams were virtually identical in every category. Additionally, if you’ve read any of my analysis, you know that yards per play almost always tracks with points scored.

But that’s the thing about college football: sometimes there are statistical outliers, and in this case, Team 1 scored 35.8 points per game while Team 2 only scored 27.4.

Let’s say that both of those teams had an identically ranked defense (35th in the country) giving up 23.5 points per game. Using the Pythagorean Expectation (which uses point totals to predict winning percentage), we would expect Team 1 to win 1.5 more games in a 12-game schedule than Team 2 just on the offensive differences alone. If we look at the actual defensive performances of Team 1 (23.0 ppg) and Team 2 (24.7 ppg), that difference rises to 1.9 more wins.

Perhaps then, we shouldn’t be surprised that Utah (Team 1) had a 9-3 regular season record (Predicted 8.5 wins) while Florida (Team 2) had a 6-6 regular season record (predicted 6.6 wins). Clearly Utah had a better team than Florida in 2021 in terms of on-field results, but were they that much better of a team?

Florida vs. Utah is a great way to open the season, in many ways because most of the underlying stats seem to indicate that these teams are much closer than the records indicate. So the question then is, can Florida open up 2022 with a big win over the Utes?

Offensive Performance

As mentioned above, the Gators and Utes had identical offensive performances on a yards per play basis. I cite that stat a lot as it usually tracks really well with points scored, but for both teams in 2021, there was a disconnect.

The 2021 Utes were a little bit lucky. If Utah’s points per play rankings had been perfectly in line with its points scored rankings, they would have scored 33.8 points per game rather than the 35.8 they actually scored. That doesn’t sound like much, but it equates to an expected win total of 8.2 instead of 8.5.

The 2021 Gators provide an even more stark example. Florida’s point per play ranking (21st) was completely disconnected from its actual points scored ranking (61st). Had Florida scored the 33.8 points we would have expected from the efficiency with which they moved the ball, the Gators expected win total would have been 7.8. For a team that went 1-4 in one-score games, a second straight 8-4 season would have been the likely result.

So what caused this separation between the two teams? It’s clearly due to efficiency when in enemy territory.

Collegefootballdata.com has a great stat called points per opportunity. It’s a pretty simple stat in that it counts every time a team’s offense gets past its opponents 40-yard line as an opportunity and then calculates how often points get scored from those positions. This removes truly explosive plays from the equation (i.e. an 80-yard run) and so gives us an idea of how efficient teams are when they get into scoring range.

Against FBS opponents, Florida averaged 5.8 scoring opportunities per game and scored 3.8 points per opportunity. Utah averaged 6.3 opportunities and scored 4.4 points per opportunity. That comes out to an average of 5.5 points more per game for the Utes.

We can break that down even further if we want to by field position.

Wow, is that ugly for the Gators.

Overall, Utah ranked 9th in the country averaging 3.12 points per drive. Florida’s overall rankings in this particular stat are right in-line with its scoring average, which is what we’d expect.

But as the Gators got closer to enemy territory, its scoring output got considerably worse, dropping to 96th in the country when less than 60 yards from the end zone. Essentially, Florida was terrible (compared to its competition) at converting when they got the ball with good field position.

Conversely, Utah was worse when backed-up into its own territory, but very good when less than 80-yards out. This suggests a team that wasn’t putting together successful long drives, but was great at taking advantage when either its special teams or defense gave it a field position advantage.

None of these statistics is perfect – and Utah does have a slight offensive advantage if you look at the advanced metric points added per attempt (PPA) – but what all of the numbers suggest is that these teams were way more similar on the offensive side of the ball than the actual scoring numbers would indicate.

The Quarterbacks

I wrote about this earlier in the offseason, but if you eliminate Samford from Florida’s numbers, Emory Jones had a QB rating of 140.7 in the red zone. Anthony Richardson’s rating was 285.9.

I realize that Richardson’s reps in the red zone were limited. I also realize that a lot of that damage was inflicted against LSU. But if you’re going to include those caveats, then you also need to include that Richardson was plagued by injuries, had to deal with being yanked in-and-out of the lineup, and that oftentimes his true value didn’t even come in the red zone because he was making explosive plays (14 in 115 touches).

What that amounts to is a QB with a slightly higher QB rating than Jones (144.1 vs. 141.7) who is more dangerous on the ground (7.9 yards per rush vs. 5.3) and is better in the red zone. Beyond that, Richardson averaged 8.1 yards per touch compared to 7.1 for Jones in 2021, meaning that the Gators offense should be better this season with Richardson at the helm even if he just replicates what he did in 2021.

On the other side of the ledger is Utah’s Cameron Rising.

Rising was a 4-star commit from the 2018 class (247th overall) who went to Texas and then transferred to Utah for the 2020 season. After getting three pass attempts in 2020 and starting the season on the bench behind Baylor transfer Charlie Brewer in 2021, Rising got his chance when Brewer was ineffective against BYU and San Diego State, helping lead a comeback that just fell short against the Aztecs.

Rising threw three touchdowns without an interception in that comeback, but he wasn’t a world beater. His QB rating in the game was 130.5 and a lot of his value came from his 9.2 yards per rush average over 9 carries. He only had two elite-level games, one against USC (QB rating of 205.6) and one against Ohio State (QB rating of 189.0).

Other than that, he was solid, but not spectacular. That’s reflected in his QB rating of 146.7 for the season and a stat line that looks remarkably like Emory Jones (7.8 yards per attempt, 6.7 yards per rush) minus the interceptions.

Rising may get way better now with a season under his belt. We certainly have seen that in the past where big performances in the last few games of the season have catapaulted QBs into the next year (see: Burrow, Joe). But Burrow had a statistical profile (>70% completion, >12 yards per attempt) in high school that portended that sort of jump. Rising does not.

In his senior year of high school, Rising completed 52 percent of his throws for a 7.1 yards per attempt average. That’s really bad. His sophomore and junior seasons were better, bringing his total stats up to 57.5 percent completions and an 8.9 yard per attempt average.

This isn’t to denigrate Rising. Indeed, his level of play last season exceeded what I would have predicted based on these stats. But that’s sort of the point as well. Rising’s completion percentage of 63.8 in 2021 with a 7.8 yards per attempt average is a jump from what we would have expected. To expect another significant jump just because he got another year of experience is unlikely.

Compare that to Richardson. AR only completed 53.2 percent of his throws in high school for an average of 8.9 yards per attempt. Those are similar numbers to Rising overall. But his senior year he completed 64.5 percent of his passes for an average of 11.3 yards per attempt, excellent numbers when translated to college.

But unlike Rising – who’s completion percentage rose from his senior year in high school to his first full year starting in college – Richardson’s declined in his limited time with the Gators, going from 64.5 percent to 59.4 percent. This suggests that there is a significant jump to be made just if Richardson can replicate the accuracy numbers he generated that senior year in high school while maintaining his efficiency.

The point I’m making is that Rising is a good player who is likely to improve marginally. That’s still a really good player at the most important position on the field.

But Richardson is a good player with explosive potential, with the ability to improve into an elite player. The real knock on Richardson coming into this year isn’t his ability or his performance, but his inability to stay healthy.

That won’t be a problem against Utah since it’s the first game of the year.

Why Utah’s slow start in 2021?

Of course, one might point to (and rightly so) the slow start for Utah (1-2 vs. Weber State, BYU and San Diego State) and say that Rising was the reason for the turnaround. After all, he took over for Brewer mid-way through the San Diego State game, nearly led a comeback and went 9-2 from then on.

All of that is true, and Rising is certainly a big reason why the Utes were better during that stretch. But he wasn’t otherworldy. His PPA of 0.424 would have ranked behind Stetson Bennett, Bryce Young and Hendon Hooker in the SEC. His QB rating of 146.7 would have been middle of the pack.

He certainly differentiated himself from Brewer by being able to run the ball, averaging 6.7 yards per attempt. That places his Yards Above Replacement (YAR) – my proprietary stat for measuring the contribution of a QB both throwing and running the ball – at 0.67. That is good QB play, but not elite QB play.

Instead, I think the difference can be seen in the usage statistics of Brewer and Rising compared to running back Tavion Thomas.

In those first three games, Thomas’ usage rate was really low, particularly against BYU and San Diego State. That continued against Washington State and Utah was pretty fortunate the Cougars had the ageless Jarrett Guarantano at QB (3 INTs) because Rising didn’t play well (QB rating of 106.6).

But from then on, Thomas’ usage rate went up and Rising exploded against USC (QB rating of 205.7). From that point on, Thomas was the main back. And then, I think Utah may have found themselves and what they were to become in their subsequent loss against Oregon State.

Utah was ahead 24-10 heading into halftime. Oregon State drove for a TD to start the second half and Utah gave Thomas the ball once and let Rising throw it four times. The Beavers returned the ensuing punt for a TD and all of a sudden, Utah was playing from behind. I think it’s instructive to look at Risings’ usage rate after the Oregon State game.

It dropped immediately below 50%, never rising up above that point again except for the second matchup against Oregon, and considering the Utes had run all over Oregon in their first matchup (50 for 208), perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise that the gameplan was different the second time around.

Defense

And that’s where I get concerned when I think about Florida’s weaknesses.

Last offseason, the Gators staff knew they were going to struggle against the run. This was for two reasons: first, Florida ranked 78th in yards per rush allowed in 2020 and so clearly needed help. Second, the defensive line was low on numbers to the point where Dante Zanders was converted to defense and was playing major minutes at critical times (vs. Texas A&M comes to mind).

Their response was to bring in transfers Da’Quan Newkirk, Antonio Valentino and Tyrone Truesdell. That didn’t work out well, as the Gators finished 85th in yards per rush allowed last season.

That’s still an issue as the depth chart at nose tackle and defensive tackle lists Gervon Dexter, Jalen Lee, Desmond Watson, Chris McClellan, Christopher Thomas, Jaelin Humphries and Jamari Lyons. Dexter is the only player who’s shown flashes of stardom at this point and so the Gators’ ability to stop Thomas is where I get nervous.

But Florida’s secondary was very good last year. The Gators ranked 18th in the country against FBS opponents in yards per pass allowed. From a PPA perspective, they were 16th among 64 Power-5 teams.

Yes, Kaiir Elam is gone. But Elam was injured in the loss to Alabama and was never really the same player last year. The best corner on the team by the end of the year was probably true freshman Jason Marshall. Combine him with safeties Tre’Vez Johnson and Rashad Torrence and the drivers of those good numbers in the secondary are all returning.

There’s also the issue of timing.

Other than Elam, the Gators 2019 recruiting class was a dumpster fire. Chris Steele was the highest rated commit and transferred before fall practice began. You can argue that offensive linemen Kingsley Eguakun and Ethan White (ranked 686 and 795 nationally) are the next best players from that class.

When you’re digging that deep into a recruiting class for your second and third best players, you know you’re in trouble. And specifically that trouble comes three years after the class commits, which in this case would have been the 2021 season.

Only two defensive players from that class (Ty’Ron Hopper and Mohamoud Diabate) got major playing time last year. But four guys from the 2020 class (Torrence, Johnson, Avery Helm and Gervon Dexter) got starter’s minutes last year and acquitted themselves quite well. This is the year where you would expect those players to step up, and they certainly have the experience to do so.

By comparison, the Utes weren’t great shakes on defense either last season.

Utah ranked 34th in yards per play allowed and had a PPA of 0.155. Compare that to Florida who ranked 39th in yards per play allowed and had a PPA of 0.154 (lower is better). The distributions are different (i.e. Utah was average in both phases while Florida was good against the pass and bad against the run), but the end result was the same.

Utah is also replacing five starters on defense, including linebackers Devin Lloyd and Nephi Sewell, defensive linemen Mika Tafua and Hauati Pututau and free safety Vonte Davis. That’s a lot to replace on a defense that was generally pretty average.

One of the players replacing Utah’s linebackers is Diabate, who transferred from Florida during the offseason. He compared coming back to the Swamp like coming to visit an ex-wife and I’m sure the faithful in Blue and Orange will treat him as such.

But perhaps more importantly is that Diabate excelled at Florida as a pass rusher but really struggled – particularly against the run – when asked to play a more traditional linebacker role. I’m not sure how Utah is going to deploy Diabate, but if you don’t think the Gators are going to run a counter in the first two or three plays of the game, you’re crazy.

Prediction

I’ve gone back and forth on this one a lot.

By some advanced metrics (SP+, for example), Utah was clearly the better team last year. But by some of the metrics I really care about and track, I think these teams are really, really evenly matched.

The story everyone has been bringing up this week is Utah tight ends Brant Kuithe and Dalton Kincaid. Those guys are great, and I have no doubt that they will give Florida defenders fits. But they also represent what I see as a significant opportunity for Florida.

Go look at the film. How often does Utah really break an explosive play?

The answer is that the Utes were really good last year at producing plays of 10+ yards (244 total, 14th in the country). But the Utes were much less successful at producing plays of 20+ (63, 54th nationally) or 30+ (20, 100th nationally) yards. That indicates to me that they are going to have to move the ball down the field consistently to score.

That means no turnovers. That means no false starts. And that means no breakdowns on the offensive line that forces Rising to throw the ball away on a third-and-short where Florida blew a coverage but he didn’t have time to get the ball out.

In the Swamp. With 90,000 rabid fans screaming their heads off. With two new offensive linemen, one of whom is the left tackle (Bam Olaseni and Nick Ford are both gone).

Conversely, the Utes were 54th in the country surrendering 54 20+ yard plays and 86th in the country surrendering 28 30+ yards plays, including 8 of 50+ yards. That plays right into how Florida is going to have to score points this season.

Anthony Richardson is likely going to have times where he’s inconsistent, but he also is going to have times when he’s special. We saw that with his ridiculous boxscore against South Florida (7 touches, 267 yards, 3 TD) but we also saw it with his performance against Georgia (32 touches, 108 yards, 3 TOs). But there are two things about Richardson from 2021 that I keep going back to.

The first is that while Emory Jones averaged 7.1 yards per touch, Richardson averaged 8.1. Given a QB usually has a 50 or 60 percent usage rate, had Richardson played at that level for the entire season, the Gators would have wound up with an offense solidly in the top-10 in the country.

The second is that Richardson produced 14 explosive (20+ yard) plays on just 115 touches in 2021 (one every 8.2 touches) compared to one every 11.3 touches for Jones (43 in 489 touches). His explosives also averaged 38.4 yards per play compared to 32.9 for Jones.

What that says to me is if Richardson gets all of the QB touches that Jones got last year, he’s going to put up right around 73 explosive plays. That’s nearly 6 per game.

So you tell me? If Richardson has 6 plays that average 38 yards on Saturday night, does Florida win? That’s 228 yards of total offense before you even factor in the easy throws and any production from the running backs.

I do think Florida will sputter at some point. But I think Utah is going to sputter at times too. The difference is that Richardson is going to be able to bail out the Gators when the sputter while Rising – for all of the skills that he’s shown – has yet to be able to repeatedly hit the daggers that will likely be necessary to win this game.

If Utah can get up 10 or 14 points early, they may be able to run away with it. But if Florida can keep it close, the Swamp in September has a way of wearing down opponents like a good distance runner. And if there’s one thing that we know about Napier it’s that he’s going to pound the rock and make sure the Utes are gassed by the time the game ends.

Richardson hits a couple of huge plays and the Gators salt the game away on a drive late when the dam finally breaks and Montrell Johnson breaks a huge run for a TD to put the Gators up for good.

Florida (+2.5) wins, 27-23.

Rob and the power of belonging

I found out this week that a good friend of mine – Rob Peters – passed away.

Rob had been battling diabetes for a really long time. It was genetic as he was this spindly little guy who you’d never imagine struggled with something like that. When we met, the disease had progressed to the point where he periodically had to get painful injections into his eyes to prevent blindness and there were times where he’d ask for a ride because his vision deteriorated towards the end of the injection cycle.

We met through a men’s group that I was leading at my church. Rob had a long history with different churches and as a Canadian, a very distinct feel for what happens when a country goes away from traditional local structures. Perhaps more importantly, he had an ability to share a piece of himself in a way that disarmed people around him to share at least small pieces of themselves as well.

God brought all sorts of characters into that group. We met, shared and prayed with men dealing with addictions, jail time, infidelity, divorces and all the things that men go through but rarely talk about. Tangentially, those men are part of why you’re reading this, as they are the ones who encouraged me to reach out to SEC Country for a freelance position that eventually turned into Read & Reaction.

But I wasn’t around when Rob died. He had moved a few times since the group disbanded and while we had met whenever we were in close proximity to one another, we weren’t in constant contact.

I was driving to meet up with another friend when I found out Rob had passed. When I told him about it, he asked whether I felt guilty about not being in contact. It’s hard to feel that way, given that Rob is just as responsible for us not being in communication as I am. We served a purpose in each other’s lives, but we weren’t connected in any way other than a desire to explore our faith with other people.

But there is a sadness that the closeness that we shared within that group didn’t translate into a permanent closeness. But perhaps that wasn’t the role that Rob was meant to serve in my life.

On Friday morning, I’m getting on a plane with my 7-year old son. When we get off the plane, we’re going to go have lunch with a friend I met at UF. Then we’re headed up to Gainesville for his first Gators game with his grandparents, uncle, aunt and cousin. He’ll meet people at the tailgates who will embrace him as a Gator no matter whether he ends up going there or not. He’s going to cheer with 90,000 people whom he’s never met, but he knows are on his side.

He’s going to feel like he belongs.

If there’s one thing Rob was always good at, it was making you feel like you belonged. That’s the only way you can describe perhaps my favorite memory of the guy.

My now 10-year old son was celebrating his 4th birthday. We had someone scheduled to show up as Batman for his party, but they had to back out late. Rob (for a weird reason that’s a different long story) had an authentic Batman suit available to him and he volunteered to step in for the birthday party.

So just imagine a guy who’s nearly blind with glasses, wandering around my house filled with 4-year old kids without glasses (because Batman is a superhero, he can’t wear glasses), high-fiving all of the little kids and surprising my son when he walked in the door. Imagine him straining so hard to find his way around because while everything was really, really blurry, he wanted to make sure he didn’t ruin the kids’ perception of Batman’s special abilities.

I’m sad Rob is gone. I’m sad we lost touch over the years. But I’m so blessed that he was in my life and that he helped make me feel like I belonged and helped my son feel that too.

When people pass, it feels like the thing to say is to appreciate the people you have in your life and call them to reconnect, but I’m not sure that’s what Rob would say. I suspect he would say that your job isn’t to reconnect with people who meant something to you in the past, but to connect with the people who are in your sphere of influence today.

He’s going to be okay. I have confidence I’ll have an opportunity to see him again at some point along the way (hopefully not too soon). But there are other people out there who need people like Rob Peters in their lives, willing to share authentic pieces of themselves so that the people they’re around feel comfortable sharing pieces of themselves as well.

Maybe that’s the way you interact with someone at a tailgate or a game. Maybe that’s how you interact with someone at work. Maybe that’s how you interact with someone on the internet. Or maybe you’re the one who needs the connection, and that means taking the step of waking up on a Sunday morning and figuring out what your local church has to offer.

Churches aren’t perfect. They’re messy places with politics and deceit and sin, just as bad as anywhere else you’re going to find. But they’re also places where the vast majority of people are just trying to figure out who they are in this world and are willing to open up – even if just a little bit – to try to find out. And when you find that space, you have an opportunity to feel like you belong, and it’s one of the most powerful feelings in the world.

Goodbye Rob. Thanks for being our Batman.