Florida falls to Kentucky
Questions abound after ugly loss to the Wildcats

I’ve been wrong a lot about the Gators in the years I’ve been writing about them. This is the first time I got everything right and still completely missed my prediction.

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That’s because the one thing that happened in this game is the one I never would have predicted: that Anthony Richardson would put up one of the worst performances for a QB in Florida Gators history.

I’m sure there have been worse performances. After all, I was there for the Treon Harris trio in 2015 against FSU, Alabama and Michigan. But this was a game that Florida wins handily if Anthony Richardson had just played poorly.

Instead, Richardson put up a stink bomb of epic proportions and the Gators are left licking their wounds after a second straight loss to Kentucky. And this wasn’t a Kentucky team that came in at full strength, but one that was beat up, missing its starting running back because of a suspension and on the ropes after a terrible snap turned into a safety and a 16-7 Florida lead.

Billy Napier has talked about discipline and preparation. Neither of those were evident in this game, including from Napier, as he made some truly perplexing decisions both in the game plan and as the game wore on.

But this one is Anthony Richardson’s to own. He is the reason Florida won against Utah and he is the reason the Gators lost to the Wildcats. He admitted afterwards that he lost his confidence and that was obvious to anyone who was watching.

Not all is lost. Richardson still has more ability than anyone who’s manned the QB position at Florida in at least a decade. He has shown what he can do in spurts, but he’s going to have to do it consistently.

But more importantly, he’s going to have to show that he can shake off a bad play, a bad series and now, a bad game to come out and lead this team moving forward. Because as bad as Richardson was in this game, we all know one thing is true.

This team isn’t winning anything of significance without AR firing on all cylinders.

Coaching

The reason I say that this game played exactly as I thought it would was because I picked the Gators expecting Will Levis to be Will Levis, road QB.

Levis had a great first half, but his QB rating for the game was 130.3 (below average) and his Yards Above Replacement (YAR) – my proprietary stat for QB evaluation that takes running and throwing into account – was -0.30. That’s exactly what has happened to him in his career, as he has been good (QB rating of 167) at home and bad (QB rating of 124) on the road.

If you’d have told me Florida would hold Levis to a QB rating of 130 and a negative YAR, I would have told you Florida would win handily.

But Billy Napier had other plans.

Somehow, he had a game plan that called for showcasing Anthony Richardson’s ability to throw the ball. That’s the only way you end up with Richardson throwing the ball 13 times versus 7 running plays in the first four drives of the game.

Despite the Florida offense being stagnant and only scoring three points, the Gators defense was able to hold except for the one big pass play to Dane Key. And even with that play, the Gators converted a big run from Montrell Johnson into a field goal and an interception by Gervon Dexter into a TD for 11 points that had the Gators firmly in control.

But it was obvious to anyone who was watching, especially after the TD drive, that the Gators could manhandle Kentucky on the ground. In fact, Florida ran seven times and only threw it twice in those two drives.

The defense stoned Kentucky on the next drive, and after a safety on a bad snap put Florida up 16-7, the Gators had their chance. Just more than four minutes left and an opportunity to step on Kentucky’s throat.

Instead Napier stepped on a rake.

I’m actually not talking about the Richardson interception specifically. That play call is pretty safe and certainly Florida was unlucky that it turned into an interception. But if you’re going to throw the ball – especially after you’ve shown you can power through Kentucky on a short third down – you shouldn’t run the play you’ve shown on tape a bunch of times already.

This is an example of this exact play, albeit from a different formation, that Florida ran in the spring game. They ran it with both Richardson and backup QB Jack Miller. It had varying degrees of success in the spring game, but was completed each time they ran it.

But watch how Kentucky linebacker Jordan Wright (#15) flattens out to get into AR’s throwing lane. He recognizes the play the minute that Zipperer passes in front of him. Mark Stoops had clearly coached this up, as his deep linebacker (I think it’s #20, freshman Keaten Wade) is going to be there for the tackle even if Richardson can get it through.

All of this despite the fact that Florida was in a running down and had just run through the Wildcats. Napier talks about knowing your opponents’ tendencies, but Stoops got him on this one.

But again, I think you can probably excuse that one play call. It’s a bread-and-butter play for the Gators and it is relatively safe. The thing you can’t excuse is that Napier clearly panicked in the fourth quarter.

His defense was starting to show some cracks. Kentucky had run for two yards in the first half but 50 in the third quarter. The Wildcats were starting to find a few things that worked.

I’m as big a proponent as there is for going for it on fourth down, but it’s borderline malpractice to go for it on fourth-and-3 from your own 40-yard line with more than eight minutes left on the clock. It’s absolutely malpractice to go for it on fourth-and-6 from your own 24 with three timeouts and four minutes left.

Napier did both of those things. He got away with the first one when his defense held and Kentucky missed the field goal, but doubling down on the strategy meant his defense didn’t have a chance.

You can look at whatever chart you want, but the fact is that the conversion rate on a fourth-and-6 is low (27% in a study I found on the 2017 season). In fact, that study doesn’t even show what you should do 76 yards from the end zone because punting is so obvious a choice. Even more aggressive studies suggest that you shouldn’t go for it on fourth-and-6 unless you’re across mid-field.

One criticism of these studies is that they don’t take the game situation into account. But that only makes the decision worse given that Kentucky was going to try to run the ball two times to make Florida take its timeouts. That would have likely left a third-and-medium where Kentucky might have run the ball to force the Gators into taking their third timeout. Or perhaps the Wildcats would have let it ride with Levis and Florida would have needed to get a stop.

Either way, you’re leaning on your better unit for this night to keep you in the game rather than one play with a QB who has been abysmal.

The thing that worries me most about all of this is that it doesn’t appear that Napier recognizes the value of field position. He keeps allowing his returners to bring out kickoffs and setting the Gators up with field position worse than if they just fair catch the ball. And for someone who’s been preaching discipline all offseason, the fact that the first Richardson interception came after being pinned deep due to a penalty on a free kick after a safety is a really disturbing trend.

Oh, Anthony

It’s no fun to pile onto Anthony Richardson. I thought he was great last year except for the Georgia game and he is the reason Florida won against Utah last week. But if I were to sum up his night against Kentucky, it wouldn’t be the interceptions or the inaccurate throws. It would be this.

Kentucky only rushes four defenders. The Gators offensive line does a good job of picking everyone up. Nobody is open down the field, but Ricky Pearsall (#1) is wide open in the flat. Richardson sees Pearsall, but doubts himself as he gets ready to let the ball go. He then bails from a clean pocket which leads to him missing a wide-open Etienne leaking into the other flat.

Or perhaps it would be this.

This is the same play I showed earlier for the interception, only this time it’s Justin Shorter on the route rather than Zipperer. Shorter is open and Richardson just can’t pull the trigger. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it cost Florida five yards on first-and-10 because Richardson essentially runs right where Shorter’s defenders are.

You can live with the overthrows. That’s going to happen sometimes. You can even live with the first interception. What you can’t live with is a QB who is seeing ghosts, and given the postgame comments from Richardson and these plays and others like it, that was clearly happening.

Richardson only completed 40 percent of his throws. His QB rating for the game was 62.9, which is just putrid. His YAR for the game was -3.19. This actually tells you something about Kentucky because even with a QB who was an order of magnitude worse than Levis, the Wildcats still only won by 10.

Amid all of the Richardson criticism (some of it much deserved), one thing that will be overlooked is that Richardson certainly could have received some help from his teammates. These two plays jump out to me as examples, but there were plenty more.

This should have been a touchdown. But left tackle Richard Gouraige (#76) allows Kentucky linebacker Jacquez Jones (#10) to get inside of him. Richardson sees him but it’s too late to cut back. If Gouraige had just gotten in his way a little bit, Richardson has a sure first down and likely a big play. Instead, Florida had to settle for a field goal.

This ends up a 4-yard gain, but it could have been so much more. When Richardson gets the ball out to Henderson (#3) in the flat, Justin Shorter (#4) is in good position. All he has to do is pin the corner to the outside and then Henderson has a running start and a one-on-one matchup with Kentucky safety Tyrell Ajian (#6). Heck, if Shorter had just held him up then Henderson could have gotten around the edge to the sideline.

Instead, Shorter completely whiffs on the block. The corner forces him outside and slows him down enough that Ajian can get over to push him out of bounds.

Richardson really struggled. But the offense struggled as a whole and we’d be making a mistake if we didn’t acknowledge that as well.

Takeaway

I’m not sure what you take away from the first consecutive losses to Kentucky since 1976 and 1977.

Perhaps we should take away that the Florida defense is going to be better than we thought. The Gators surrendered 5.1 yards per play to a Kentucky team that averaged 6.3 yards per play last year and 6.1 last week. The Gators only really gave up 13 points since Richardson threw a pick-6, had another interception returned to the 6-yard line and Napier surrendered a field goal at the end.

But for the second straight week, the defense started to wane in the second half. The energy and push up-front was significantly less and even though Levis really struggled, Kentucky was still able to move the ball.

Perhaps we should take away that Anthony Richardson is going to be inconsistent given the last two weeks. His ceiling is really, really high. But clearly his floor is really low as well. That means we should expect growing pains as he develops, and need to give him time to develop without the narrative within the fanbase getting toxic.

The same can be said for Billy Napier. You could screw up the management of a game like this at Louisiana and nobody really noticed. You could also get away with it because in the Sun Belt, he almost always had the most talented team.

That isn’t the case anymore. Just as the Gators should be scouting their opponents’ tendencies, Napier needs to self-scout his as well. And you can’t recklessly go for it on fourth down because of wishful thinking. There needs to be strategic thought put into each and every decision prior to the game being played.

Of course, those are things you learn in the crucible of the moment. I go back to Kirby Smart losing to Tennessee in his first year on a hail mary, but also a comedy of coaching errors that occurred throughout the fourth quarter. Even great coaches have hiccups, and you’d rather have them early on than when the stakes are much more than just an opening SEC game.

Still, this one hurts.

Florida had an opportunity to move to 2-0, a likely top-10 ranking and a couple of easy games sandwiched around a trip to Knoxville. The possibility of a 5-0 start with a struggling LSU coming to the Swamp seemed like a distinct possibility.

Now, we’re left wondering whether the Richardson we saw against Utah was the real AR or whether this one is. We’re left wondering whether Napier’s going for it on fourth down in enemy territory against Utah was a sign of preparation or the recklessness he showed in this game. And we’re left wondering whether the Gators defense was able to force a performance by Will Levis that should have gotten them a win and whether they’ll be able to do that later in the season as the injuries mount, particularly the one to Ventrell Miller.

When Napier’s transition recruiting class wrapped up, he had missed on targets like Harold Perkins and Jacoby Mathews. I said at the time that it wasn’t a huge deal in a vacuum but that Napier had missed an opportunity to answer in the affirmative whether he was ready to recruit at a big-time school like Florida. It also significantly reduced his margin for error in the subsequent classes.

I think the same thing is true for the questions that arise from this game against Kentucky. Whether it’s the defense, Richardson or Napier himself, this game does not ultimately define Florida’s season or whether 2022 can be a success.

But it sure does reduce the margin for error.