Florida takes on Missouri

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According to ESPN, Florida goes into its game against Missouri as an 11-point favorite. That’s pretty aggressive considering Florida is averaging 27.3 points per game vs. it’s non-Eastern Washington opponents.

But Missouri’s offense is bad, ranking 82nd in the country. Anthony Richardson has turned his season around with stellar performances against Tennessee and the afore mentioned Eagles. And Missouri is traveling to Gainesville in a game that  is payback for the end of the Dan Mullen era (though certainly not the low point).

Does any of that matter?

Well, in some ways this is a matchup of the unstoppable force and the immovable object. Florida’s strength is definitely its offense (which is weird to say after that Kentucky game) but Missouri’s defense ranks 25th in yards per play allowed in 2022 thus far.

Conversely, the Gators defense ranks 110th nationally in yards per play allowed and dead last in the SEC in just about every defensive category but Missouri’s offense is bad, particularly through the air where it is ranked 103rd in yards per pass attempt.

Something is going to have to give.

So that’s the question we’re trying to answer in this preview: which bad unit will improve enough – or which unit is futile enough for the other to take advantage – to tilt the scales in one direction or another.

Missouri Quarterback

I think it’s safe to say after five games that Brady Cook is not playing well.

His QB rating for the season is 128.4 (well below average). The only time that rating has been above 123 is in games against Louisiana Tech (134.0) and Abilene Christian (184.8). If you take those games away, his QB rating sinks to 106.3.

His Yards Above Replacement – my proprietary stat for measuring a QBs success through the air and ground – is -0.51 for the season, so even though Cook has some dual-threat ability, it hasn’t been enough to overcome his futility through the air. Additionally, if you take away those two performances against Louisiana Tech and Abilene Christian, his YAR sinks to -1.79, which is really, really bad.

If we look at the film of Cook against Missouri’s better opponents, we start to see why this is so.

This should be a touchdown. Kansas State has loaded the box and Missouri is running a run-pass option. The deep safety is the read. If he drops into coverage, Cook comes off his slot receiver and throws the hitch to the receiver up top. If he comes up to help with the run, Kansas State doesn’t have anybody deep and the slant to the slot receiver is wide open.

There isn’t any pressure. Cook just misses the throw. You don’t get these kinds of chances all that often so you have to hit them when you get them. He hasn’t hit them much this year.

But what if he has to come off of his first read? Well, that was an issue against Kansas State.

Cook doesn’t get the coverage he’s expecting here. Kansas State has one deep safety, but right at the snap the corner (#25) at the top of the screen bails backwards and the safety who was playing up in the box (#1) heads over to the space vacated by the corner. The linebackers drop into zone coverage.

At the snap, we can see Cook looking to his left. He was looking for likely some sort of hitch or out route at the sticks, but the zone means that there are linebackers underneath that throw. He rightly doesn’t throw it that way, but he doesn’t get to a second read. Because if he did, he’d notice his receiver (Luther Burden, #3) coming open across the middle for a first down.

Instead, Cook bails from the pocket early even though his offensive line has done a decent job of protecting him and tries to run for the first down. He actually runs right behind Burden on the try and ends up short of the first down.

This isn’t an isolated incident.

On this play, Kansas State only rushes three defensive linemen. None of them win their battles and Cook has a great pocket to throw from. The clip doesn’t show whether anyone’s open downfield, but he needs to know that his running back is available for a checkdown.

The reason I say that is because the Wildcats only rush three and their linebackers fall deep into a zone. The minute that happens, the running back doesn’t have any blocking responsibilities and leaks out into the flat. It’s first-and-10, so Cook had a 5-yard gain easily and potentially more if the running back could make the defender in the flat miss. Instead, Cook tried to run the ball and was sacked for a one-yard loss.

And those might be good outcomes for Missouri, because it looks like you can confuse Cook if you make changes to your coverage post-snap, even if he sees it coming.

This is a longer clip so you can see the defensive configuration. Kansas State has three men deep but walks the linebacker up into the box late. Cook sees it and calls a check. What he doesn’t see is that the corner at the top of the screen backs way off of his receiver, indicating that he’s going to drop deep into coverage.

Cook thinks he has cover-2 because of the two deep safeties. That would mean the middle of the field is open. But the corner dropping means Kansas State is actually in a quarters coverage (each corner takes a fourth of the field and the two safeties take the middle, which means he’s throwing right into the teeth of the defense.

This is that same run-pass option from before and when Cook sees the linebacker come up, he thinks he’s going to have an open throw down the middle. Instead, he leaves the throw short and it turns into a pretty easy interception in double coverage.

Florida Defense

So can the Gators defense take advantage of some of Cook’s limitations? Well, I actually think there is reason to think so.

The first reason is that Patrick Toney asks his defense to create confusion without sacrificing coverage on the back end. The way he often does that is by dropping a defensive end into coverage.

Justus Boone isn’t even blocked on this play and has a free run at Kentucky QB Will Levis. But why does he have that free run? It’s because linebacker Ventrell Miller (#51) blitzes while Brenton Cox (#1) falls into coverage.

The Kentucky offensive line completely screwed this up and allows Boone to come free which exposes Levis. But this is really similar to the play where Cook took off on the first down above. The Gators were in a zone and Levis was going to have to come off of it and find his checkdown had Boone been picked up correctly. I’m not sure Cook is going to be able to do that.

The other reason is that Florida has been able to move QBs off their spots.

I know that fans will remember this as a play that Brenton Cox should have made. But the reality is that this would have been a huge play had Cox not gotten the pressure. Safety Trey Dean (#0) is completely turned around right as Hooker hits the last step of his drop. It is a heck of a play by Hooker to sidestep Cox, but even more impressive that he kept his eyes downfield.

Dean isn’t able to recover in time, but Cox almost gave him enough time and it ends up a 10-yard gain. That’s exactly what Tennessee needed at the time, but again, I question whether Cook will be able to make the adjustments that Hooker made if he is forced to move in the pocket in this sort of situation? Or will he revert to running like he did against Kansas State?

Florida Quarterback

The warts of the Missouri QB are clearly there, but Florida’s QB isn’t without his warts as well.

Richardson has been a roller coaster this season, with either really bad performances (YAR of -1.11 vs. USF and -3.62 vs. Kentucky) or really good ones (YAR of 1.44 vs. Utah, 1.88 vs. Tennessee and 18.44 vs. Eastern Washington). If the good AR shows up against Missouri on Saturday, I’m not sure there’s a lot that the Tigers are going to be able to do to stop the Gators.

Overall, Richardson has been much better than Cook (QB rating of 128.2 but a YAR of 1.11), but that changes considerably when you take away the Eastern Washington performance (111.7, -0.07).

Basically, Richardson’s performances are why statisticians have jobs. His average (arithmetic mean) performance is right around average without the Eastern Washington game. But the standard deviation of those performances (i.e. the variability in his play) changes drastically from week-to-week.

Why is that? Well, it really has to do with the speed of the game.

First, the game is starting to slow down for Richardson. You can tell by looking at how he progressed just between the game against USF and the game against Tennessee.

On this play, USF drops seven into a zone coverage. When Richardson hits the last step of his drop, nobody is open and USF has three defensive backs deep behind them. There is just nowhere to go with the ball unless Richardson finds his outlet – the running back leaking out of the backfield. This mimics the play I showed for Cook up above and the minute Richardson saw the coverage, he needed to check the ball down.

So what did he do against Tennessee?

It’s basically the same coverage, although Tennessee was dropping back further (you can see Trevor Etienne, #7, begging for the ball at the top of the screen). But Richardson learned his lesson. If the opposition is playing zone, where is my checkdown? He completely turns his body to deliver the ball to Chiaokhiao-Bowman.

This is simple. But it’s the simple stuff that throws Richardson off-track. He can make the explosive plays. The question is can he make the simple ones. He’s starting to do that more often.

Takeaway

None of us know what to expect on Saturday. I didn’t preview the Missouri defense with any clips because if good Anthony Richardson shows up, the Tigers aren’t going to be able to stop the Gators offense. If there aren’t any coverage busts for the Gators defense, this one could be a laugher in the Gators favor. But I don’t really trust the defense to prevent those from happening, which would end up keeping this game close throughout.

Missouri just took Georgia down to the wire, making Stetson Bennett look average in a way that Oregon certainly never figured out how to do. Is that because the Bulldogs overlooked the Tigers? Or is it because Missouri can get pressure that makes a QB uncomfortable if the opponent can’t run the ball effectively?

I think it’s the former.

Why do I say that? Well, if we go to one of my favorite stats – post game win percentage – that measures what would happen if a game was played again with the same statistical profile, Georgia is projected to win the game 100 percent of the time.

That is because using the stat predicted points added (PPA) Missouri was at 0.025 for the game while Georgia was at 0.303 on a per-play basis. Mizzou’s success rate was at 28 percent compared to 48 percent for Georgia. If you like more traditional stats, Georgia outgained Missouri 481-294. So why was the game close?

The first reason is that Georgia lost two fumbles in the first half, one leading directly to a Missouri field goal. The second is that the Tigers only gave up two explosive plays until the final two Georgia drives. Basically, they were able to keep Georgia in front of them and force field goals. You can see that in their opportunity-based stats, as Georgia didn’t score much when in Missouri territory (9 points its first 5 scoring chances).

But eventually, the Tigers defense broke. They surrendered 14 points in the Bulldogs’ last two scoring chances. That wasn’t a coincidence. Georgia finally was able to get some chunk plays, totaling four explosive plays on those two drives.

So what we have is a 2-3 team, with a QB who struggles to get to his second read, coming off of an emotional loss in a game that they had no right to be in but somehow managed to be.

Eleven points is a lot. Florida has averaged 27 points per game this year, so if the oddsmakers are correct, that would put Florida at something like a 27-14 win. I don’t think the Gators are only giving up 14 points to just about anyone right now.

But I also don’t think they’re going to only score 27 points if Anthony Richardson remains hot. I suspect that the last two games have given him confidence to come out and light this Missouri defense up. After all, this is the same team that gave up 40 points to Kansas State, who has a dual-threat QB (Adrian Martinez) who is much more of a runner than a thrower.

Gators (-11) win, 42-24.

Picks this year: 3-1 straight up, 2-2 ATS