Georgia dominates Florida

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If I were to cite one stat to describe Georgia’s dominating 42-20 win over Florida, it would be this: the Gators offensive success rate was 0% in the first quarter.

There’s no doubt the Gators defense is limited. Georgia took advantage and scored 14 points in that opening quarter and averaged 8.1 yards per play. But the defense did get three stops in the first half, which could have positioned Florida to be much closer when they made their second-half run.

Instead, Florida’s offense sputtered and continued to put its defense out on the field.

Last week, LSU opened up the game with six straight touchdown drives. This week, the offense opened up the game with four straight three-and-outs and five straight punts. You just aren’t going to win many games when you’re that inconsistent on both sides of the ball.

That drops Billy Napier’s squad to 4-4 overall and 1-4 in the SEC. I don’t have to tell him that Gators fans aren’t going to find that acceptable. Perhaps even more important, Florida has now lost to Tennessee, LSU and Georgia – the only rivalry games on the schedule.

Now, we have to listen to the barking for another year and take it. Ugh.

Florida’s Offense

Anthony Richardson was bad in the first half, but he didn’t have a whole lot of help.

The Gators ran the ball 13 times for 14 yards in the first half. Richardson ran the ball 3 times for -6 yards, but his runs came on scrambles instead of being designed runs. With Richardson sitting in the pocket, Georgia teed off.

On this play, Georgia blitzes. But left tackle Richard Gouraige (#76) isn’t able to stop the blitzing linebacker (Chris Smith, #29) from getting around the edge. In fact, Gouraige got away with a facemask. Running back Lorenzo Lingard (#21) actually sidesteps any contact instead of helping on Smith and Richardson doesn’t have a chance.

The very next play shows that this wasn’t an isolated incident.

Immediately, right tackle Austin Barber (#58) gets driven into the backfield. Lingard (#21) sidesteps helping, which means Richardson gets flushed from the pocket. He is able to make a nice throw to Ricky Pearsall (#1), but immediate pressure – especially in the first half – was pretty much the constant situation for Richardson.

So how did Florida get back in the game? Well, they obviously ran Richardson more, but they also used misdirection to get their running game going.

This was a big third-down conversion after Georgia’s fumble in the third quarter. Note that Florida pulls the tight end across the formation in the opposite direction from where the run is designed to go. This is different than a normal read-option where Richardson is reading the defensive end. The result is that Johnson is able to get to the outside with some room to run.

Florida was able to get Etienne going by getting him outside as well.

When Florida motions Etienne (#7) into the backfield, Georgia linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson (#10) motions across from him. This time the handoff to Etienne goes towards the outside with the threat of Richardson running up the middle holding the rest of the Georgia defense. At that point, it’s a race between Etienne and Dumas-Johnson and Etienne wins.

Maybe I’m mistaken, but this is the only time I remember Florida running this play with either Etienne or Johnson. It’s something they should consider more often given the threat of Richardson running up the middle. That’s especially true if they’re not going to take advantage of Richardson when it comes to the read-option.

Because of this success the Gators had on third down running the ball, it’s reasonable that they ran the ball on subsequent third downs. I got frustrated watching the runs though because I didn’t think the design was very good.

This was after Georgia scored a touchdown to extend the lead to two scores again. Richardson had hit Shorter to move the ball and the refs had just picked up a pass interference flag (and shouldn’t have given some of the other calls). AR is running a read-option and he reads it correctly as linebacker Robert Beal (#33) does not crash, at least not immediately. It doesn’t help that the defensive end on the other side blows O’Cyrus Torrence (#54) into the backfield.

But I hate this look for two reasons. First, running up the middle against Georgia hadn’t worked all day. They weren’t giving up much space to the Gators there and getting seven yards without pushing towards the outside was unlikely. But second, they were just ignoring Xzavier Henderson on the outside, essentially eliminating the numbers advantage that the Gators had because of the threat of Richardson running the ball.

This is something the Gators should see as an opportunity. If they move Henderson closer to Richardson, it would give him two options. If the outside linebacker doesn’t crash but squeezes (as happens here), he could then keep the ball and if he’s not fast enough to get outside the linebacker, pitch to Henderson. Instead, Henderson is ten yards behind the line of scrimmage and out of the play, and not attracting any of Georgia’s attention at all.

Florida’s Defense

The Gators defense forced three turnovers and three punts, but this wasn’t a good performance. They surrendered 7.1 yards per play versus Georgia’s season average of 7.3. There were multiple drops on good throws Bennett made that stalled drives for the Bulldogs.

And when the offense finally came alive in the second half and cut the game to 28-20, the defense immediately surrendered two touchdowns.

There are two plays that I want to highlight to show why this defense isn’t just average, but poor.

This is third-and-1 and Florida has a chance to get off the field for a  second straight drive to start the game. Georgia has three receivers in tight to the offensive line, meaning they have eight blockers on the line of scrimmage. Florida has six men in the box.

I want you to pay attention to Tre’vez Johnson (#16) and Jason Marshall (#3), both circled, when the ball is snapped. They have deep safety help but both back up immediately. Just because of numbers, this is the easiest third down conversion you’ll ever see.

The second play I want to highlight was right before the half. The defense had just been called for a pass interference penalty that should have gone the other way, but if they could have gotten a stop, the Gators would have only been down 24-3 at the half instead of 28-3.

Florida brings the house (7 men) on this play. I agree with this strategy, as it is something Missouri did with success and it makes Stetson Bennett either get rid of the ball quickly or likely throw with someone in his face.

But Florida is in about the softest off-coverage possible. Had Bennett chosen to throw to Brock Bowers (the inside receiver), he would have had inside position for a likely touchdown. Instead, Bennett chose a better option in Ladd McConkey (#84), who was just left uncovered.

The two inside Gators defenders take each of the inside receivers. But Jaydon Hill (#23) drops back to the end zone and is completely out of the play. It’s almost like he was playing a zone, but that doesn’t make any sense in a cover-zero look.

Taken by themselves, these are two isolated plays where the Florida defense was ill-prepared. But these aren’t isolated events. The folks who complain about this defense being worse than its overall talent are absolutely right. Florida didn’t get beat physically on either of these plays.

Yet, the Gators gave up a third down conversion on a drive that turned into a touchdown and a touchdown right before the half with zero resistance for no reason other than just mental mistakes.

It’s the eighth game of the season. The defense was better than it was against LSU. But that doesn’t mean it was good, or even passable.

Takeaway

This game had to be frustrating for Gators fans.

The first half was a debacle of errors on both sides of the ball that dug a 25-point hole the Gators would not be able to escape from. But the second half – and particularly the third quarter – showed what this team can do when it actually executes properly.

But it turns out that a game is four quarters long.

After coming out unable to execute in the first half against LSU on defense, the Gators came out looking completely incompetent on the offensive side of the ball against Georgia, with some major mental mistakes on the defensive side to help supplement things.

This isn’t isolated. Three weeks ago against Missouri, the Gators played horribly on offense in the first half before turning it on in the second half against the Tigers. They had multi-score leads against Kentucky and USF and lost to the Wildcats and almost lost to the Bulls.

This team isn’t good enough to make those kinds of mistakes against decent teams. They certainly aren’t good enough to make them against one of the best teams in the country.

I’m encouraged by the toughness that the team showed after it fell behind so much. But I’m also discouraged by the fact that there are still so many mental mistakes at this juncture of the season.

Bill Parcells famously said, “you are what your record says you are.” The Gators are now 4-4 and 1-4 in the SEC. They’ve earned that record, as they have scored 240 points and surrendered 239, and been outscored by 40 points in SEC play.

I have no doubt that the players are trying and they showed great heart in getting back into this game. But they don’t give participation trophies in the SEC. This isn’t little league. You either get the job done or you don’t. Right now, the only thing you can say about Florida is that they are inconsistent and that it’s costing them games.

They have four more games to figure it out.