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Fixing Florida’s Offense
What's wrong and what to do about it?

Will Miles

Embed from Getty Images

When asking how to fix Florida’s offense, I think we first have to diagnose the problem. Is it the quarterback? The offensive line? The playcaller? Without diagnosing the problem, there’s no way to treat the disease.

And a disease it is, as the Gators are averaging just 19 points per game this season against FBS opponents, ranking 108th in the country. That isn’t just below average. It’s downright bad. Even if we look at underlying stats like yards per play, the Gators are ranked 74th at 5.4, tying them with Vanderbilt.

The most disturbing part of that equation is that the Gators are averaging 3.1 yards per rush, ranking them at 113th in the country after ranking 14th in that stat just one year ago (5.4 yards per rush).  This was supposed to be the strength of the team and instead it’s a liability.

So we have to start there. What do the stats say about the running game, and is there anything that can be done to drag it, and the entire offense, back to at least an acceptable performance level?

The Running Game

Against its five opponents this season (including FCS McNeese State), Florida is averaging 4.1 yards per rush. However, if we remove the rushes for Graham Mertz (and remember, that includes sacks), that number rises to 5.2. Even if we remove McNeese from the equation, Florida would be averaging 4.4 yards per rush without Mertz, which would rank 50th against FBS opponents.

If we hone in on the specific running backs, the issues start to separate themselves some more.

Trevor Etienne has 60 carries for 358 yards, an average of 6.0 yards per carry. Montrell Johnson has 56 carries for 56 yards, an average of 4.4 yards per rush. But if we remove McNeese from the equation, Johnson’s per-rush average sinks to 3.3 while Etienne’s is still a very respectable 5.6. Even if you remove his performance against Tennessee (26 carries for 173 yards), Etienne is averaging 3.9 yards per rush.

It’s pretty clear that Etienne is significantly more effective than Johnson right now. That doesn’t mean Johnson is a bad running back, but what it does mean is that with the limitations on the offensive line, Etienne is a better choice to get more carries.

In 2022, Etienne and Johnson averaged 2.48 and 2.39 yards before contact, respectively. Etienne was really good after contact, averaging 3.64 yards while Johnson was just pretty good, averaging 3.12 yards.

This season, the numbers before contact have gone down to 2.05 for Etienne and 2.29 for Johnson. That doesn’t sound like much of a difference, but it’s nearly a half-yard close to the line of scrimmage for Etienne. Additionally, if one back is more elusive, we should pick that up in the yards after contact. That’s exactly what we see as Etienne has averaged 3.92 yards after contact compared to 2.23 for Johnson.

And if we look at broader stats that look at offensive line ability from 2022 to 2023, the picture starts to get even clearer.

First, some definitions:

So what we see in the above table is that Florida’s offensive line is performing about as well as last year’s line on a per-play basis (Line Yards per Rush) but that it is performing much worse in short yardage situations (Power Success Rate and Stuff Rate). This tracks with the running backs getting hit closer to the line of scrimmage than last season.

What it also means though is that in short-yardage situations, you don’t necessarily want a bruiser in the game. Instead, you need the guy who is going to shake tackles or make a free rusher miss. That guy is Etienne.

The Quarterback

We can’t ignore the quarterback position when it comes to its impact on the running game and the offense as a whole.

Just about every QB stat out there has Mertz doing an outstanding job for the Gators. His completion percentage (79%) is often cited, but he sports a very good QB rating (163.2) and has a TD:INT ratio of 2:1. Pro Football Focus had him rated at 91.7, the second highest graded QB among Power-5 QBs last week against Kentucky.

But anyone who watched the game against Kentucky knows that is ridiculous. Even if we stipulate that Mertz wasn’t awful against the Wildcats (though he was in the first quarter when it mattered), Grandpa Will certainly won’t be bouncing his grandkids on his knee years from now talking about the epic performance Mertz had against Kentucky.

This is why I created Yards Above Replacement (YAR), my proprietary stat that takes a QBs running and passing abilities into account. The idea behind YAR is not just that a QB who can run brings significant value (he does), but also that a QB who avoids negative plays (i.e. sacks) brings a ton of value as well.

Because Mertz has been sacked 12 times in five games, his rushing contributions to the Gators are a net negative. Consequently, his YAR value of 0.05 suggests that his performance thus far has been almost exactly average. Note that I’m not saying Mertz is awful. What I’m saying is that for him in particular, stats like QB rating and completion percentage don’t tell the whole story.

It’s tempting to place the blame for protection issues solely on the offensive line. After all, Mertz is getting sacked 8.7 percent of the time he drops back compared to 4.6 percent last year for Anthony Richardson. But if we look a little deeper, what we see is that Richardson was pressured more often than Mertz (32.4% to 26.8%) and threw the ball away at a much higher percentage (6.73% to 1.45%).

It’s that last number that I want to focus on for a minute. Remember this play?

https://www.readandreaction.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Mertz-sacked-against-Utah.mp4?_=1

The Gators offensive line does a poor job here. Mertz slips when he gets to the back of his drop, likely because he sees the pressure coming from his right side. But he should know that he has an outlet in Kahleil Jackson at the bottom of the screen and perhaps even better, Trevor Etienne blocking on the line. Mertz just needs to avoid a catastrophe at this point, which could be done by either sailing the ball over Jackson’s head or chucking it right at Etienne’s feet. Instead, he takes the sack and Florida is unable to overcome second-and-18 and has to settle for a field goal.

I diagrammed each sack in my Utah recap article. Not every sack was Mertz’s fault, but there were definitely times when he would have been better off just throwing the ball at his receiver’s feet.

Often Mertz’s completion percentage is cited as a great reflection of how well he is playing, but in many ways I think that’s misleading. If you’re taking shots downfield and if you’re trying to wait and see if plays are going to develop, sometimes the defense is going to win. That necessitates that the ball will then get thrown into the stands to avoid a negative play.

Instead what we see is Mertz with an average depth of target (ADOT) this season of 6.5 yards, nearly five yards shorter than Anthony Richardson last season (11.3). The next shortest ADOT in the SEC this year is Georgia’s Carson Beck, and his is still 1.2 yards further than Mertz’s.

The result is that if we adjust Mertz’s completion percentage for the distance of his throws, his sparkling completion percentage drops to 55.3. That still ranks fifth in the SEC, but it’s no longer the efficiency number being cited when most are grading his performance.

And the average depth of target kills the Gators offense in a bunch of ways.

Mertz has an overall success rate on throws of 55.8 percent (success rate is percentage of plays that get 50% of yards to go on 1st down, 70% on 2nd down and first downs on 3rd or 4th down) compared to Richardson’s success rate of 40.1. But both have or had success rates of 30 percent on passing downs (2nd and 7 or longer, 3rd or 4th and 5 and longer).

This is why Florida is struggling on third down so much. When they get into any sort of passing situation, Mertz just isn’t all that effective. His success rates are built on six yard throws on first down to set up second or third-and-short.

But as we discussed earlier, the Florida offensive line isn’t as good this year in those situations, meaning the running backs are getting stuffed. Additionally, Florida’s offense is way less explosive through the air this season (1.80 points per attempt in 2022 vs. 1.32 this season) so the inefficiency on third down means the offense can’t sustain drives.

Essentially, Florida’s offense last year was feast or famine with AR at the helm, but he and the running backs were able to generate enough big plays that sometimes the Gators feasted. This was also why there were prolonged famines as well, whenever an opposing defense could keep the explosives in check.

But this year the Gators offense is completely famine. They rank 99th in the country with only 18 plays over 20 yards, or 3.6 per game. Last year, the Gators had 75 explosives, which averages to 5.8 per game even when including the Oregon State debacle that didn’t involve Richardson.

Scheme/Offensive Coordinator

Opposing teams don’t fear the Gators through the air, which means they can start to creep up towards the line of scrimmage.

This is second-and-10, by definition a passing situation. Yet Kentucky has ten guys within eight yards of the line of scrimmage at the snap. The second safety is off-screen but looks to be 10 or 11 yards downfield. Now watch what happens on the play.

https://www.readandreaction.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Mertz-throw-to-Odom-over-the-middle.mp4?_=2

Kentucky rushes three men here and drops eight, anticipating pass. Watch how linebacker D’Eryk Jackson (#54) fires towards Odom when the ball is released. It’s also telling that Kentucky has a defensive back (Alex Afari, #3) right there to clean up had Jackson missed the tackle. These aren’t defenders worried about getting beat over the top.

They also aren’t worried about Mertz throwing the ball to the left. You can understand why when looking at this chart.

Everything is short. Everything is to the right. If you were a defense, where would you devote your resources?

Is this Napier’s playcalling? Is it his play design? Or is this Mertz deviating from script? It’s hard to know exactly. I do think there’s one play in the last game that gives us a clue though.

https://www.readandreaction.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Miracle-first-down-for-Etienne.mp4?_=3

Let me walk you through this read. Florida brings Andy Jean (#8) in motion and Kentucky barely moves. That tells Mertz that the Wildcats are going to be in a zone shell. Prior to the snap, Kentucky has its two safeties parallel to each other, which usually means a cover-2 shell. That means all that Mertz needs to do is gauge whether they are playing man or zone underneath and that will tell him where to go with the ball.

But right after the snap, Kentucky shifts into a cover-3 shell. We know this because the defensive back who is across from Kahleil Jackson runs to the outside to cover a zone and the two safeties shift to their lefts to cover the zones in the deep middle and deep right. The middle linebacker comes on a blitz while the outside backer drops into his zone. The following image shows each defensive responsibility for the Wildcats in this defense.

That’s all stuff Mertz has to process in real-time, and for anyone who’s ever tried to do it, you don’t always get it perfect. But here’s what I don’t get. At the snap, Mertz is looking to his left. The minute he sees the defensive back across from Jackson move towards Pearsall, it tells him the defense isn’t what he read pre-snap.

You’ll notice that while I said Kentucky shifted into a cover-3, the corner who was covering the deep left zone never actually dropped into that zone. Instead, he guessed that Mertz wanted to get the ball to Pearsall and crashed down. This is a function of Florida almost never going downfield. The corner doesn’t respect Florida deep and so took away where Mertz wanted to go with the ball.

As we can see in the defensive image above, the blitzing linebacker leaves the middle wide open. Mertz should know that Jackson is going to come open across the middle, but instead he shifts his gaze back to the right side – right into the teeth of the defense.

I find it hard to fault Billy Napier on this particular play. Kahleil Jackson was wide open for an easy completion. It isn’t a simple read, but it’s one Mertz needs to make.

How to Fix It

So what does Florida do to make things better? There are a few things they can do.

Predictability

The first thing they can do is be less predictable by breaking tendencies. Bud Davis had a great tweet thread on Wednesday breaking down the Gators tendencies.

The summary of what Davis found was that when Florida is in the pistol formation, they ran the ball 68 percent of the time and 96 percent of the time when the defense played a middle-of-the-field open coverage. The passing game was very effective out of this formation, likely because the defense is counting on a run.

But when Florida shifts into a non-pistol formation, they then pass 64 percent of the time. Often these are formations used for longer distances and it’s been fairly unproductive.

If Bud can tell that Florida’s going to run the ball if they’re in a pistol and going to pass if they’re not, you can bet that opposing defensive coaches have figured that out too. Additionally, it makes me think that there are probably more tendencies that Florida leans into in particular situations that aren’t being picked up in this particular data set.

Florida’s offense is going to be limited at times. Part of coaching is putting your players in a position to succeed. You can’t do that if the defense knows what is coming.

Free up the running backs

All season long, Nick Knudsen and I have been repeating the mantra, “Feed #2, Feed #7,” but the running game hasn’t been great so far this season. I think I pointed out why with some of the stats above, mainly that the Gators’ OL is allowing them to get hit earlier than last year.

So how do you keep that from happening? There are two main ways.

The first is that the little toss sweeps to Trey Wilson and Ricky Pearsall serve to slow down back side pursuit. You don’t need to run them constantly, but the defense has to believe that Florida will run that play. That will move the eyes of the defenders, put a little bit of doubt in their mind, and slow how hard they are coming at the snap.

The second is the use of the pitch. On a typical zone blocked stretch play, Florida hands the ball to the running back directly who then runs sideways searching for a hole and heads north/south when he finds one. If there is penetration up-front, the back never gets far enough sideways. So get them there initially by having the QB pitch the ball to them. That way even if there is penetration, the running back has a shot to get away because he isn’t getting hit right when he gets the handoff.

The benefit to the direct hand-off is that sometimes the QB can keep the ball and that threat holds the backside defender. But since Mertz isn’t a threat to do that, having a mesh point doesn’t add a whole lot of value. But pitching the ball and helping your running back get out into space does.

If neither of those work, at some point the staff is going to have to accept that for this particular team and this particular offensive line, Trevor Etienne brings skills to the table that Montrell Johnson does not. That doesn’t mean Johnson isn’t a good back, but it does mean that since Etienne has shown better yards after contact numbers for two straight years, the carries need to start skewing his way.

Throw some interceptions

Nick made a great point on this week’s Stand Up & Holler. If you’re going to have Graham Mertz as the starting QB, you have to let him loose. Based on the 6.5 yard ADOT, that hasn’t happened to this point.

If Mertz is unwilling to go downfield, Florida has to put someone in there who will. It’s unclear to me whether this is completely on Mertz, but the staff has to free him up to make a mistake or two and throw into situations where maybe the “safe” play is a checkdown.

The checkdown removes the risk of a pick, but it also removes the reward of potentially delivering an explosive play. Florida is clearly leaning too far towards risk aversion and needs to go down the field more often.

We saw this with Zach Wilson and the Jets this past week where he was finally empowered to throw down field and he hit a few big-time back shoulder throws against the Chiefs. I still don’t think Wilson is going to become a great NFL QB, but he went from a complete liability to at least a functional QB just by taking some risks down the field.

Takeaway

There isn’t a magic bullet here. Against decent defenses, the Gators offense is going to struggle. Heck, based on what we’ve seen thus far (Charlotte is ranked 125th in yards per play), this Gators offense is going to struggle against most defenses.

A lot of that is on Billy Napier.

He needs to free up his QB to take some risks. His offense needs to be less predictable. And he has to face the reality of the limitations of his offensive line and make an adjustment in the running game, either with the personnel or the scheme.

But some of this is on the players. Mertz needs to execute what he’s being asked to execute and has to be able to see guys when they come open even if the coverage changes post-snap. He needs to throw the ball away when there isn’t anybody open or when there’s a potential sack coming because of a breakdown in the offensive line play. Both the OL and the running backs need to do a better job in pass protection to give Mertz more time.

And Florida has to find a way to generate some explosive plays.

On the Gators 22 scoring drives this season, they have averaged 8 plays for 65 yards and 3 minutes and 34 seconds. If we eliminate the two scoring drives caused by turnovers (3 plays, 9 yards and 4 plays, -3 yards), those numbers change to 8.5 plays and 71.6 yards per drive and 4 minutes and 33 seconds.

You’re asking a lot of your offense to drive down the field constantly without mistakes and deliver. No team is going to be effective averaging 72 yards per drive over the course of the season and Florida isn’t any exception. It shouldn’t be glossed over that the game with the biggest hit (Etienne’s 62-yard TD run) is the game where the Gators offense looked the best.

But you don’t find explosives if you’re not looking for them. You certainly never find them if you never throw over the middle. And you aren’t going to find them on second-and-18 when the defense is perfectly content to allow you to complete 5-yard crossers.

This is as bad of an offense as any of the ones we saw during the Jim McElwain era. But as we saw against Kentucky, Florida’s defense – while improving – isn’t up to the level of any of those Muschamp-recruited McElwain defenses. That means making changes on the fly.

Billy Napier has talked a lot about execution, but that can’t just be third down conversions. In some ways, it’s about taking off the shackles currently on Mertz and empowering him to take risks. Maybe he throws some interceptions that put the Gators in tough situations. But maybe it helps generate explosives that keep the Gators in some of these games. Regardless, something has to change.

Because you’re not going to win very much scoring 19 points per game.

Vanderbilt

Lost in all of the criticism of Florida’s offense from the Kentucky debacle is that the defense got absolutely mowed over.

The Gators came into the Kentucky game ranked 38th in yards per play allowed vs. FBS opponents and left ranked 65th. That’s what happens when you give up 329 yards on the ground at a 9.1 yards per carry clip.

The susceptibility to the big play was what doomed the Gators. The Wildcats had five plays of more than 20 yards and 14 plays of more than 10 yards. That was something I pointed out as a key in my preview article given the Gators opponents up to that point in 2023.

At this point in the season, Utah ranks 125th in plays of 20-plus yards, Charlotte ranks 105th and Tennessee ranks 69th. Kentucky ranks 10th and certainly were able to take advantage of that against the Gators.

Vanderbilt is traditionally a fairly stagnant offense, but this year the Commodores rank 8th in the country with 36 plays of over 20 yards. Some of that is because Vandy has played six games so far, but they’re still averaging 6 explosives per game compared to the Gators average of 3.6.

That’s all they have though, because their offense only ranks 73rd in yards per play. That means that if they can prevent the big play, Florida has a real chance to completely shut down the Vanderbilt offense.

Meanwhile, the Commodores’ defense is giving up 37.4 points per game (120th) and 6.1 yards per play (100th). They also are 114th in the country having allowed 28 plays over 20 yards.

That means this is going to come down to whether Florida’s offense can exploit Vanderbilt’s defense for big plays and whether Vandy’s offense can hit big plays vs. Florida.

Florida’s offense right now is a MASH unit, with Kingsley Eguakun, Austin Barber and Trevor Etienne all questionable to play. If those guys are out, it’s going to be difficult for Florida to generate a ton of explosives.

Meanwhile, Austin Armstrong’s defenses have been notorious for giving up big plays in his time at Southern Miss and just about all of the touchdowns they’ve surrendered this year have been because of explosive plays.

So what does that mean for this one? I think it means Florida being favored by 18.5 is just way too much. The Gators are a better team, especially at home, but in order to cover, the Gators would have to completely shut down Vanderbilt’s offense. I just don’t see that happening, even with the Gators winnng the game.

Florida (-18.5) wins, 31-17.

Picks this season: 3-2 (1-3 ATS)

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