Embed from Getty Images

Florida outplayed and outclassed in loss to Georgia

Georgia came into this game as 14.5 point favorites, and I didn’t think that was enough.

The reason was that the Bulldogs ranked 7th in the country in yards per play and yards per play allowed, while Florida ranked 49th in yards per play and 95th in yards per play allowed. Those numbers suggested that if the Gators were going to win, it was going to be in a shootout, but that they didn’t really have all that many bullets in the chamber.

That’s exactly what happened when the Gators got their fans’ hopes up with an opening drive featuring a heavy does of Trey Wilson only to sputter for the rest of the first half.

If you eliminate the last two drives in garbage time (18 plays, 150 yards, 2 TD), the Gators averaged 4.6 yards per play, right around where Georgia has been all year. Even with those two drives, the Gators averaged 5.7 yards per play, right where they’ve been all year.

In the meantime, Georgia averaged 7.4 yards per play, shredding the Florida defense with whatever they called. The Gators just had zero answers and as bad as the first half was (6.8 yards per play), the second half was worse (8.0 yards per play).

A lot of fans were monumentally upset at the result, but I’m not sure why. Given the stats coming into the game, this is almost exactly what we should have expected. That isn’t a commentary on talent, per se, but just where these teams currently reside given their current resumes.

That stinks, but it’s reality. There is a huge gap between these teams and if the Gators want to win against Georgia, that starts with putting better performances on the field against the Vanderbilt’s, Kentucky’s and South Carolina’s of the world.

Quarterback

Carson Beck was awesome in this one.

He averaged 11.3 yards per attempt and had a QB rating of 185.9. His Yards Above Replacement (YAR) – my proprietary stat that takes QB running and passing efficiency into account – was 2.87, which is Heisman-level play. He was at right around 1.0 (basically, Jake Fromm in 2018) coming into the game and Florida’s defense made him look like a superstar.

On the other side, Graham Mertz averaged 6.8 yards per attempt and had a QB rating of 149.8. Mertz was also sacked a bunch, making his rushing stats a net negative and pushing his YAR down to -2.02. That’s just plain bad.

Not all of the sacks were Mertz’s fault, but a couple of them were. And you can get sacked without coughing up the ball, but Mertz was stripped of the ball on two straight possessions. The first time, Florida recovered the ball and was able to punt. The second time, Georgia recovered and quickly turned it into a touchdown that essentially ended the game.

In my preview article, I wrote that these two QBs were relatively similar and so the stat to watch for was sacks. Mertz was sacked four times and the Bulldogs overall had eight tackles for loss. Meanwhile, the Gators had zero sacks on Georgia and Beck was able to sit back and just pick apart the secondary with impunity.

This was a place where Florida at least had to earn a draw, and instead they had a distinct disadvantage. That’s a big reason the game was as lopsided as it was.

Running backs in the passing game

Another thing I noted in my preview article was that Georgia’s defense had been beaten recently by plays designed to get the running back on Georgia’s linebackers out in space for big plays.

That’s why I was thrilled when on the opening drive, the Gators lined up Trey Wilson at running back and got him the ball with space to run. That is a really effective way to combat the Georgia defense.

What you didn’t see on tape was Georgia getting beat consistently on traditional screen passes, yet Florida tried a bunch of those too. A few of them were just throw away because the Bulldogs blew them up from the start, but what resulted was that even with the Wilson catch on the opening drive out of the RB position, Gators running backs totaled four catches for 24 yards and zero explosives.

I just don’t get that.

A problem Florida has – and Gary Danielson noted it on the telecast – is that their running backs struggle in pass protection. Multiple times Trevor Etienne was beaten by a blitzing linebacker who was able to get to Mertz. Even on the opening TD to Wilson, Etienne missed a block. Mertz just got the ball out on-time and so Florida was able to make a big play. But once Mertz was forced to hold the ball for another beat, the pass rush got home.

I kept waiting for Florida to throw it to the backs when the linebacker blitzed, but that play never really came. I also kept waiting for the Gators to isolate Montrell Johnson, Etienne or Wilson on a linebacker from the running back position, but that never came.

Finally, if you’re not going to use the running backs in that way, the least they could have done was thrown some help in poor Damieon George’s direction. The right tackle was really struggling to stay in front of Georgia’s pass rushers, and Florida would have served him well to move a tight end or running back out that way to help with a chip.

Instead, George continued getting beat, Mertz continued getting sacked and the Gators offense sputtered for most of the second and third quarters.

Running the ball outside

Surprisingly, Florida was able to get a push up the middle in the running game.

At the half, Montrell Johnson had five carries for 30 yards (6.0 yards per rush) and Etienne had five carries for 25 yards (5.0 yards per rush). The Gators had called 20 passing plays to that point, meaning they had decided to lean heavily on Mertz in this one.

Nowhere was this better exemplified than on the trick play on fourth-and-inches.

Now, you can argue (and I will) that the SEC officiating crew had no business overturning the first down call on the throw to Kahleil Jackson. There is no way that the officials had a camera angle that gave them definitive proof that the on-field call was incorrect, and the fact that they made it fourth down and made it almost two full feet is just indefensible.

But that doesn’t hide the fact that Billy Napier – needing two feet for a key first down – decided that the best play was a snap between his QB’s legs to his left-handed running back for a throw into the flat. The right call there is a QB sneak or a run up the middle. Maybe you run a pitch like you did two weeks ago against South Carolina to get Etienne out into space.

But it’s pretty clear that at this point, Napier has zero confidence in his offensive line to pick up a yard when he needs it. That would be understandable if there was a plan to get the ball outside the tackles on a regular basis to his backs to free them up of some of the limitations of the offensive line, but those never really came.

Where were the swing passes to the backs out of the backfield? Where were the pitch plays to get them outside into space? The only real attempt to get the ball to the backs on the edge were the one throw to Wilson and then slowly developing screen passes. The quick throw to Wilson worked great. Georgia was all over everything else.

Johnson, Etienne and Wilson are the Gators best players. Napier is going to have to find a way to get the ball to them more often on the edge without asking the offensive line to be perfect, because it’s not.

Defense

The offensive side is the easy place to criticize because of the fourth down call and the turnover, but this could have been the Air Coryell Chargers and the Gators still would have lost given the defensive performance.

A lot of criticism is going to go in the secondary’s direction, and those guys aren’t without fault. But the Gators got zero pressure on Beck and zero push up-front. The Bulldogs only had one explosive running play (the 20 yard TD run for Edwards) but still averaged 4.5 yards per rush. The Gators now rank 100th in yards per rush allowed vs. FBS opponents at 4.7 yards per rush.

The Gators had 4 tackles for loss and none of them came from the defensive tackles. Princely Umanmielen had 1.5 chasing down running plays from the edge. Bryce Thornton, Shemar James and Jason Marshall had 2 combined coming on blitzes and Tyreak Sapp added 0.5 on a play where he chased down Beck from behind.

That has been an issue for the Gators all year long. They just haven’t been able to get any push up-front, which has allowed QBs to get comfortable. Combine that with linebackers getting mauled by pulling offensive linemen in gaping holes and you get the double whammy of big running plays supplemented by QBs throwing against a secondary being asked to cover for too long.

Think about when the Gators defense looked its best. It was Cam Jackson and Caleb Banks getting pressure up into Joe Milton’s face against Tennessee (along with Umanmielen) that forced the interception that turned that game. It was pressure up the middle the forced the game clinching interception two weeks ago from Spencer Rattler.

The lack of pressure and difference-making plays up-front is what is really ailing this defense. To be sure, the secondary needs to play better, but it all starts on the line and until that gets better, the defense is going to continue to struggle.

Takeaway

The “fire Napier” crowd was out on X after the game again, much as it has been all year after a Gators loss. I just don’t get it at this point.

Dan Mullen was run out of town because he couldn’t recruit. Smart even joked about it in his press conference after the game. Napier has turned that around, holding the third-ranked recruiting class in the country for 2024.

Very few coaches have the ability to turn things around immediately and recruit at a high level. Nick Saban obviously did it at Alabama and Smart has done it at Georgia. But even that last comparison is unfair to Napier because Mark Richt had much better recruiting classes than Dan Mullen or Jim McElwain did prior to Smart getting there.

I wrote an article back in 2019 when Carson Beck committed to Georgia that essentially predicted the Bulldogs’ dominance. The key quote from the article came from a figure I put together that looked at the number of expected NFL draft picks from the previous four recruiting cycles. Here’s the key quote from the article:

“The difference in talent between Florida and Georgia (11.8) is larger than the difference between Florida and Vanderbilt (8.9).”

You’re absolutely right when you point out that Florida isn’t significantly less talented than Utah or Kentucky. Those are games that the Gators should be more competitive in. But in the big picture, being competitive against those teams is only a band-aid on a bullet hole. Dan Mullen was competitive against those teams. He won New Years Six bowls and demolished a pretty good Michigan team. He had an offense that pushed Alabama to the brink in the SEC Championship Game.

And yet, we all knew that wasn’t enough for what the Gator faithful demand: consistent, championship-level success.

I’m not sure if Billy Napier can get Florida there. But he is now hitting off-field landmarks that are critical to establishing long-term success. He cleaned house in a way that Mullen was not willing to, and Florida is going through the pain of that process.

None of that makes a whipping like the Bulldogs just put on the Gators any easier. I wish you could both put a great product on the field while building, and I don’t think Napier shouldn’t be criticized for some of the decisions he’s made.

But we just saw exactly who Florida eventually wants to be across the field on Saturday. It’s going to take time to build to that level. Napier seems to have the recruiting figured out – at least for 2024 – to get Florida to where it needs to be. Whether he’s more of a Ron Zook filling the cupboards for a new regime to take over and win or he’s able to do it himself is yet to be determined.

But before deciding to get rid of the guy, let’s at least let him fill the cupboards.