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Miami vs. Florida Preview – Part 4

I’ve gotten feedback that sometimes my previews can be a bit…..comprehensive. So for Miami week (and maybe the entire year) at Read & Reaction, I’m going to be trying something a little bit different. We’re going to roll out different portions of the game previews every day this week, focusing on the big picture (Monday), the QBs (Tuesday), the key matchup (Wednesday) and the prediction (Thursday). If you like getting my articles and digesting all at once, you can still do so on Thursday as per normal, but I’d love to hear whether dividing things up is helpful/preferred.

Also, if you like our type of analysis, there’s a lot more in our 2024 Florida Preseason Magazine. You can get a digital copy in your inbox in 5 minutes if you buy the pdf version, and you can have a hard copy in two days if you order on Amazon!

Part 4 – The Prediction

In Part 1 of this preview, I highlighted how Miami was a better team in 2023 compared to the Gators. That wasn’t just based on record, but on point differential as well. A bunch of you were nice enough to point out that I didn’t adjust those numbers for strength of schedule and you’re correct. I happen to think the difference is significant enough that controlling for that factor doesn’t close the gap, but maybe I’m wrong.

In Part 2, I weighed Cam Ward vs. Graham Mertz and how Ward probably isn’t worth all the hype he’s getting. Even with that said, that still leaves this QB matchup as a wash. I also think it’s way more likely that Ward takes a step forward given the Hurricanes increased talent level and that I suspect Mertz has probably reached his ceiling. But hey, maybe Mertz does have another gear and will be able to chuck the ball all over the place against a re-made Miami defense.

In Part 3, I looked at what I see as the key matchup, which is Florida’s defensive front-four against Miami’s offensive line. I texted some friends as I was writing the section to marvel that while I knew Miami’s OL was good, I had no idea they were that good. It is not hyperbole to say that we may look back at the end of the year and rate Miami’s line as a top-5 unit in the country. But maybe Florida addition Joey Slackman will be able to get the same push that he got at Penn and is able to stuff some runs and make Ward uncomfortable.

All of those things is possible, but it means that we’re relying on Florida to have improved more than Miami over the offseason, the Gators to win at the QB position, and Florida’s weakest position to beat Miami’s strongest. Could that happen? Sure, but needing all three of those to hit leaves me really nervous heading into this one.

Of course, there’s one place we haven’t focused yet where there are hidden points that might turn the tables.

The Coaches

If we look at the 247Sports roster rankings for 2024, Florida and Miami have essentially identical talent profiles. That means if it’s close, the team that wins is going to be the one that extracts the most out of its players: in other words, coaching.

Back in January, I wrote an article about one-score avoidance and how that points to a great coach. Essentially, the argument – which the data supports – is that elite coaches don’t consistently win close games, they avoid them.

This is good news for the Gators, though not necessarily because of Billy Napier. The following chart shows each coach’s win percentage, percentage of games ending within one-score and their win percentage in those one-score games.

Napier isn’t great at one-score game avoidance, coming in at 36.4 percent overall. But Mario Cristobal is even worse, coming in at 39.7 percent of his games ending within one score.

I find it really interesting that for both Napier and Cristobal, they had almost identical percentages of one-score games at every stop. You would think that Cristobal would have had less close games at Oregon or Miami than he did at FIU, but it turns out that 4 out of every 10 is going to be within 8 points regardless of who he’s coaching.

That suggests that this game is likely going to be close. Close games tend to be 50-50 propositions that can turn on a turnover or a missed tackle, but given some of the advantages Miami has (and I’ve outlined in this series of previews), keeping this one close and taking advantage of an opportunity at the end is probably the path to victory for the Gators.

Average QB Play

So how is it that Cristobal and Napier have played close games consistently? Well, I think if you look at the play of the QBs they’ve had since 2018, we see an intriguing trend.

QB Rating for Napier and Cristobal’s main QBs since 2018.

In his tenures at Oregon and Miami, Cristobal had two seasons of Justin Herbert, two seasons of Tyler Van Dyke, a season of Tyler Shough and a season of Anthony Brown. These are very different QBs with very different skill sets, including the sixth pick of the 2020 NFL Draft.

In his tenures at Louisiana and Florida, Napier had three seasons of Levi Lewis, a season of Andre Nunez, a season of Anthony Richardson and a season of Graham Mertz. Similarly to Cristobal, these are also QBs with very different skill sets, and also includes the fourth pick of the 2022 NFL Draft.

Yet for both Cristobal and Napier, the average QB rating over those years is around 145 (average) with a high of 160.4, a low of 131.0 and a standard deviation of 9.0. Essentially, they’ve both gotten average QB play out of all of their signal callers regardless of skill level.

And when your QB is average, you don’t blow anybody out. Conversely, when your QB isn’t terrible, nobody blows you out.

Prediction

So what does this all mean?

I think it’s pretty clear when you look in totality that Miami is the better team heading into this one. They were better last season, Cam Ward has more upside than Graham Mertz, and Miami’s offensive line is a major advantage.

But somehow Mario Cristobal just hasn’t been able to squeeze much out of his QBs, regardless of how gifted they are. Unfortunately, you can say the same about Billy Napier, which means that there isn’t some distinct advantage on the coaching side except that they probably won’t win this game, but they could certainly lose it.

And that’s where the Swamp begins to really loom large.

Given the profiles of the two teams and the fact that Miami’s biggest strength is poised to dominate Florida’s biggest weakness, my instinct is to pick the Hurricanes to run away with this one by multiple touchdowns.

But if we dig even deeper, it turns out that away from home (road or neutral) while at Oregon and Miami, Cristobal has played one-score games in 17 of his 35 games. Of those 17 games, 10 have come against unranked opponents, including 6 losses.

It turns out that when you get average QB play on the road, you give even inferior teams a chance to hang, and with a mistake or two (or not taking a knee), a chance to win.

Billy Napier needs this win. To be honest, I – and Gator Nation – needs this win. It’s no fun covering a team that’s a mess. It’s no fun rooting for a team that’s a mess. And it would be a lot of fun to rule the State of Florida for the next two weeks with a win over the Hurricanes coupled with the FSU loss to Georgia Tech.

So my head says to pick Miami, but my heart says the Gators keep this one close and Napier gets the win while also exorcising his special teams demons as Smack kicks the game winner as time expires.

Don’t hurt me again, Billy.

Florida (+2.5) wins, 26-24.

If you want to check out the other portions of this preview series, you can do so here:

• Part 1 – Big picture overview
• Part 2 – QB evaluation
• Part 3 – Key Matchup
• Part 4 – Prediction