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2023 Graham Mertz returns in Gators win over Mississippi State

It’s easy to dismiss Florida’s 45-28 victory against Mississippi State as insignificant.

After all, the Gators now stand at 2-2 heading into the season’s first bye week and certainly have better teams coming on the calendar. That includes what is likely to be a 4-0 UCF team in the Swamp in two weeks followed up by a road trip to Knoxville to take on a top-10 Vols squad.

But given the difficulty that Florida and Billy Napier have had winning in the SEC on the road during his tenure, this one still qualifies as a good win. That’s especially true because what I saw when I looked at the film looked much more like the 2023 offense than the offense we had seen thus far in 2024.

Given what we’ve seen from the defense thus far – and in many ways continued to see against the Bulldogs – that may not be enough to win a ton of the games coming up on the schedule. But it’s a welcome change from what we’d seen thus far this season, and was enough to give the Gators an SEC win on the road.

Those aren’t things Florida fans can take for granted given what we’ve seen from the program recently.

2023 Graham Mertz Returns

Anyone who’s followed me for the past two seasons knows that I am not a huge Graham Mertz fan.

It isn’t that Mertz can’t be a good QB. It is that Mertz is limited in what he can do, which then limits what the Gators offense can be. That is all still true. But Billy Napier and the Gators finally stopped trying to fit a square peg into a round hole in this one, and that made a huge difference.

If we look at the surface statistics, Mertz was back to his normal, accurate self, completing 19 of his 21 attempts (91%) with 3 TDs and 0 INTs. That amounted to a QB rating of 218, which is elite-level play.

But how did he achieve that success? According to Pro Football Focus, Mertz had an average depth of target (ADOT) of 5.1 yards per attempt. That’s way shorter than Mertz’s ADOT against Texas A&M (9.5) or Miami (11.7). You can really see this if you look at the depth frequency for Mertz in his first two starts compared to what it was against Mississippi State.

In his first two starts, only 45 percent of Mertz’s throws were within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. This was a significant departure from where Mertz was in 2023, as 69 percent of his throws were within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. But against the Bulldogs, Mertz was back to his 2023 self with 76 percent of his throws occurring within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage.

This offseason I highlighted this specific stat as a reason that Mertz would struggle to take a step forward in 2024 this offseason so I’m still not incredibly bullish on him turning the tide and taking a major step from his 2023 form as this season progresses. But I do think this is a much better way for him to play than whatever Napier and Co. were trying in his first two starts.

You might be wondering about the deeper passes Mertz did hit, specifically the 20-yard TD pass to Marcus Burke and the 35-yard strike to Hayden Hansen. Aren’t those indicative that Mertz is capable of going downfield when it’s necessary? Well…..sort of.

This touchdown opens up because Florida has been throwing screen-after-screen to this point in the game. Burke sells the screen and the corner – who is playing outside leverage, meaning he is responsible for pushing the receiver to the outside and not getting beat deep – drives up to make the tackle. He realizes his mistake and tries to grab Burke, but it is too late and Mertz has an easy touchdown throw.

I don’t know what Mississippi State teaches its corners, but the field-side safety (closest to the throw) starts the play lined up facing the opposite direction. The closest linebacker looks to be responsible for throws into the flat. I think this is a player trying to guess (after guessing right a bunch in the first quarter) and getting caught.

I have no idea what Mississippi State was trying to do on this play defensively. Florida has two wide receivers to the bottom of the screen, Montrell Johnson split wide to the top, and two tight ends on the strong side of the formation. All five players release into a route at the snap.

But if we pause the clip pre-snap, the Bulldogs have three players (the strong safety and two linebackers) lined up across from the tight ends. Because Johnson is split wide and Mertz is the QB, there isn’t any real threat from a run. Given the one deep safety, this usually means man-to-man coverage, yet none of Mississippi State’s players take Hayden Hansen running down the seam.

The announcer on the broadcast blamed that deep safety for being slow coming over to help, but I think this is more a matter of the linebackers being lulled to sleep by screen after screen after screen.

Takeaway

I think Florida’s decision to go back to the 2023 offensive philosophy makes a lot of sense given what we’ve seen from Graham Mertz thus far. If you’re not going to hand the keys over to D.J. Lagway, you have to play to Mertz’s strengths to be effective.

Florida averaged 27.7 points per game in 2023 against FBS opponents with Mertz as the starter. The issue for the Gators is going to be that even after the Mississippi State game, Florida has surrendered 34 points per game against those same FBS opponents in 2024.

Given Mississippi State’s defensive struggles in 2024 so far, a Gators team hitting on all cylinders similar to last year should score 45 points. The question will be, can they keep that up against some of the defenses that are on the horizon?

After the A&M game, I think most Gators fans would have taken 6-6 in a heartbeat. That’s still a possibility with what we’ve seen thus far, but there is almost zero margin for error. That becomes clear if we look at the schedule and where the Gators opponents rank so far in yards per play vs. FBS opponents:

• Miami – 10th (Gators scored 17)
• Texas A&M – 59th (Gators scored 20)
• Mississippi State – 105th (Gators scored 45)
• UCF – 92nd
• Tennessee – 1st
• Kentucky – 27th
• Georgia – 6th
• Texas – 4th
• LSU – 89th
• Mississippi – 5th
• FSU – 54th

This suggests that with a return to 2023 offensive production levels, Florida should be able to score enough to compete with UCF and LSU and has almost zero chance of beating Tennessee, Georgia, Texas and Ole Miss. Assuming wins over the Knights and Tigers (a big assumption given Florida’s up-and-down performances thus far), that means the Gators defense is going to have to show up against struggling Kentucky and FSU squads to offset that those teams look to be decent defensively if there’s any hope for bowl eligibility.

That’s not really moving the needle for a lot of Gators fans who expected more than bowl eligibility in Napier’s third year. And embarrassing losses against Tennessee, Georgia, Texas or Ole Miss are going to make it really difficult to keep fissures from developing in the locker room.

But it was also entirely possible that those fissures would form after the loss to Texas A&M and the wheels would fall off on a road visit to Starkville. Instead Florida came out focused and prepared to win, albeit with some significant warts.

Perhaps more importantly, Florida came out with an offensive game plan that made sense given the personnel they planned to put out on the field. Graham Mertz can be a good QBB, but not if you’re going to force him to throw it deep without setting it up by throwing short. Napier and Co. finally admitted that against Mississippi State.

Now the hard part: they have to use the bye week to figure out how to find a game plan that improves this defense.