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Gators ride dominant first half to victory over Central Florida

I had a Patreon subscriber ask me in my live postgame recap why it was that Central Florida hates being called that and instead asks to be called UCF (which I, of course, honor religiously)? The answer is pretty simple: the University of Central Florida is a directional school, and directional schools aren’t good at football.

Well, in the first half on Saturday night, Graham Mertz, D.J. Lagway, and especially Florida’s defense treated the University of Central Florida like a directional school.

In a decisive second quarter, the Gators averaged 8.9 yards per play against 2.6 yards per play for Central Florida. By the time the smoke cleared, the Gators had taken a 7-3 first quarter lead and extended it to 24-3.

Given the way the Gators defense was playing, that was more than enough.

The QB Comparison

K.J. Jefferson lit up Florida last season for Arkansas.

He went 20-31 (64.5%) for 255 yards (8.2 yards per attempt) for 2 TDs and an INT. He also ran for 17 times for 92 yards (5.4 yards per rush). The result was a Yards Above Replacement (YAR, my proprietary stat that measures QB run and pass efficiency) of 1.28, which is somewhere above good but below Heisman.

This year, Jefferson ran for -18 yards on 12 carries and averaged 7.5 yards per attempt on 22 throws. That resulted in a YAR of -1.64, which is just awful. That’s backed up by a more traditional stat like QB rating, which had him at 108.5 (average is around 145).

On the other side, Graham Mertz was ultra efficient if you look at traditional QB stats, with a QB rating of 162.3. But if you look at my YAR stat, he actually had a negative value in the first half (-0.21) and finished at 0.17 for the entire game. That is why Florida’s offense sometimes feels stagnant. The 19-23 (82.6%) performance feels efficient, but that isn’t the case because everything is so short.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

On this play, Billy Napier has a call that should get Florida a first down. If the MIKE linebacker (Ethan Barr, #32) drops into the throwing lane for a hitch to Arlis Boardingham (#8), then Mertz can drop the ball off to Montrell Johnson (#1) with room to run. But if Barr takes Johnson, then the hitch is open behind him.

I paused it right when Mertz had to make his decision. Barr is making a beeline for Johnson. The hitch is open. Mertz has his feet lined-up towards Boardingham. But he sidearms the throw out to Johnson, who is immediately confronted by Barr with zero room to run.

Mertz was still a net-positive for Florida in this game. Compared to Jefferson, he outplayed him significantly. But these sorts of plays are why the Florida offense sometimes stalls, and it’s why this game was 24-13 instead of 42-13.

Florida’s Defense

I’ve been critical of Florida’s defense for years now. The unit has, quite frankly, earned the criticism. Between poor tackling, poor pass defense and a lack of push up-front, there hasn’t been a lot to point to as signs of progress since 2019.

But the Gators defense played very well against the Golden Knights. I already cited K.J. Jefferson’s stats, but I want to reiterate one: he ran for -18 yards on 12 carries. Yes, that includes sacks, but that’s actually the point I’m trying to make. The Gators defense had five sacks and seven tackles for loss.

Let me say that again: 5 sacks and 7 tackles for loss.

The Gators came into the game with only 8 sacks and 23 tackles for loss for all of 2024. If you subtract the game against FCS cupcake Samford, those numbers shrink to 4 and 11. This defense just hasn’t won many battles up-front.

But against Central Florida, the Gators defense won the battles up-front.

Gus Malzahn went for it on fourth-and-1 with 14:07 left in the second quarter that Florida stopped and got the ball in plus-territory for D.J. Lagway’s first drive. But they never get to the fourth down if they don’t get a stop on third-and-1, and that stop came because of winning an individual battle up-front.

On this play, I have an arrow on Desmond Watson (#21), Florida’s massive defensive tackle. As the ball is snapped, you can see the black line on the screen that represents the line of scrimmage. Watson makes contact with the Central Florida left guard and drives him back behind the line of scrimmage. And because Watson is over 400 pounds, there isn’t anywhere for the running back to go.

Here’s another example.

This is a simulated pressure, where Florida only brings four pass rushers, but they bring them from non-traditional places. Linebacker R.J. Moten (#16, arrow) rushes up the middle as does linebacker Jaden Robinson (#29). Meanwhile, defensive ends George Gumbs (#34) and T.J. Searcy (#19) drop into coverage.

The Gators get exactly what they want on this: Moten isolated on Central Florida running back R.J. Harvey (#7) right up the gut. Moten wins the battle as Harvey gives a poor effort in pass protection. The result is that Jefferson has zero time to go through his progressions and can’t escape the sack.

And when Malzahn tried to dial up a big play, the defense was ready and stayed disciplined.

On this play, Central Florida runs a reverse. The goal is to get Florida’s defense to flow in one direction to open up the backside. By design, they leave Aaron Gates (#13) unblocked as he is the “read” in a typical read-option play that doesn’t have the reverse on the other side. Often, a player in Gates position would chase the running back after the hand off from Jefferson.

But Gates doesn’t do that here. His eyes are on Jefferson, he stays wide, and then when he identifies the reverse, he shoots inside of Jefferson and makes the tackle.

Takeaway

This game was progress. The offense played well in the first half, the defense played well throughout, and the Gators got a much-needed win against Central Florida.

This isn’t a win over Miami or Texas A&M. It isn’t even a win over Kentucky. But you can only play the teams on your schedule, and on Saturday night, Florida beat the opponent in front of them.

Too often, I suspect we don’t enjoy these. Had you stopped watching at the end of the first half, you would have been completely satisfied with the performance as the Gators went into the locker room with a 24-3 lead and a 251-119 yardage advantage. The second half was underwhelming, but the game was decided the minute Central Florida spent eight minutes driving down the field to open the half and had to settle for a field goal.

I’m sure there will be a lot “it’s just Central Florida” talk out there. Some of that is warranted. But….the Golden Knights were 1.5-point favorites at kickoff. That means more money was being bet on Central Florida than was being bet on the Gators. The fact of the matter is that most folks – including me – expected this game to be a lot closer.

Does Florida still need to improve? Absolutely. Tennessee proved they aren’t invincible by falling to Arkansas and Alabama proved the same against Vanderbilt, but this Gators team certainly isn’t without its warts as well.

But here’s the thing. If you’re going to get victories over the Tennessee’s and Kentucky’s of the world, you certainly need to get them over Central Florida. It may not have been pretty, but that’s exactly what Billy Napier and the Gators got.

And especially in the first half, they treated a directional school like a directional school.