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Can Florida upset Tennessee?

Two weeks ago, Florida was sitting at 1-2 and it wasn’t clear if Billy Napier was going to coach another game for the Gators. That was before a road SEC win against Mississippi State and a dominant win against Central Florida.

Of course, the Bulldogs and Golden Knights are not the kind of opponents who get you statues in Gainesville. Beating them is the expectation. You don’t get kudos for beating teams you’re supposed to beat. But that’s not true of Tennessee, especially this year.

One of the main criticisms of Napier has been his record against Tennessee, LSU, Georgia and FSU (1-7). The Vols are currently ranked 8th in the AP Poll after a loss to Arkansas, but I think lots of people would take Tennessee over Miami on a neutral field, which means Florida is about to get as big a test as they got in the opener. That’s not great news for the Gators, who got demolished at home by the Hurricanes 41-17.

But if you’re a Vols fan, you don’t feel great about this one. That’s because when it comes to Florida/Tennessee, the scars from games the Vols fans should have won but didn’t are plentiful.

Grier to Callaway. The Heave to Cleve. 2014 with 76 passing yards between Driskel and Harris. Peyton’s inability to win against the Gators. Perhaps that angst is best summed up in this tweet from Gators beat writer Nick de la Torre.

From someone on the @GatorsOnline message board …

A 13-year-old UF fan has been alive for 11 victories over Tennessee.

A 68-year-old TN fan has been alive for 10 victories over UF. pic.twitter.com/BMNZ18k8mF

— Nick de la Torre (@delatorre) October 10, 2024

If this one is close, Vols fans are going to feel the ghosts. And when your fanbase feels ghosts, you tighten up. So, can Florida keep this one close until the end?

Overall Statistics

When you think of Josh Heupel, the first thing you think of is offense.

Tennessee hasn’t been bad on that side of the ball in 2024, ranking 26th in yards per play gained against FBS opponents, but that isn’t the place where the Vols have excelled. Instead, that’s the defensive side of the ball where Tennessee ranks 3rd overall in yards per play allowed (3.7) and first in yards per rush allowed (1.9).

For a frame of reference, Florida’s defense dominated Central Florida last week and surrendered 4.4 yards per play.

Compared to those, Florida’s numbers look pedestrian. On offense, the Gators rank 39th in yards per play gained (respectable), but a lot of that ranking is numbers put up against Mississippi State and Central Florida. On defense, even after last week’s outing the Gators rank 86th in the country in yards per play allowed and 117th in yards per pass allowed.

So if we’re just looking at these numbers, we have Tennessee with a slight advantage on offense and a huge advantage on defense.

Advantage: Tennessee

Havoc

Why has Tennessee’s defense been so good thus far? It really comes down to havoc.

Havoc percentage is defined as the percentage of plays that a defense creates a tackle for loss, a turnover or a pass defended. Tennessee has a havoc percent of 24.9 percent on the season. That means that a quarter of the Vols plays end up in a significantly negative EPA play for the offense.

Of that havoc rate, 17.8 percent of it comes from the front-seven. Most of that is stopping the running game in the backfield, as Tennessee ranks just 83rd in sacks per game but 12th in tackles for loss per game. It’s pretty unlikely that Florida is going to be able to run the ball.

If we compare that to Florida’s defense, the Gators have a havoc rate of 15.9 percent and a front-seven havoc rate of 10.3 percent. That’s very similar to the rates (14.9% and 12.2%) that Tennessee had last week against Arkansas. Of course, Sam Pittman has built his team up-front.

That isn’t the case with Billy Napier, who has been searching for an offensive line that is functional ever since O’Cyrus Torrence left. Tennessee absolutely tormented Oklahoma’s Jackson Arnold (29.9% havoc, 22.4% front-seven havoc) and I suspect Florida is in for a lot of the same.

Advantage: Tennessee

Quarterback

Normally you would say that a team with a sixth-year senior has a significant advantage over a team starting a redshirt freshman. But that isn’t really the case for this matchup.

Graham Mertz’s stats have stabilized after a rough start against Miami, and he now has a QB rating of 163.9, which is significantly above average. He’s also performing at a Jake Fromm-level using Yards Above Replacement – my proprietary QB stat – with a value of 0.73. This is coming mainly from his rushing, as he is averaging 3.5 yards per rush and has mostly avoided sacks this season.

But Mertz has turned things around while shortening the depth of his passes. Against Miami and Texas A&M, Mertz had an average depth of target (ADOT) of 11.7 and 9.5 yards. That dropped to 5.1 and 5.6 against Mississippi State and Central Florida.

But it’s more than that when you look closely at the numbers. Mertz is 19 for 19 on throws behind the line of scrimmage, where his ADOT is -3.6 yards. Mertz is really accurate at throws between the line of scrimmage and 10 air yards out (23-27), but his ADOT on those throws is only 2.9 yards. These aren’t a bunch of eight-yard hitches.

Combine that with a QB rating (158.2) on deep throws that is lower than his overall QB rating (163.9) and what you see is a limited QB relying on short throws against a defensive line that is flying to the ball.

On the other side, Nico Iamaleava has been pretty good for the Vols thus far, posting a QB rating of 158.4 and a YAR of 1.22. Neither of those are elite numbers, but Florida has made QBs with worse numbers look like Heisman candidates the past few seasons.

Pro Football Focus (PFF) has a much less favorable view of Iamaleava. After putting up a rating of 85.4 (very good) against Chattanooga, he has put up ratings of 61.1 vs. NC State (slightly below average), 49.2 vs. Kent State (bad), 62.4 vs. Oklahoma (slightly below average) and 51.7 vs. Arkansas (bad).

The key here is like most young players, Iamaleava struggles when he is pressured. PFF has his rating at 81.4 (very good) when he is kept clean but 32.2 (terrible) when he is under pressure.

The takeaway here is that whether we look at PFF rating (63.9 for Iamaleava to 66.7 for Mertz), QB rating (158.4 to 163.9) or YAR (1.22 to 0.73), there’s not really a ton of separation between these two.

Of course, Florida doesn’t just have Mertz. D.J. Lagway has a PFF rating of 71.4, a QB rating of 184.1 and a YAR of 3.26. This has been in limited playing time and a lot of it was put up against Samford, but if we’re evaluating Iamaleava vs. Lagway this season, I think you can make the case that Lagway has been better overall.

Even if it’s only every third drive (sigh), Lagway gives the Gators an edge here.

Advantage: Gators

Coaching

Josh Heupel is 31-13 at Tennessee and 20-4 at Neyland Stadium (including 1-0 against Florida). If you’re looking at his kryptonite, it would be his team’s play on the road (11-9) and coincidentally, the last two games where the offense has struggled against Oklahoma and Arkansas were on the road.

Billy Napier has a 14-16 overall record at Florida and a 3-10 record away from The Swamp. Those three victories were over a 5-7 Texas A&M team in 2022, a 5-7 South Carolina team in 2023 and a currently 1-4 Mississippi State team this year.

Heupel’s offenses at Tennessee have ranked 9th (2021), 1st (2022), 37th (2023) and 5th (2024) in points per game. The defense have been all over the place, but the 2023 defense ranks 4th in the country in points per game allowed.

Napier’s offenses at Florida have ranked 57th (2022), 59th (2023), and 62nd (2024) in points per game. His defenses have not been all over the place, ranking 87th (2022), 78th (2023), and 74th (2024) in points per game allowed.

Heupel has played 10 one-score games (22.7%) and has gone 6-4 in those games. Napier has played 9 one-score games (30%) and has gone 4-5. So not only does Heupel avoid one-score games more often, but he wins those games at a higher clip.

Advantage: Tennessee

Takeaway

This one is a pretty easy pick.

Tennessee has a better overall statistical profile, a substantially better defense, and a better coach. I gave the Gators an edge at the QB position, but that’s because of Lagway, who only plays 3-4 drives per game.

Iamaleava has some holes to his game still, and good defenses should be able to exploit those. But I don’t think Florida’s defense is not good enough to do so, and Iamaleava is definitely better than K.J. Jefferson.

Most of the time, scoring comes down to explosive (20-plus yard) plays. Tennessee’s defense has given up 11 (ranked 4th) all season, while Florida has given up 27 (104th). On the offensive side of the ball, Florida ranks 71st in explosives (23) while Tennessee ranks 45th (27).

Even if I grant you that the Gators improvement on defense against Central Florida isn’t a mirage and Florida comes out and plays like it did against the Golden Knights on that side of the ball, the real problem is when the Gators are on offense.

Tennessee doesn’t give up anything in the running game. In fact, they drive you backwards. Florida’s offense is predicated on methodically going down the field and converting on third downs. Florida went 5-7 on third downs in the first half against Central Florida and scored 24 points. The Gators then went 1-6 on third down in the second half and were shut out.

Here’s the reality. Miami has been very fortunate to win against Virginia Tech and Cal the last two weeks. Texas A&M just barely beat Arkansas and Bowling Green at home before blowing out Missouri last week. That suggests to me that the loss against Arkansas shouldn’t fundamentally change what we think about the Vols.

And if we believe that, then the only thing left is the ghosts of Florida past. And I don’t believe in ghosts, especially when Billy Napier’s record thus far looks a lot like Derek Dooley.

Tennessee (-14.5) wins, 41-13.

Picks this year: 3-1 (2-2 ATS).