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Tulane and transfer portal panic

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There’s lots going on in Gator Nation these days.

Florida takes on Tulane in the Gasparilla Bowl on Friday, players are staying and going in the transfer portal, and the Gators have started out slow bringing in players from outside the program in the portal as well.

Let’s talk about all three as we head into the holidays.

Tulane Preview

The Green Wave are without their starting QB Darian Mensah. That’s a big deal, as Tulane ranked 6th in the country in yards per pass attempt and Mensah averaged 9.5 yards per throw.

Former Oregon commit Ty Thompson will start in Mensah’s place, and this is a tryout of sorts for Thompson, who has already announced his intention of transferring once the game is over.

Thompson was the 40th overall recruit in the 2021 recruiting class according to the 247Sports Composite. He’s got prototypical size at 6’4” and 215 pounds. In his sophomore season at Mesquite High School, he completed 70.6 percent of his throws at 10.2 yards per attempt. Had that been his senior season, I would have been worried.

But his junior and senior seasons – when he threw a combined 732 passes – had him completing passes at a 59 percent clip at an average of 10.3 yards per attempt. While he did throw 231 passes that sophomore season, I’d expect that his junior and senior years are more representative of his level of accuracy.

That’s pretty much what we’ve seen in limited time at the college level thus far. In 77 throws over the past four seasons, Thompson has completed 62.3 percent at 6.9 yards per attempt. With a QB rating of 144.1 in mostly mop-up duty, we’re talking about someone who’s going to be average through the air.

It’s on the ground where Thompson could hurt the Gators. In his three years as starter at Mesquite, Thompson averaged 4.9 yards per rush on 234 carries. This season at Tulane, he’s averaged 6.1 yards per rush on 40 attempts. Florida has played a ton of off-coverage this season, and if the linebackers drop too deep, the Gators may give up some gash plays to Thompson in the running game.

That would concern me if Tulane had its full defense coming to Tampa. But that isn’t the case as nose tackle Parker Petersen (2.5 sacks, 5 TFL) and Edge Matthew Fobbs-White (4 sacks, 8 TFL) have entered the portal and will not play in this game. 4.5 sacks is the maximum Tulane got from any player up-front, so losing those two is significant.

D.J. Lagway has proven he can deal with pressure. We saw that anecdotally as he shook off Ole Miss and FSU defenders to make big-time throws. But PFF says that’s true as well, as he has a 79.4 rating when blitzed compared to a 68.6 rating when the blitz doesn’t come.

Missing two players up-front means Tulane is going to have to blitz, and when you blitz D.J. Lagway, you play right into his specialty as he can take the deep shots he wants. And if his hamstring is fully healthy, he’ll be able to open up the running game as well.

Florida (-9.5) wins, 38-13.

Picks this year: 8-3 (6-5 ATS)

Staying and Going

Jack Pyburn is now an LSU Tiger. Kelby Collins is a member of the Crimson Tide. Such is the new world of college football in the age of the transfer portal.

But what does that mean for the team?

I’ve started thinking about the portal lately in terms of “replacement level.” The concept is that you’re going to have to set aside NIL money to keep your own players and acquire new players in the portal (as well as high school recruits). By definition, that money is limited. It’s easy to say “we won’t be outbid for anyone” but the reality is that at some point there are players who are more valuable to other programs than to yours and it is probably wise to let them go.

As an example, in 2023 edge rushers in the SEC had an average PFF rating of 68.4. This year, Pyburn was at 70.2 and Collins was at 70.1. So you’ve essentially lost two average SEC players on the defensive line.

But what about the players still on the roster. Interior linemen in the SEC had an average PFF rating of 66.8 in 2023 and Caleb Banks had a PFF rating of 73.6 this season. Tyreak Sapp was an absolute monster, with a PFF rating of 89.8.

I’m not saying Florida wanted to lose Pyburn or Collins. But if NIL funds can be allocated towards Banks and Sapp (obviously, he’d need to announce he’s coming back) instead, those guys are harder to replace.

We can say the same thing about the offensive line. I know folks are getting antsy about wide receivers, but I think Florida can piece together that position if they can keep Lagway clean. And now the Gators have four of their five starters from last season coming back on the offensive line.

It all starts with Austin Barber. The average PFF rating for offensive tackles in the SEC in 2023 was 64.2. Barber has had PFF ratings of 79.3, 67.5 and 66.0 the past three seasons in over 1900 snaps. There is elite play there, but Barber is, at worst, an above replacement level left tackle.

Right guard Damieon George was much maligned for his play in 2023, but he was clearly playing out of position. He had a PFF rating of 62.0 at tackle in 2023 and that upped to 70.2 when he slid inside to guard (PFF SEC average in 2023 of 62.5).

Knijeah Harris mans the other guard spot. In his first full-time (599 snaps) action this year, Harris had a PFF rating of 66.9, also above replacement level.

And then we have first-team All American center Jake Slaughter. Slaughter had a rough start to his career against Utah (59.9 PFF rating), but in 2023 he was one of the best centers in the country (77.8 PFF rating) and this year was even better (82.3 PFF rating).

We’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years talking about players who “have to take the next step” in order for Florida to be successful. But in the cases of Sapp, Banks, Barber, George, Harris and Slaughter, that isn’t the case.

Sure, it would be great if all of those guys took another step. But that is six players who have played at an above average level in the SEC, a couple at an All-SEC level (Sapp outplayed Walter Nolen). Bring all those guys back along and keep Lagway healthy, and you’ve got a chance to make a run.

What about receiver?

I think most folks, myself included, expected Florida to make a huge splash at the receiver position. After all, Lagway chucking it deep has likely made Elijhah Badger some NFL money this season and so why wouldn’t others flock to play with the guy?

But I also think it’s important to note that I don’t have the same confidence in transfer recruiting ratings that I do with high school ratings. The reason is simple: we just don’t have a lot of data to mine with the transfer portal as currently constituted.

You can see what I mean if we look at the top-50 wide receiver transfer rankings for last year (according to 247Sports) and those players’ subsequent performances.

What this chart shows us is the average number of snaps and overall PFF Rating for all 50 receivers and then divided up into bins (1-10, 11-20, 21-30, etc.). What we see is almost zero difference between the top and the bottom of the rankings.

The average wide receiver PFF rating in the SEC in 2023 was 66.4. The average rating of these transfers was 64.8 (i.e. below average). Only 21 of the 50 transfer receivers eclipsed that average in 2024. Only 16 players eclipsed a PFF rating of 70.0 and only two eclipsed a rating of 80 (and one, Minnesota’s Tyler Williams, only had three snaps).

Tre Harris was the best receiver in the SEC this season and he had a PFF rating of 90.0. Elijhah Badger was the 37th ranked receiver on this list and was only outperformed by Indiana’s Elijah Sarratt (who was ranked 33rd).

This isn’t to say that Florida shouldn’t be aggressive in the portal or that they want to lose out on players who might consider Gainesville. But it does mean that we should take these rankings with a grain of salt when someone tells you that a particular player is “one of the top guys in the portal” at a position.

At least thus far, the data suggests they can say that with a lot of confidence, but unlike high school recruiting, they’re way less likely to be right.

William’s Positivity Corner

There’s no other way to use this space today than to talk about my wife.

Today is our 20th wedding anniversary and anyone who can deal with me for that long probably deserves a medal. You never go through 20 years together seeing eye-to-eye on everything, but it’s turned out to be a good match as she is the discipline that grounds my flightiness.

There’s no way that I would have made it through graduate school without her pushing me. She’s sacrificed – materially, physically, and of her sanity – to stay home with our four kids while I go to work and then write these musings on the internet. I may be what society calls the “breadwinner”, but she’s the one who is taking those funds and pouring into the little humans who give my life purpose. I couldn’t ever thank her enough.

In Proverbs (31:10-11, NIV), the Bible says “A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.” I couldn’t think of a better way to describe the role she has played in my life.

When I was a junior in high school, my family moved from Indiana to Florida. It was difficult to establish myself in a new place at a time when I barely knew who I was. It’s a big reason why when I went through a job change recently that we decided not to do that to my daughter.

But I wouldn’t have gone to Florida had we not made that move. I wouldn’t have grown from a 17-year old kid who was afraid he wouldn’t be able to hack Physics 101 to a 22-year old who was designing engineering equipment for ExxonMobil. I wouldn’t have learned the value of pouring into people who would become lifelong friends. I wouldn’t have learned that for every Steve Spurrier, there is a Ron Zook.

And I wouldn’t have met my wife.

I once heard a pastor talk about how God is often working upstream in our lives, even when we can’t see the logic or even that He’s working. But I don’t have to look very far to know that, at least in my life, that’s absolutely proven true.

All I have to do is look at the person I’ve had the blessing to wake up next to for the past 20 years. I love you.

Editor’s Note: If you’ve enjoyed our coverage at Read & Reaction this year, please support us by signing up for our free newsletter. We’ll notify you when articles come out and when our annual preseason magazine drops. If you’d like more content, we have a Patreon page where we put extras that don’t show up here.