Florida State football opponent notes: Gators

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9/9 Update

UF blasted Eastern Michigan over the weekend. But how did they do it? By being competent on offense and nasty on defense.

From Bill Connelly

Eastern Michigan's defense ranked 123rd in Def. F/+ last season. If a healthy Florida offense couldn't move the ball against the Eagles, then it just wasn't going to happen. Still, Florida did move the ball against EMU, and it had to feel all sorts of cathartic. Kelvin Taylor, Matt Jones, and Mack Brown combined for 191 yards and three scores on 22 carries, and quarterback Jeff Driskel completed 69 percent of his passes in an easy, breezy, 65-0 win.

Granted, there were warning signs. Driskel's 31 completions averaged just 8.0 yards a pop, and his per-attempt average was still a terribly mediocre 5.5 yards. Plus, as good as the running game looked, the Gators did stall and settle for three field goals in the first half. So yeah, there's improvement still to make. But in terms of happy first steps forward, after the debacle of 2013, it doesn't get much happier than this.

TSK

Here is where the offense looked completely different. The Gators frequently lined up more than three receivers, and they weren't all the same four or five every time they did it. Florida has some receiver depth finally, and it plans to use it.

As is customary with many spread attacks these days, Roper uses some throws as an extended run game. I don't know of a formal definition of what constitutes an "extended run" pass, but the one I used here was: an immediate pass that didn't involve reading the defense that went to the perimeter and no more than three yards past the line of scrimmage. I used my best judgment in identifying these throws, but it was hard sometimes as Roper has plenty of passing plays with short routes on the outside.

The Gators used ten such passes, with five coming on their first drive. Before garbage time, the success rate on them was a dismal 16.7% (one of seven). The entire passing game wasn't terribly efficient early, as it had a success rate of just 28.6% before the 27-0 lead.

It wasn't quite as bad as it sounds, though. The success rate could have been 30% if not for a drop, and if two passes that came up one yard short of being a success (seven yards on first-and-15, five yards on second-and-eight) got just one yard more, it goes up to 40%. The success rate for the whole game was 46.8%, so things did get better as the game went along.

Driskel seemed comfortable, and his accuracy was mostly fine. He only short armed one pass and had only three big overthrows. He attempted six deep passes, and five were on the mark. Only one was complete, though, as two more were drops (Quinton Dunbar, Andre Debose) and the other two were defensive pass interference penalties. Driskel is no Russell Wilson at Wisconsin, and he did have his customary should've-been-an-interception throw, but he will do a lot of positive things in this scheme.

Alligator Army liked the offense a lot, and that it wasn't embarrassing, but Jeff Driskel still needs work.

Because we are a picky fan base, and will be trying to find reasons not to believe in this team this week, we will focus on what Jeff Driskel didn't do on Saturday. He didn't impress with his command of the offense on a consistent enough basis to think he's assured of a great season. He locked onto receivers. He let players get to spots on the field and hit them with bullets rather than leading them. He didn't run like he could've.

He set a few career highs as a passer, though, and made no major mistakes, and was pretty clearly still going at less than full speed, at least to me. If he needs improvement, the most important ones will probably come from cranking up his level of play as the season demands it.

Original

Tomahawk Nation is setting up preview pages for each of Florida State's football opponents. This is the page for Florida. FSU hosts the Gators on November 29, and there are quite a few questions about a team that went 4-8 in 2013 after a 11-2 year in 2012. Will Muschamp is just 22-16 in Gainesville, and seems to be entering the year on the hot seat.

One thing that has never waned, when healthy, has been the defense played by Muschamp's teams. UF has a new coordinator on offense -- a hire I like a lot, but any turnaround will be keyed by the defense giving the offense a lot of margin for error in its improvement bit. I think

Florida has recruited at a very high level -- 54 percent blue chips over the last four classes (FSU is at 56 percent). And that always makes a team scary, because if things come together, they could come together in a big way.

I have a few questions about this offense.

1. Quarterback: Jeff Driskel has a big arm, and very underrated wheels. This new spread offense does seem likely to use him better than other offenses have. However, I don't know if Driskel will be able to read coverages, throw with anticipation and deliver footballs in stride that allow the receiver to run after the catch. I've never seen him do those things. Using his legs more could help to simplify some coverages. But running Driskel a lot also puts him at risk of injury. Given the hotseat Muschamp is on, I anticipate UF rolling the dice and running Driskel a lot. This is no time to play it safe. Driskel running often and staying healthy would be a big help to the offense.
2. How much will the lack of offensive skill position player development from previous years hamstring the 2014 group? Will Demarcus Robinson have his mind right? If so, he could be a big playmaker for the Gators, and a nice piece to add to the steady, reliable Quinton Dunbar. Reports so far seem promising.
3. Just how sketchy is the offensive line depth? I look at the starters and think this can be one of the better groups in the SEC. Then I look at the backups and cringe a bit. Is the depth as bad as I think it is? Can the starters stay healthy? Remember, Florida State won a national title in 2013 with quite sketchy offensive line depth thanks to suffering no serious injuries. It can be done, but it's an obvious cause for concern.

Given that there are exactly 91 days between the start of football season and when UF rolls into town, we'll have our answers about this team before the game. I could conceivably see Florida anywhere from 9-2 to 6-5 when it comes to Tallahassee. With great recruiting and many questions comes the potential for great variance. But 8-4 seems like the key mark to hit. Vegas seems to think that the odds of 8-4 or 7-5 are about the same, but that 9-3 is a lot more likely than 6-6.

I tend to think 9-3 is an absolutely safe zone for Muschamp, while 8-4 will probably save his job as well, assuming the offense becomes a watchable product.

FSU is currently favored over Florida by 17.5 in futures wagering.

The excellent Bill Connelly has a very fair preview of the Gators. Please do click over and read it all.

Not that this was intentional, but Florida's schedule is set up rather perfectly for a bounce-back. Well, "perfectly" might be an overstatement -- there's nothing particularly rosy about a schedule that features five opponents projected 12th or better -- but at least three of the four toughest opponents show up in the final five games, and at least the Gators start the season with three of the four easiest.

If the Gators are anything but 3-0 heading to (gulp) Tuscaloosa, then this is almost certainly Will Muschamp's last season in Gainesville. But yeah, they'll be 3-0.

This is an odd time for Florida. Even in 2012, fan interest in Muschampball seemed to wane at times (it's certainly not particularly pleasant to the eye), and in 2013, when injuries forced him to get creative to avoid disaster, he couldn't do it. It's hard to be too pessimistic about a program that was 11-2 just one full season ago, but it's hard to be particularly optimistic about a team that looked as bad as Florida did for much of last year.

Thanks to recruiting and 2012, in the Football Outsiders Almanac 2014 the Gators get a faithful No. 30 projection, with a likely record of 7-5 (29 percent chance of 8-4 or better, 38 percent chance of 6-6 or worse). That's as good a starting point as any for expectations, but the odds of another 2012 are small.

And will 7-5 be enough to earn Muschamp a fifth year in Gainesville?

Here's Paul Myerberg's prediction. Again, please do make sure to click on over and read the preview in its entirety.

In a nutshell: Guarded optimism. It's only fair to be pessimistic: Florida was a struggle under Muschamp even when the going was good – all the way back in 2012, which seems ages ago – and is fresh off an eight-loss season, so this staff and current program haven't earned the overwhelming benefit of the doubt. Yet the theory behind a projected rise into the SEC East division race is built on a simple premise: If you add even an average offense to this defense – just an offense that doesn't punch itself in the face weekly – you have the basic outline of a team balanced enough to place its full weight on divisional foes and bleed the clock for 60 minutes, eventually pulling out enough close wins to earn a shot at the conference championship. This is Muschamp-era football, for better or worse, and it can't get any worse than it was a season ago.

It can get markedly better. The defense is better if healthy and productive in the secondary, though that unit is going to need a little time in September to find a rhythm. If the Gators can locate adequate depth, the front seven will stand up with any in the SEC. In total, the defense has the tools, weapons and motivation to control and limit the majority of teams inside and out of conference play, with Florida State the likely exception. It's all about the offense: If a top-six unit in the SEC, the Gators are going to bash heads; if a bottom-four unit in the SEC, it's going to be another struggle. But no one said it was going to be easy.

I'll guardedly suggest that Driskel stays healthy, the line improves, the backfield finds three solid options, the receiver corps flourishes and Roper's system finds a way to get the ball in space. These are all possible scenarios, individually speaking, if hitting all the high notes seems unlikely. Florida's offense needs to be electric to compete for the national championship; Florida's not competing for the national championship, so that's fine. But the Gators are in the thick of things in the East, if stymied from making much national noise due to the schedule: Alabama and FSU on the road, Georgia at a neutral site and South Carolina and LSU at home. A guarded projection: If the offense is merely average, explosive at times, the Gators should still win eight games during the regular season.