Crunching the Numbers: Florida Gators Mid-Season Review

The Florida Gators are 5-1.

They rank 52^nd overall in yards per game on offense and 2^nd in the country in allowing the fewest yards per game on defense. They have the 3^rd best punter in the country, in terms of yards per punt, and 110^th in the country in punt return yardage (per punt).

They are dominant on defense, getting better on offense, have kicked more field goals so far than they did last season, but still committing a lot of penalties. Needless to say, the product on the field is still a work in progress, but progress is being made.

The Gators hit the road to Jacksonville to play Georgia, then to Fayetteville to play Arkansas, back to Gainesville for South Carolina, and then back-to-back weekends in New Orleans and Tallahassee to round out the season. With the easy part of the schedule behind them, will the Gators continue to trend up on offense? Continue to stay dominant on defense?

Let’s take a look at where the Gators are now, six games through the season, and analyze their play thus far.

Offense

The Gators currently sit at 52^nd in the country in yards per game, 38^th in yards per rush attempt, 85^th in yards per completion, and 117^th in red-zone offense. Not stellar, but not bad (compared to the last five years at least). This is the highest they’ve been ranked this far into the season in terms of total offense since 2009 and have improved in nearly offensive category over this point last season.

A big improvement over last season is in the yards per carry category. Last season, the Gators finished the season 113^th in rushing yards per game and 119^th in yards per carry average.

This season, the numbers have improved drastically.

The Gators average 54.37 more rushing yards per game and 1.33 yards more per rush, ranking 58^th and 38^th nationally. They have two rushers averaging more than 5.5 yards per carry (Jordan Scarlett – 5.6; Lamical Perine – 6.25), something they haven’t done since 2011 and have two rushers (Scarlett and Perine) averaging more than 50 rushing yards per game, something thye have done since 2013 (Kelvin Taylor, Matt Jones).

Another area where the Gators are doing quite well is on third down.

They currently rank 9^th in the country with a 50.52% (49-of-97) conversion rate. This rate is 14.11% higher than last season, and would be the best conversion rate since 2008 (51.55%) if the trend can continue.

They do have to improve in a few areas – namely what I call “important plays” (first downs and touchdowns) and in the red-zone.

The Gators rank 66^th in the country in percentage of plays that result in a first down or touchdown, which is 34 spots better than last season. Now, you will look at that graph and notice a deep dip in the two games that Austin Appleby played in (Week 4 and week 5) and this is something we will have to monitor, but Del Rio did struggle against Missouri in this category (32.47%) compared to the start of the season, where it was nearly 36% of plays.

They also rank 104^th in offensive explosiveness, something that has, too, afflicted them under Jim McElwain and Will Muschamp.

And they continue to be terrible in the red zone, something that has plagued the Gators the last two seasons. Last season, you could blame it on field goal kicking, this season you cannot. Since Jim McElwain became head coach of the Florida Gators, they have never ranked higher than 71^st after at least two games in a season.

I spoke a bit about it on the Gator Country podcast last Wednesday, but the Gators simply cannot convert in the redzone. Only once this season have they had a 100% conversion rate. They are converting touchdowns 56% of time and field goals 16% of the time, which would be the lowest touchdown percentage since 2014. But an even bigger issue is that the Gators aren’t scoring a lot of points once they get to the 40-yard line of opponents. Before the game against Missouri, they ranked 81^st in the country with only 4.59 points per trip inside the opponent 40-yard line. That number climbed up to 5.06 after Missouri, but still something to watch. Is it a lack of playmakers in the redzone? Stupid penalties? A lack of a bruiser running back to run at the goal line?

Defense

As per usual, the Gators are doing great, nay stellar, on defense sans one half against the University of Tennessee – which was a pretty important half.

However, the Gators rank in the top-5 nationally in the following categories: fewest percentage of opponents plays that result in a first down/touchdown; completion percentage allowed; opponent fourth down conversion percentage; opponent touchdown:interception ratio; pass efficiency defense; passing completions allowed; passing first downs allowed; passing touchdowns allowed; passing yards allowed; red zone defense; sacks per opponent pass attempt; scoring defense; and total yards allowed. They rank in the top-10 in seven more categories.

Let’s look at some important numbers.

These two numbers, are among the most important defensive stats. The Gators numbers in both went down a bit against Missouri, primarily because they played their second and third stringers in the fourth quarter of a blowout game. But both numbers display just how good Florida is doing in causing a high number of plays to be negative plays and have limited the “important plays” that we talked about earlier. What’s more, opponents rank sixth in the country in fewest pass plays allowed, so the ability to cause a turnover or sack are drastically limited, so the fact that on 17.21% of plays they are causing a turnover, sack, or tackle for loss is pretty incredible. Moreover, their ranking of percentage of plays that result in a first down or touchdown is almost four points better than last season and they have already played the one and seven ranked SEC offenses.

Again, another statistic that is wildly deflated because of the third and fourth quarter against Missouri, is the rush yards per attempt. Last year they allowed 3.53 yards, and then replaced a number of defensive line, linebacker, and safeties and have improved to 3.16 (before Missouri it was 2.5 yards).

In an area where the Gators have been up in down, they have allowed 216 yards in their last two games on 54 passes and just 19 interceptions, including two interceptions. #DBU may be coming into their own. But they did let up 319 yards against Tennessee, the second most Tennessee has had this season.

And finally, a statistic that has a ton of importance is third down. Limiting teams from moving past third down, especially if you can stop them on first and second which Florida is doing, has a very strong correlation to winning. At 27.31%, Florida is six points better than last season.

Obviously, there is five tough games to end the season, probably the toughest stretch Florida has had to end the season in quite some time, but many of those teams strengths seem to be Florida’s strengths on offense/defense. It will be important for the Gators to focus on execution and maintain mental toughness. The Gators must be intent on limiting penalties, scoring in the red zone, improving on punt return yardage, and continue to execute on offense if they want to make it back to Atlanta.