Toney Time: As Gators' Shifty Playmaker Develops, He Eyes End Zone Every Touch
Thursday, November 15, 2018 | Football
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Gators sophomore receiver Kadarius Toney is difficult for coaches to prepare for – both opposing coaches and his own.
Toney has become notorious for getting the ball in his hands, starting one way, cutting back the other and zig-zagging across the field. Rarely does the play go the way head coach Dan Mullen drew it up.
"Every time I touch the ball, I try to get in the end zone," Toney said. "That's my mindset. I don't really think about people in front of me. I think about getting in the end zone, so if they in my way, I'm [trying to] get through them to get to the end zone."
Case in point: early in the second quarter of UF's 35-31 defeat of South Carolina on Saturday, Toney lined up in the slot to the left. Quarterback Feleipe Franks took the snap, faked a handoff to running back Jordan Scarlett and flipped a screen over to Toney. Toney caught it, ran a few yards upfield, saw a wall of Gamecocks defenders and juked and jived all the way across the field to the right sideline for a gain of 15 yards and a first down.
No other player on the field could have pulled the play off like Toney did.
"I haven't done a good job offensively, in just forcing us to just put the ball in his hands," Mullen said following the game. "I'll be honest with you, about half the time when he touches the ball, the play doesn't look anything like we designed it to look like or anything it looked like in practice, but exciting things certainly happen. We've got to continue to do that and make sure he gets touches."
Franks said Toney's style makes his job scarier and more challenging. Normally, a quarterback would hand the ball off, carry out his fake and watch the remainder of the play.
Not so with Toney.
"I'm scared I'm going to get crack-backed," he said. "Now, I don't want to get crack-backed. I'm giving the ball and then I'm like, carry out my fake, OK. Then the next thing I know, I'm looking this way, and he's cutting back this way. I'm like, all right, let me go try and get a block for him or something."
Toney's explosiveness has been one of the most common topics at media availabilities this week as UF prepares to face Idaho on Saturday.
"He's really special when he has the ball in his hands, and you never really know what to expect," junior receiver Josh Hammond said. "He could break for 80. He could run 80 yards and only get 12 yards because he cuts back so many times."
Added redshirt freshman linebacker James Houston IV: "The way he stops on a dime is crazy. I've never seen anything like that."
Toney's unpredictable style poses a challenge for the other members of the offense. How do you block for somebody when you have no clue where they're going to go?
"We all have rules at the receiver position, so we kind of know where the play's going or where it might cut back if it does, and I think a lot of guys in the receiving room are just always prepared for the cut back whether it comes all the way around or it doesn't," Hammond said.
"So, just make sure your guy doesn't make the play and just stay on him until the whistle is blown."
Mullen said he's trying to reach a balance with how he and receivers coach Billy Gonzales deal with Toney, whom he likened to Gator Greats Percy Harvin and Chris Rainey regarding his ability to improvise. They want to teach him the correct way to run plays without limiting his ability to create for himself using his instincts and quickness.
"I trust him," Mullen said. "I get concerned with ball security and also him understanding the scheme. If we got a great play, you just got to run where you're supposed to run, and we got a great play."
Defensive Coordinator Todd Grantham said players like Toney are a defensive coach's nightmare, and going against him every day in practice has benefited his defense.
"When a guy has the ability to bounce and come backwards, you got to make sure on the backside that you're always leveraging it with your pad because that's when you can get explosive plays if you don't leverage it properly," he said. "But the good thing for us is he has shown that in practice, so it allows us to coach off of it and allows us to make sure we practice leveraging the ball because that way you don't give up the cut-back plays."
While unconventional, the results have been nothing short of sensational. Against South Carolina, Toney carried four times for 51 yards and caught two passes for 33 yards, including his first career touchdown catch. That's a 14-yard average per touch.
Toney's electric, sideline-to-sideline running complements the Gators' powerful rushing attack led by Scarlett and Lamical Perine. They open up the perimeter for him, and he occupies safeties and linebackers for them.
Trailing 31-28 midway through the fourth quarter, Florida had the ball at the Gamecocks' 38-yard line. Scarlett had rushed for nine and seven yards on the previous two plays. He and Perine each rushed for more than 100 yards on the day.
Perine lined up behind Franks and ran to the right as if it were a toss play. Meanwhile, Toney lined up to the right and ran across the formation to the left. The South Carolina defense followed Perine to the right, allowing Toney to take the handoff and fly around the left end and cut back to the right sideline for 33 yards. Franks scored the game-winning touchdown four plays later.
"Consistency with all the other plays," Toney said. "Like, we lined up in the same formation and just pound it, pound it, pound it. And right when they was trying to clutter the spot, we hit them on the other end."
Through the season's first eight games, Toney rushed 11 times for 125 yards, caught 12 passes for 80 yards and threw a 20-yard touchdown on a trick play at Mississippi State. These statistics equate to 9.4 yards per touch, but Toney only averaged three touches per game.
"He hasn't had that much snaps in games, but what excites people is what he does within those snaps," Franks said. "I think it's super important for us to give him the ball and just let him do things with it. He's a great player. He makes something out of nothing."
Meanwhile, UF's offense struggled mightily against Georgia and Missouri. The solution seemed simple: feed the ball to Toney more. At least, that's what a lot of fans thought.
However, the situation's a bit more complicated than that.
Toney came to Florida in the spring of 2017 as a three-star quarterback out of Blount (Ala.) High School. Former coach Jim McElwain moved him to receiver full-time that fall to take advantage of his rare athleticism.
Because he was new to the position, his route-running, blocking and catching skills were raw. Not wanting to waste his talents in an offense desperately searching for playmakers, McElwain, and later Mullen, crafted special packages designed to get the ball in his hands, from screens to handoffs to direct snaps.
So, when he ran onto the field, the Gators' offense became predictable – everybody knew he was getting the ball in some way. In other words, the more Florida would've used him, the less effective he would've become, at least in theory.
Due to his limitations, the coaches only trusted him enough to play a handful of snaps per game. In 2017, he ran for 120 yards and a touchdown on 14 carries and caught 15 passes for 152 yards.
The same problem persisted through the first eight games of the 2018 season, with Toney's statistics right on pace for his 2017 production.
However, he has shown glimpses in the last two games that he might be ready to burst out as a legitimate wide receiver and not just as a quick, versatile athlete. In the loss to Missouri, he adjusted to a back-shoulder throw by Franks and made the catch for a gain of 27 yards. The drive ended with a touchdown run by Franks for UF's first touchdown of the game.
"It just, the plays that [Mullen] have designed for me, I just execute them and make the plays that I make, honestly," Toney said. "I just play."
Against the Gamecocks, both of his catches came in the normal flow of the offense and not in the special get-it-to-Toney package, Mullen said. His 18-yard touchdown reception in the third quarter cut South Carolina's lead to 31-21.
"One of the things he's really worked on is getting better as a wide receiver, where he can catch the ball and make plays a lot more within the normal scheme of our offense, more than designed get-it-to plays to him whether we're playing him at quarterback or handing it to him or one of those deals," Mullen said on Monday. "I think that would be great getting him the ball more within just the basic framework of our offense."
One area Toney needs to improve is the return game. With starting punt returner Freddie Swain nursing an ankle injury, Toney started the USC game as the punt returner.
Early in the third quarter, he muffed a punt, which the Gamecocks converted into three points. Redshirt junior receiver Van Jefferson replaced Toney as the punt returner for the remainder of the game.
"I always play with a chip on my shoulder, and that just made the chip even bigger," Toney said. "So, it just made me just go harder, honestly.
"My mentality is, if I do something bad, give me the ball again. I'm going to show you what I can really do. That was just an error, like, everybody makes errors, but how you bounce back is really what makes a person and makes their character."
If Toney can continue improving his receiving and returning skills, he'll likely earn more playing time. And we all know what happens when the ball's in his hands – big yardage, first downs and scores.
How he'll get there is anyone's guess.
