The Gators travel to Tallahassee on Saturday seeking to snap a five-game losing streak against rival Florida State. (Photo: Matt Stamey/UAA Communications)
Gators Notebook: Framing FSU, Offensive Progress, More Tidbits
Monday, November 19, 2018 | Football
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By: Ethan Hughes, FloridaGators.com Intern
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – As the Florida Gators and Florida State Seminoles prepare for their 63rd meeting on Saturday in Tallahassee, the two programs appear to be headed in opposite directions.
In their first season under head coach Dan Mullen, the Gators are 8-3, No. 13 in the College Football Playoff rankings and in contention for a New Year's Six bowl game. They have defeated two top-25 teams.
Meanwhile, the Seminoles, in their first year under Coach Willie Taggart, are 5-6 and on the verge of losing the nation's longest active bowl streak after 36 years. Of their six losses, five have come by 19 points or more.
A quick glance at the statistics shows Florida with advantages in almost every category and significant advantages in several.
However, the Gators insist that FSU isn't as bad as its record indicates.
"It's going to be a huge challenge for us against a team that you look at the talent that they have on their roster is going to be a big challenge," Mullen said. "We're going to have to play at a very high level."
Seminoles redshirt junior quarterback Deondre Francois was once considered a potential early-round NFL draft pick. He's thrown for 2,577 yards with 14 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He's also contributed six rushing scores. For his career, he ranks among the top-10 in FSU history in passing yards, completions, total offense and 300-yard passing games.
In the backfield, the Seminoles have sophomore Cam Akers, the No. 2 running back recruit in the class of 2017. He hasn't quite lived up to the hype, rushing for just 26 more yards than Florida's Lamical Perine despite having 33 more carries. However, the talent is clearly there.
Florida State has game-changing ability at wide receiver. Nyqwan Murray leads the Seminoles with 709 yards, while Tamorrion Terry has scored eight touchdowns and is averaging nearly 21 yards a catch.
While inconsistent on offense, the 'Noles have come through with explosive passes late in several games. Last weekend against Boston College, Francois found Terry for the game-winning 74-yard touchdown with 1:49 to go. Earlier this season against Louisville, he threw a 58-yarder to Murray with 1:13 to go. UF has been vulnerable to explosive plays at times this season.
"I think one of the things that always worries you is they're a team [that] they've made mistakes, but as they get more and more comfortable in the offense and more and more efficient, they got playmakers, and they need to make plays," Mullen said. "You look at the game last week against Boston College, who was a ranked team, when they needed to make plays, they just scored at will."
Defensively, the Seminoles stop the run and affect the quarterback. They give up just 135.5 yards per game on the ground, which is 35th in the country. Junior defensive end Brian Burns leads them with 10 sacks and 15.5 tackles for loss. He ranks sixth in the country in sacks, and he will almost certainly be a first-round draft pick in April.
"He might be the best pass-rusher we've seen all year," Mullen said. "He's got length, he's got speed, he's got size, can come off the edge, causes all kinds of problems for you.
"You've got to do some different things within your protection. You need to know where he is. You can't just say, 'OK, we're just going to call our plays, and we'll leave him one-on-one all day long.' He's a guy that you have to know where he is on the field because he can disrupt the pass game that much."
Quarterback Feleipe Franks said his offensive line needs to prepare better than it has all season.
"A long guy, that's what makes him so good at times is he's so long," he said. "He can make plays on the ball just jumping up and reaching his arms out, stuff like that." OFFENSE STARTING TO ROLL
After back-to-back subpar performances against Georgia and Missouri, Florida posted a combined 1,128 yards the last two weeks against South Carolina and Idaho.
While neither defense is considered elite, it still represents significant progress. Combined with a 576-yard outing at Vanderbilt, it was the first time since 2007 that UF posted two games of 525 or more total yards against SEC opponents. The three 500-yard games overall are the most UF has recorded in a single season since 2009 when it had five.
"I wanted us to execute cleanly, and I think we really did that last week," Mullen said. "That's what I was most pleased with was our consistent execution. And if you look now, that's carried over from the last 20 minutes of the South Carolina game into the first half of last week offensively, I thought. When we started making a lot of mass subs, it changed a little bit. But I think our execution, that's where we want that to be at where we're consistently performing at a high level."
The Gators say the biggest reason for the offense's growth is familiarity and confidence with Mullen's offense.
"I think guys have really bought into the system and really got a chance to understand it," junior receiver Josh Hammond said. "I think it's gotten to a point now where if it's third-and-four to five, Feleipe already knows what plays Coach Mullen's going to call depending on the hash it's on. It's gotten to the point now that even us as receivers know what's expected, what plays are going to come. We've just gotten so comfortable within the offense that it's allowed us to play a lot faster and excel at a higher level." RECEIVERS EMBRACE BLOCKING
Another positive sign in the evolution of the Gators' offense is the rushing attack. From 2015-17, they had eight 200-yard rushing games. This season, they have posted seven such games and are averaging more than 200 yards per game. Additionally, they are 23rd nationally at 5.19 yards per carry.
While the offensive line rightfully gets a lot of credit for opening up holes for Perine and Jordan Scarlett, the explosive runs would not be possible without the wide receivers being unselfish and blocking well downfield.
"Some of them might not have a catch a game, and they're not selfish at all," Franks said. "They're going out there and blocking their tails off each and every play. It might be four quarters of just blocking. That's just a testament to them on them not being selfish."
Most receivers talk about who's going to make the big touchdown catch or lead the team in receiving yards. However, Mullen said his receivers talk about blocking more than anything else.
"You look at what Billy [Gonzales] does with his group and how much time they spend on it and the pride that they take in being great blocking wide receivers is really – it's really important to them," he said. "You watch how they practice and the physicalness in practice, how they stress it and the unselfishness of the guys that play that position."
Added Hammond: "If you can't block, you won't be able to play here at this university. That's one of his big go-to things that [Gonzales is] really big on. Even in seven-on-seven, if somebody catches the ball, we have to turn and find, you know, body to work to make sure that we're always blocking downfield." MULLEN'S LAST FSU GAME
In Mullen's final game against Florida State as Florida's offensive coordinator in 2008, the No. 2 Gators beat the Seminoles 45-15. However, the game was more memorable for the weather and field conditions than anything that happened during the game.
Rain poured down on Doak Campbell Stadium for most of the day, leaving players sloshing, slipping and sliding across Bobby Bowden Field. Famously, UF quarterback Tim Tebow's white jersey became stained with garnet paint after sliding across the turf several times. Tim Tebow against Florida State in 2008. (File photo/UAA)
Mullen said head coach Urban Meyer approached him to discuss the game plan.
"Urban was freaking out. 'What are we going to do? Come on in here. Let's look at the game plan. We're just going to snap it to Tebow and let him run up the middle every play,' " Mullen said. "I'm like, 'Yeah, we do need to change. I looked at our script, and I said, 'We got to throw a lot more than I thought we were going to. We're going to really throw it around a lot today.'
"And in classic Urban fashion, he's like, his head's about to explode. I said, 'I'll be honest with you, a ball did not touch the ground in warmups. For whatever reason, we were on throwing it right now, and it's raining.' So, I said, 'I think we can open up. It's an advantage to us because we know where we're going if they're slipping and sliding, we're running the routes, we know where we're going.' "
The early forecast for Saturday calls for 74 degrees and a 40 percent chance of rain in the morning and early afternoon. Might it happen again?
