Dawg Stats: Head to Head Breakdown of Gators’ Offense and Dawgs’ Defense

Well, here is Georgia Florida week where 364 and a half days of trash talk gets settled on the banks of the St. John’s River. (it flows North is all I will say about that). This blog and my stats journey through all things Georgia Football has shown me what a fun community Dawg fans have created. In addition to that community, I’ve had the pleasure of learning and sharing with so many who crunch numbers. Can’t say enough about how generous the folks at College Football Data are. Also, please let me show my appreciation for Clark Brooks who runs SEC Stat Cat. I have used some of his information here to break the game down and always appreciate his willingness to share his work.

Let’s start with the teams’ two strengths.

The Florida Offense and Georgia Defense

Florida is putting up elite yardage numbers, though one has to think that penalties might eat into this edge. Florida’s offense has been hit for 170 penalty yards with 77 of them on false starts. The Gators’ 7.08 offensive yards per play is third in Power 5 only behind Ohio State and Baylor.

2021 UF looks different than the explosive big play offense. The Gators are running the ball efficiently and effectively with a balanced run/pass ratio of 58%/42%.

The Florida offense certainly looks different because the tandem of Emory Jones and Anthony Richardson bring an entirely set of skills to the Gator offense. Jones and Richardson have combined for 690 yards on 88 plays. A 52% success rate and .430 EPA. Malik Davis leads the running attack out of the backfield and has 286 yards and 51.9% success rate on his plays.

Looking at concepts that Clark Brooks has charted on his site, SECStatCat.com, the Gators and the three headed monster are gashing folks up the middle.

Graham noted on the preview how much of the yards for the Florida QBs come from missed and broken tackles. Also a well disciplined defense can funnel those runs back to the interior. Click and watch the play breakdown from Dawg Sports Live

The inside rushing attack has been where a significant portion of rushing success comes from the Gators. No surprise that the Georgia defense has had success defending these concepts. UGA contained Tank and C Rod on inside zones and didn’t give up a lot of cheap yards on QB Runs.

All this production behind an offensive line which as a unit grades last in SEC according to PFF. Here are the individual run blocking grades for the offensive line. With all that, Florida is 4th in SEC in Offensive Stuff Percentage with just 13% of runs stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage.

Georgia’s run defense is considered by most as one of the best units in country and grades out at 91.5 by PFF. Graham expects to see Anderson and Smith feast on this O line.

UF passing was prolific in 2020. Kyle Trask was efficient and accurate on all throws and Florida had a run/pass ratio of 41%/59%. Trask and company averaged over 9 yards a pass attempt and sported a 54.5% success rate. This season the run/pass ratio has flipped 56%/44% and while the the pass success rate has dropped to 49% the improved rush efficiency has offset.

Looking at the SEC Stat Cat Concepts matchups, floods and slants are key concepts for the Gators. Georgia isn’t giving up much on defense anywhere. But against those concepts the Georgia, on 15 plays, is surrendering just 5.1 YPA and a 26% success rate.

Emory Jones is pretty inaccurate and a liability on throws over 10 yards. Graham shows how dicey Jones and Richardson can be on passes which might lead to some short fields.

The biggest question mark coming into the season for Georgia has turned into an asset. PFF has the Bulldog secondary as the best in football with a coverage grade of 94.5. As good as secondary is playing, the LB corps is darn right elite.

That is my run down of how the team’s stronger units line up. If you like what we have hear and haven’t check us out the pod, give us a click. Tomorrow I’ll run through this breakdown with the Georgia offense and Florida defense. Go Dawgs!! FTMF