With John Hevesy, the More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
The more things change, the more they stay the same. John Hevesy knows.
It was the spring of 2019. John Hevesy was walking toward the Florida football practice facility when he stopped for a couple of moments to talk to an old friend who dated back to the days when he was a UF assistant for Urban Meyer.
“I’m just an old fat guy,” Hevesy said. “I’m still the same guy you knew back then. Still a tough guy who expects my guys to block and be tough.”
Times change. Offenses change. Players come and go. The raw 18-year old today is expected to leave five years from now a grown man, especially if he’s an offensive lineman. That’s what Hevesy expects.
Florida’s offensive line coach has been at this long enough to know that change is inevitable. If you’re incapable of adapting to offenses that are in a constant state of evolution then you aren’t going to last all that long in this business.
And yet, despite all the changes one thing remains the same.
“It’s always going to be about blocking and tackling,” Hevesy said. “It takes tough guys to do it well.”
It takes a tough coach to instill the toughness to make it work. Hevesy and Florida head coach Dan Mullen have been working together since their days at Bowling Green where Meyer transformed a dormant program in the Mid-American Conference into a cutting edge offense that was half-option, half pro-set, all-exciting all the time. From Bowling Green it was off to Utah where the offense morphed again. At Florida two years later, despite a couple of speed bumps that forced adapting the offense to the personnel on hand, the offense changed again. Nine years at Mississippi State saw at least three modifications of the offense, all personnel driven, and it continues to change at Florida.
Dual threat quarterbacks. Running quarterbacks. Pass first quarterbacks. The offense changes. What happens with the offensive line changes too, but not as dramatically. It’s still about putting a hat on somebody and pushing them around.
No matter how the offense changes, Hevesy’s trench troops still have to block. They have to protect the quarterback so he has time to throw it and you throw as often as the Gators do, the rushing stats aren’t particularly great, but even that can be deceiving. Can you get a first down on third-and-two? Down at the goal line can you get touchdowns instead of settling for field goals? You can have an effective running game if you’re capable of consistently converting in those situations.
There is a reason why Mullen and Hevesy have hung together all these years. Mullen is somewhat of an offensive savant who sees a defense and then almost sees a video of a play that works in his head. Hevesy is the coach whose tough guys up front provide the protection or open the holes so what Mullen sees in his head becomes reality on the field. Hevesy takes Mullen’s concepts then figures out how to adapt the blocking schemes so his big guys can get the job done. The way Mullen’s brain works, he’s always going to be a step ahead of everyone else when it comes to finding some new way for his offense to work. Hevesy isn’t along for the ride. He’s busy finding the personnel who can make it all work.
Things are always changing and yet they stay the same. The perfect example is what has been going on the last two-and-a-half seasons at Florida with an offense that has been in a constant state of flux. From the bad team that Mullen inherited from the fired Jim McElwain (4-7 in 2017), the Gators have evolved into a national power that actually has a chance to make the College Football Playoff this season. The Gators are 26-6 after 10-3 in 2018, 11-2 in 2019 and a 5-1 record so far in 2020. McElwain’s last team averaged 335.9 yards per game and ranked 110th nationally in total offense. In three seasons at UF there wasn’t a single McElwain team that finished in the top 100 of the nation’s offensive stats. That changed with the arrival of Mullen.
Mullen’s first Florida team in 2018 finished 42nd nationally, averaging 426.7 yards per game. That was with Feleipe Franks at QB throwing for 2,457 yards and 24 touchdowns (ran for 350 and 7 TDs), the best numbers for any quarterback at Florida since Tim Tebow’s senior season in 2009.
What happened that first season had everything to do with Hevesy taking four starters (Jawaan Taylor, Martez Ivey, Tyler Jordan and Fred Johnson) from the previous season, turning backup guard Nick Buchanan into a functional, consistent SEC center and molding them into a unit that cut the sacks in half (37 in 2017; 18 in 2018) and improved the rushing attack by 83 yards to 213.5 yards per game.
In 2019, Mullen had to re-tool the offense in game three when Franks went down with a season-ending ankle fracture/dislocation. Starting with the fourth quarter against Kentucky, a game in which Kyle Trask led the Gators to a come-from-behind win with 19 consecutive points, Mullen and Hevesy have been changing the offense. Trask hadn’t started a game since his ninth-grade year at Manvel, Texas but he has a lively, accurate arm and good pocket presence. So from the dual threat of Franks the Gators became a pass first team the next ten games. Trask finished the season with 2,941 passing yards for 25 touchdowns and the Florida offense improved to 430.5 yards per game. That might not sound like much improvement but take into consideration Hevesy lost four senior starters from 2018 and his only returning starter was Buchanan. The other four starters (Stone Forsythe, Brett Heggie, Jean Delance and sometime starters Richard Gouraige and Ethan White) had a collective 12 starts between them before the season began. While the offensive scheme changed from a dual threat to pro-style passing game, the O-line had to make changes on the fly, too, to become more proficient in pass blocking. Despite all the changes, they still gave up only 25 sacks all season, which is fairly remarkable considering the inexperience and the sudden change in emphasis of the offense.
Florida’s 2020 offense has taken things to a level unseen in many years. Between Mullen’s impeccable play calling, Trask’s ability to go from the Tinker Toys of 2019 to the Star Wars of 2020 in the passing game, a receiving corps led by All-Interplanetary tight end Kyle Pitts that ranks among the two or three best in the country and Hevesy’s line (LT Forsythe, LG Gouraige, C Heggie, RG Mississippi State grad transfer Stewart Reese, RT Delance) operating with experienced guys from one tackle to the other, the Gators are so explosive that long-time SEC observers and experts question if there is a defense in the country capable of even slowing them down.
The numbers the Gators are putting up every week speak for themselves.
The Gators average 511.7 yards per game (140 on the ground, 371.7 through the air) and 45.8 points per game. The average offensive play gains 7.36 yards. Not even Meyer’s 2008 Gators who won the national championship could match that (445.1 yards, 43.6 points, 7.1 per play) even with Tebow, Percy Harvin and a host of future NFL guys. You have to go back to Steve Spurrier’s 1996 national championship team (47 points, 533.9 yards, 7.1 per play) and his final season (2001) for something comparable (44.8 points, 527.5 yards, 7.4 per offensive play).
Break down the numbers further. Trask is averaging 10.3 yards per pass attempt. He averaged 8.3 last year and that was with four receivers who are now playing for pay on Sunday. He’s thrown 28 touchdown passes, at least four in every game. That’s three more in six games than last year when he started 10 games and played in 12.
None of this is possible without an offensive line that isn’t getting the job done every single game. The Gators have allowed only six sacks, which ranks second in the SEC to Texas A&M and is tied for 14th nationally. None of those teams have a passing game that compares with Florida. The Gators are the best red zone team in the SEC with 31 scores in 32 trips. UF converts 52% on third down.
Look to Florida’s last two games – a 44-28 win over then 5th-ranked Georgia and a 63-35 win over Arkansas – as perhaps the best two indicators of how the Florida offensive line has become a dominating force.
Georgia came into the game with what many experts thought was the most complete defense in the country. They stacked against the run and dared people to throw because their 5-star athletes coming off the edge were getting so much pressure on the QB. Mullen basically made the wheel route Florida’s running game as Florida running backs caught 10 passes for 212 yards. Trask threw for 474 and the Gators racked up 571, the most yards a Georgia defense has given up since Kirby Smart became head coach. As for pressure, Georgia had one sack and that was because of one of the few blown assignments the entire game.
Arkansas came into The Swamp a week ago with a defense that was turning people over left and right (six against Ole Miss for example) and had been dialing up pressure on a consistent basis to force bad throws. Hevesy’s O-line gave Trask plenty of time and exceptional throwing lanes. He was sacked once and that came on a blitz when Trask should have gotten rid of the football. In only 51 snaps, the Gators were good for 458 yards, 208 of which came on the ground, Florida’s best running game of the season.
The Gators will be heavy favorites to win all four of the remaining games on the schedule. They’re 31.5-point favorites to demolish Vanderbilt in Nashville this weekend and they figure to be at least 15-point favorites to beat Kentucky, Tennessee and LSU in their final three regular season games. A 4-0 finish will not only send the Gators to the SEC Championship Game but they’ll get there with momentum on their side because what we are witnessing if the perfect storm for an offense: an enlightened play caller in Mullen, a quarterback who can make NFL throws in Trask, receivers who can get open against anybody, running backs who can not only grind out yards but can catch the ball out of the backfield, and an offensive line that is in a constant improvement mode.
One of the signs of an outstanding offensive line is they get better as the season moves along, something Hevesy’s troops have been doing. As much as football has been in a constant state of change as we’ve watched spread offenses become the norm and passing games use every inch of the field to stretch defenses, the game is still about what happens up front. You don’t win games with a bad or even an average offensive line.
Florida’s offensive line might have begun the season considered quite average – Lindy’s preseason magazine rated Florida the 7th-best in the SEC – but they have improved each game to the point they are right up there with Texas A&M and Alabama as the top group in the league. For far too long, Hevesy hasn’t been given nearly enough credit for taking young talent and turning it into a very functional, consistent group. He is one of the best in the SEC and daresay the entire country at coaching up an offensive line. If you don’t believe it, then do yourself a favor. Check out the stats. The numbers don’t lie.
So while the game may have changed in all the years Hevesy has been working with Mullen, it’s still the same in one key respect. If you block better, you win more games. That’s what Hevesy’s troops have been doing year after year.
It’s football and at least in the case of the Mullen-Hevesy partnership, the more things change, the more things stay the same.
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