The No. 6 Florida Gators Have No Run Game...But Do They Even Need It?
If the No. 6 Florida Gators come out on Saturday against the LSU Tigers and line up in a classic wishbone formation—a running back and two halfbacks behind the quarterback and two tight ends on the edge—consider it Head Coach Dan Mullen’s, well, middle finger to critics of the Gators run game…or lack thereof.
“I might come out in the wishbone this Saturday,” Mullen joked on Monday.
“Make them think right there. [LSU Head Coach] Ed [Orgeron is] gonna get nervous…it feels like you’re challenging my ability for us to be able to run the ball. So I’m not even gonna throw it on Saturday. We’re gonna run it every play of the game.”
The comments—and criticism, such as it is—follow a Gators rushing performance against the Tennessee Volunteers that was its worst of the season. The Gators “rushing attack” totaled 19 yards on the ground. That number does look slightly better when one accounts for the sack adjusted yardage, bringing the actual rushing total to 31 yards across five rushers. Still it’s far and away from the 140 yards the Gators had been averaging before the trip to Knoxville.
The 140 yards per game still placed the Gators decidedly in the lower tier of national rushing offenses however. Still…19 yards (or 31, depending on which stat you prefer) stands out.
The Gators intentionally rushed 13 times versus Tennessee, 19.6% of their 66 offensive plays. One of the Gators only 3-and-outs of the day featured two rush attempts and an overthrow. There was nothing to the ground game, leading to what would be the typical concern; the offense isn’t balanced and it will come back to bite the nation’s No. 1 passing offense.
“We missed a couple of blocks. We didn’t really try to run the ball very much. I think our backs had about four or five carries, that’s about it. They were giving us the pass game so we just kind of stuck with the pass game,” explained Mullen.
"So we really didn't run the ball that much and a couple of them were at the end of the game when we were trying to kill the clock, too. So if we ran the ball 40 times and didn't have many yards, that would probably go into the concern area. The fact that we weren't really trying to run it doesn't really throw it into my concern area.”
Mullen’s lack of concern with the lack of run game should actually be comforting for Gator fans. The worry over whether or not the Gators can run the ball is relieved incredibly by the fact that the Gators don’t need to run the ball.
As mentioned, Florida ran 13 rushes versus Tennessee (three sacks and a kneel out bring the total to 17). Yet Offensive Coordinator Brian Johnson called 18 plays out of an empty set, 19 if considering one play saw quarterback Kyle Trask motion running back Malik Davis out of the backfield before the snap. One of those plays was called back for an offensive pick, and it coincidentally was a wheel route to Davis that went for a touchdown.
The Gators put up 452 yards of offense against the Vols and told them their game plan more often than not. Trask went 35-49 for 433 yards but it was the Gators running 28% of their plays out of an empty set that told Jeremy Pruitt’s defense what was going to happen before the ball was even snapped. And the Vols still couldn’t stop the pass.
The Alabama Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship Game will be much more difficult than the 2-7 Tennessee Volunteers, yes. But as mentioned, the Gators lead the nation in passing, making one wonder, why not drop back and dare the Tide’s 73rd ranked passing defense (240.3 yards per game) to stop Trask, the receivers and the historic passing performance they are putting together this season?
“We can go spend a lot of time and we can go run the ball. We'll find a way to run the ball and go do it, you know,” proposed Mullen.
“Probably slow the game down, ball control, grind it out. But that doesn't really fit the strength of our team right now when we have success throwing it and have matchups all over the field that cause problems for people. So I think it's a lot about what we want to do.”
The matchups are in fact a problem for people—Kyle Pitts, Tre Grimes and Kadarius Toney are the only trio in the nation to have eight touchdowns and 400 plus receiving yards each. And the running backs are not ideally sitting on the sidelines twirling their thumbs.
Malik Davis is fourth on the team in receptions (22-318). Nay’Quan Wright and Dameon Pierce additionally have 27 receptions for 296 yards between them. One could argue the three hauling in 10 wheel route receptions for 212 yards was the deciding factor in defeating the Georgia Bulldogs.
On Saturday against the reigning National Champions, the Gators will have an opportunity to work on their run game and other formations before facing Alabama. The 2020 version of the LSU Tigers is incredibly beatable. Florida is a 23.5-point favorite on Senior Night.
The offensive game plan will likely vary, as it has all season from game to game as the Gators show multiple ways to beat a team. In the win over the Vanderbilt Commodores, Johnson and Mullen even called a wildcat to receiver Tre Grimes from the 5-yard line. It almost worked; the receiver picked up four yards before the ball was punched in for the touchdown the next play.
“Some politicking going on for that one,” laughed Johnson, recalling how the play came about and its likelihood for the future.
“It was interesting because I was wondering who was get it based on who’s in the game, if it was Tre or [Justin] Shorter or the running backs. We had to rock, paper, scissor that thing or something to see who was going to get it. Nah, I’m just teasing.
“But it’s just something that we came up with. Those guys are big-bodied players and just a way to get the ball in their hands and given them an opportunity to go down there and see if they could punch it in.”
Whatever happens on Saturday—and the subsequent Saturday for that matter—will be where coaches feel the Gators energy should be to win the game. If that’s the run game, then so be it, explained Mullen.
“We weren't putting a concerted effort in to run the ball [versus Tennessee]. I think you've seen us do that before and I mean if I want to go put our, put our energy into it I'm sure we can figure it out.”
Mullen and staff have delivered on nearly every offensive promise made thus far, so it’s hard to scoff at this assertion as well. If the Gators end up needing to run the ball, they feel confident it’ll happen.
“We can run the ball when we have to,” said Nay’Quan Wright.
“I mean, we just gotta get things rolling. I mean, passing is working, so I think we just feed off the passing. We’ve got a talented group of receivers and the tight ends. Those guys rolling. So, I mean, we’re just going to feed off them and then when the time come for us to run the ball, which we doing pretty well with it, we just gotta get more efficient and we gonna be fine.”
Added Kyle Trask, “I think we have great potential in our running game. There’ve been certain times when we’ve definitely established a good running game. We’re right there, it’s just some little things gotta get cleaned up. I think it’s good to be able to run the ball. It’s never a bad thing. But at the end of the day, we’re going to do what we have to do.”
“It’s a fine line. It’s a balancing act. I’m pretty sure if we really tried to scheme up a bunch of stuff in the run game we could manage to be OK,” agreed Johnson.
So maybe fans really will see the wishbone.
“We’re going to dust off the ol’ option playbook, we got the ability to kind of get into some of that stuff,” joked Johnson.
“I wouldn’t be shocked, keep some people on their toes. We have a chance to do some stuff. We’ll see what we come out in.”
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