This isn't a democracy: The eyes have it

For two quarters Saturday afternoon at Raymond James Stadium, Emory Jones looked the part of a quarterback who can get the job done in the Southeastern Conference. He made right reads, good decisions and that 35-yard laser beam of a touchdown pass to Xzavier Henderson in the second quarter provided more than enough proof that Jones is capable of making the kind of big time throws that Dan Mullen has been raving about the last two years.

If the game with South Florida had only ended after 30 minutes, our opinion of Emory Jones would be that he built upon the mistakes he made last week against Florida Atlantic and was officially ready to take on mighty Alabama, which comes to The Swamp next Saturday afternoon. Jones was that good in a first half in which the 13th-ranked Gators (2-0) held a 35-3 lead over a USF team that should call the season a roaring success if it can win three games.

Unfortunately, for Jones, there was a third quarter in which he looked like he had ordered quarterback lessons from Amazon and the delivery truck was late. How many times in your life have you heard that old adage, two steps forward and one step backward? Well, the second half of Florida’s 42-20 win over USF seemed more like the two forward steps of the first half were followed up by at least three or four steps in the wrong direction.

Contrast the tale of Jones two halves:

First half: 8-11 passing for 109 yards and a TD including a 35-yard laser beam for a TD to Xzavier Henderson in the second quarter; 4-45 rushing including a most impressive option read in which he took off for a 33-yard touchdown sprint.

Second half: 6-11 passing for 42 yards with two interceptions, both of which were the result of bad decisions; 9-36 rushing including a -8 on a sack in which he, not the O-line, is to blame.

You can win football games with a quarterback playing like Jones did in the first half. Second half? You lose a lot.

It is the inconsistency of Jones’ play that causes such trepidation. The touchdown pass to Henderson and the touchdown run tell us what he’s capable of doing. If only he would do that all the time.

The two interceptions in the third quarter and the bad pass that should have been a third pick in the fourth tell us that Jones is a long way away from being the quarterback you can count on to win games in the Southeastern Conference. Those drives should have resulted in touchdowns, not turnovers. Fortunately, they were against a bad team. Turn the ball over at the goal line twice in an SEC game and odds are good that you lose.

“Those are just some growing mistakes,” HBC Dan Mullen called the two interceptions in his postgame remarks. “The first one was a bad one. The second one, he just has to speed up his read. He was just late on his throw on the second one.”

Bad? Late? It seemed a lot worse than simply bad or late and no matter how you label them you can’t have bad throws and hesitation from quarterbacks in their fourth year in the system.

Mullen isn’t trying to make excuses for Jones. He hasn’t started before so he is indeed a work in progress, but how much time does it take before the bad plays become a thing of the past? Do you think for even a split second that Alabama fears a quarterback who sometimes pumps the football four times when there is an open receiver only to throw when the zone has a chance to collapse around the intended target?

The good plays Jones makes ooze potential. The bad plays raise anxiety levels through the roof and make you wonder just how long will it take before Mullen either turns the starting job over to Anthony Richardson or at least gives Richardson an equal number of snaps because for the second straight game, while Jones was still trying to figure things out, Richardson was beyond spectacular.

If you thought AR15 had it going against Florida Atlantic last week, then that paled in comparison to what he did to South Florida. In the two series he played in the first half, he directed a one-play touchdown drive with a flick-of-the-wrist throw while rolling to his left that fit into an NFL-small window. Jacob Copeland made the catch for a 75-yard touchdown. On his second series of the half, Richardson directed a 6-play, 80-yard touchdown drive on which he gained 18 yards almost effortlessly on one run and culminated with a 41-yard touchdown strike to Copeland, who finished the game with five catches for 175 yards and two touchdowns.

After Jones had thrown his two interceptions in the third quarter, Richardson came off the bench and in three plays took the Gators 53 yards to the USF seven on a pair of runs that netted 17 yards and his third big strike to Copeland, this one for 36 yards. On that play, Richardson’s helmet came off so he had to sit a play and this is where the real controversy at quarterback began to bubble over.

With Richardson forced to the sideline, Jones went into the game but instead of building on the momentum, the drive stalled out, in part because Jones was indecisive. Trent Whittemore was open in the end zone and Jones hesitated, then made a poor throw which should have been intercepted. On fourth and goal at the one, Mullen went for it but Jones made another poor throw on a pass intended for Nick Elksnis, this one fortunately resulted in an incompletion.

This was so reminiscent of what happened in the second quarter last week against Florida Atlantic, which Jones was sent into the game on third-and-goal from the 12 after Richardson had taken the Gators down the field. On that play, Jones had an open receiver, but he hesitated, which allowed an FAU safety to get into position to make an interception.

This led to another déjà vu moment. In the fourth quarter against FAU, Richardson took off on a 75-yard touchdown run in which he looked like the second coming of Gale Sayers the way he burst through an opening and then simply outran everyone. On Florida’s next possession after the stalled drive at the USF one, Richardson had another one of those one-play scoring drives. On what seemed the almost identical play to the one in which he ran 75 yards for a TD the week before, Richardson went 80 yards for the TD.

The long TD run, however, is now a further source of high anxiety. When Richardson reached the end zone, he grabbed his hamstring. Given the nature of hamstring injuries it will be dicey all week long whether or not he plays next week against Alabama after a week in which his stat line read 3-3 passing for 152 yards and two touchdowns, 4-115 rushing and one TD. In two games, Richardson is 6-11 passing for 192 yards and two touchdowns, 11-275 rushing for two more TDs.

In those same two games, Jones is 31-49 for 264 yards with two touchdowns and four interceptions, 23-164 for one touchdown.

Statistically speaking, Anthony Richardson has it all over Emory Jones but the most important stat is the turnovers. Jones has played probably 70 percent more snaps than Richardson and Richardson has yet to turn the ball over. Jones, meanwhile, has thrown four interceptions, all of them drive killers when the Gators were about to turn a comfortable win into an absolute blowout.

Complicating matters is Richardson’s penchant for the spectacular. There is no doubt about it, he’s electric. Sure, it is still just two games into the season and the Gators have yet to play a quality opponent, but there is real electricity any time the ball is in Anthony Richardson’s hands. Watching the Florida sideline, it’s reminiscent of when Percy Harvin was in the game from 2006-08. When Percy was in the game, teammates who were on the sidelines moved to a better vantage point because they didn’t want to miss a chance to see Percy do something memorable. You see the same thing with Richardson’s teammates. Obviously, from seeing him in practice, they know and understand that he’s capable of doing something special every time he takes a snap.

There is also an electricity in the stands when Richardson is in the game, something that could be quite helpful next week against Alabama. The Gators are going to need as much help as they can get from an enthused, vocal crowd and so far this season, whenever Richardson touches the ball, they expect the unexpected. The roar from the crowd when Richardson makes a play seems twice as loud and the buzz continues well after the play is finished.

So what will Mullen do this week? Postgame he seemed rather defensive about Emory Jones, which, as the head coach, he should be. If Richardson’s hamstring is out of whack next week and he can’t go full bore against Alabama, he’s going to need Emory to play at a high level. He can’t afford to throw Emory under the bus either by being too critical of his play or by being too praiseworthy of Anthony Richardson.

It is almost as if Mullen has to walk on eggshells. He sees the same things everybody else sees and he can’t hide the fact that whenever Richardson is in the game, big things happen. He can hope all he wants that Jones will overcome his indecisiveness to become the consistent player the Gators need him to be to win games, but so far we haven’t seen it. We can only go by what our eyes tell us.

Our eyes are telling us that whether Mullen likes it or not, he’s going to have to make a huge executive decision, probably a lot sooner than he wants. He no longer has tuneup games like the ones against Florida Atlantic or South Florida to get Emory Jones up to speed and he has to know that if Jones makes the same silly mistakes against Alabama that he made against FAU and USF that the Gators are likely to get clobbered.

Even though Richardson doesn’t have the experience of Jones, who is in his fourth year at Florida, he is a playmaker with athletic ability we have never seen at quarterback at the University of Florida. Even if Mullen is uncomfortable staring Richardson right now, he at least needs to put him on the field more often.

This isn’t a democracy, but the eyes definitely have it when it comes to who should be Florida’s main squeeze at QB.