Thoughts of the Day: July 20, 2021

A few thoughts to jump start your Tuesday morning:

ABBREVIATED DOCTOR DUTY DAY EDITION

I spent the day traveling to and from Tampa on doctor duty with my almost 93-year-old mom, who thinks road trips are better if Arby’s crinkle fries are involved. So here are today’s abbreviated thoughts.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME

It is not exactly a state secret that Florida’s offense will undergo major changes in 2021. Instead of throwing the ball almost from the time the bus stops and the Gator Walk begins like it did in 2019-2020, this year the Gators will more resemble the offense Dan Mullen ran in 2007-08 when Tim Tebow was his quarterback.

Tebow threw the football 350 times (26.9 attempts per game) for 3,286 yards (9.4 per attempt) and 32 touchdowns during his 2007 Heisman Trophy season. The Gators ran the ball 37.5 times per game that year. During Florida’s 2008 run to the national championship, Tebow threw 298 passes (21.2 per game) for 2,746 yards (9.2 per attempt) and 30 touchdowns. The Gators ran the ball 38.9 times per game.

The threat of Tebow running opened everything up for the rest of the offense. The Gator averaged more than 200 yards rushing both in 2007 and 2008 which led to plenty of wide open receivers who made pitch and catch seem quite simple. Tebow didn’t exactly throw the tightest of spirals with laser-like accuracy, but he didn’t have to. Defenses had to respect the run so much that secondaries couldn’t afford tight coverage on UF receivers. Tebow was a good decision maker, helped out by decent-sized windows in which to fit the football. If you’re interested in one of the main reasons why Tebow didn’t make it as an NFL quarterback, then simply cut out about 70 percent of the throwing window he enjoyed in college.

With Kyle Trask the last two seasons, the Gators had the guy who threw with laser-like precision to six (Van Jefferson, Freddie Swain, Tyrie Cleveland, Josh Hammond, Kyle Pitts and Kadarius Toney) receivers who make their living on Sundays in the NFL. With that kind of quarterback and those receivers is it any wonder why Mullen’s play calls were at a 60/40 pass to run ratio.

Trask has gone on to the NFL where he will apprentice under the greatest QB of all time, Tom Brady. That leaves the offense in what Mullen believes are the very capable hands of Emory Jones, the guy who came to Florida specifically to have Mullen teach him how to play quarterback.

At SEC Media Days in Hoover, Alabama on Monday, Mullen recalled a text he received from Jones shortly after taking the Florida job in December of 2017.

“He was committed to another school (Ohio State) at the time and he sent me a text,” Mullen said. “And he says, ‘Coach, when this shakes out, be ready. I want to be your quarterback.’ And not, ‘I want to look at Florida, I want to consider this or I'm thinking about flipping schools.’ It was, ‘I want to be your quarterback.’”

Three years later after understudying for Feleipe Franks (2018) and Trask (2019-20), it’s Emory Jones time at UF. The change at the single most important position on the football field creates a dynamic shift in the way Mullen calls plays. Instead of wind up and chunk it all over the ball yard, the look will be quite similar to 2007-08 when Mullen was the offensive coordinator for Urban Meyer at UF. That starts with a dual threat at QB. Whereas Kyle Trask could see a two-yard opening and maybe get you three, Jones can take that same two-yard opening and get you 20 … or more. Jones will throw from the pocket as often as he will roll out and force corners and safeties to decide if they’re covering receivers or defending the run. When he’s not running the ball himself, Jones will be involving running backs and receivers in option pitches, more jet sweeps and more reverses.

And, if defenses try to double down to stop the run, Jones can and will throw the football. He may not throw it the way Trask did, but he won’t need that kind of precision. If the run threat is as good as it should be, he will have wide windows in which to fit the ball. Former Gator QB Shane Matthews says Jones’ chief task in the passing game will be to complete the easy throws to open receivers of which there should be many.

Jones will be operating behind an offensive line that heads into 2021 with a collective 85 career Southeastern Conference starts (Trask worked behind a line that had fewer than 20 in 2019) and he will have the best group of running backs Florida has had in years. On that front, Mullen broke the news Monday that former five-star recruit and Clemson transfer Demarkcus Bowman will be eligible in 2021. Although the dynamics of the offense will be different than what we’ve seen since 2018, the concepts will be quite similar to the spread option that worked so well during the Tebow years and then at Mississippi State when Mullen had dual threat quarterbacks. The play calls will favor the run, but that’s what the Florida personnel dictates.

With Mullen, the play calls have always been and will always be dictated by personnel.

“I think the key to it is – and one of the reasons we've been successful is – never try to take a square peg and put it into a round hole,” Mullen said. “It's identifying what our guys do really well and build around the strengths of not just the quarterback, but the offense as a whole. We will do that this year and build around the strengths of our quarterbacks.”

So essentially, the more things change, the more things will stay the same.

“We'll be a little bit different offensively, but that's part of the fun of coaching is being able to adapt and change and build around the players that we have,” Mullen said.

SANKEY NEEDS TO BE RUNNING COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Perhaps you heard. NCAA president Mark Emmert had a fairly well-publicized accident last week.

An intelligent thought struck him.

Last week Emmert spoke of de-centralizing college sports, essentially taking control out of the hands of the NCAA and placing that in control of the conferences and individual schools. For the most part, Emmert rarely offers anything substantial when he speaks and while the idea of de-centralizing all NCAA-sponsored sports might be a long way off, it does make perfect sense for college football to break away, the sooner the better. The sport would be far better off without the NCAA and its mindless legion of bureaucrats in control. The NCAA does a rather nifty job of running March Madness and despite the glitch that involved North Carolina State at the College World Series, it’s rather good at putting together most championship events. What the NCAA has never done well, however, is run college football.

The NCAA’s bloated bureaucracy has over-regulated the sport with volumes of nitpicky rules and regulations that require far too much money spent on compliance that could be put to better use elsewhere. Television networks like ESPN and the bowls are far too powerful and the NCAA is too weak to stand up to them. Instead of being run by committees headed by people who are clueless when it comes to what makes college football successful, what is needed is a separate entity run by people who know and understand what best serves the needs of the kids who provide both the labor and entertainment for a multibillion-dollar sport.

It has been suggested that the power five conferences plus Notre Dame need to leave the NCAA completely, set their own rules and stage their own championships. Sankey pretty much said that’s not going to happen any time soon Monday at SEC Media Days. Although he didn’t address the proposed expansion of the College Football Playoff to 12 teams, Sankey has been one of the movers and shakers behind ditching the current four-team format. Expanding to 12 includes the non-power conferences so leaving the NCAA isn’t an option.

What is an option, however, is for college football to secede from NCAA control and turn the game over to a single commissioner instead of the current by-committee approach. There is no one better qualified to do that than Sankey, who saved college football from COVID-19 last year when he took the lead and put together a conference-only schedule for the 14 SEC teams. Adding in the SEC Championship Game, of the 71 scheduled games, 69 were played, by far the highest percentage of any conference in Division I. Sankey had insight while everyone else was wearing bifocals. He led at a time when Mark Emmert and the NCAA had nothing to offer.

While addressing the media in Hoover on Monday, Sankey addressed everything from how the SEC will handle COVID-19 in 2021 to the NCAA’s inability to deal with schools and coaches that break the rules. He was eloquent and thoughtful as he spoke without once sounding boastful or overbearing. While Mark Emmert finds it impossible to speak without stepping on his tongue, Greg Sankey injects common sense and practicality when he dissects issues. He is the type who can bring opposing sides together to get agreement.

College football needs to streamline itself and it can’t do it while working under the NCAA umbrella. The sport needs to secede for its own good and for the good of all the other sports for which it pays the freight. The one person who can connect all the dots and lead the way is Greg Sankey. Since taking over the SEC from the late, great Mike Slive, Sankey has made the league stronger in every way. College football is at a crossroads and Sankey can do for the entire sport what he’s done for the Southeastern Conference.