Kudos to Josh Pate on this critical UF stat line.

More telling is we are like 1 and 4 when I watch and something like 3 and 0 when I don't. Don't count the game I peeked at

 

Take the next three games for the team!

 

Done!

 

For the sake of UF football, please take a bat to your TV. One for the team, man!

 

I'm wondering if the difference is AR run stats. Not only in the overall yards, but the effect on defenses.

Just a guess, but if AR has over 50-60 yds rushing we win.

 

Yup, right on. I understand they are his reads but Billy needs to find a way every game to call 2-3 qB power, qb draws, and push Anthony to run 3-4 times on the zone read. Gotta have 8-10 designed runs for him.

 

It does not appear that that’s the direction he’s pushing him. He seems to be turning into a pocket passer and frankly is starting to look better but don’t ask my why the change? Ice?

 

I looked at the rushing stats and aligned it to Richardson’s passer rating. In Power-5 games where his passer rating is 130 or above (Utah, Tennessee, LSU, Texas A&M) AR has 12 rushing attempts or 100 rushing yards. He wins the games where his passer rating is 130 and he runs for nearly 10 yards per carry. All that confirms is what we already know:

• Richardson throws better when he runs well
• The Gator rushing attack needs Richardson’s 6 yards per attempt and 12 attempts

AR alone cannot beat Tennessee and LSU, so we need to also look at the overall rushing attack. Georgia is too much for this Gator team so the passer rating and rushing numbers do not help.

 

I went back to all the boxscores and I found something quite profound. The key to winning (and unfortunately losing) was to end the game with more points than the opponent. It worked every time!

I know that was a drive-by snark, but to me, stats indicate what worked or failed on that game. Trying to use them to show how to win the next game is kind of missing a point. To me, we want to run the ball, mainly because we have issues (depth and a lack of athleticism) on defense and so we can't get too bold on offense. In addition, our O-line is decent but not great and so we are vulnerable to getting stuffed against the better D-lines. That means we have to rely on Plan B - effective passing - to move the chains and even score TDs. But we don't have a passing game that puts a fright in most teams we play. Move them out of the box, open up the running game. It really depends on who we play and the matchups.

But to the AR runs, which can also help, I think it may be (probably is) that AR is best when he just plays loose and uses his superior athleticism to "do things", but to me the main problem is he hasn't been good at recognizing in the framework of the offense when to run it and when to hand it off or pass it, and perhaps he is now getting a better handle on it. We shall see. But I also believe that THE reason he hasn't been running is because Napier was averse to using another QB (Miller seems to be a non-issue) if he got hurt. And so he was given nuances to running and it wasn't translating well in AR's mind. And to the whole season, it is plausible that things are changing because 1) Miller/Kitna is giving him better vibes and 2) we aren't staring at a WHOLE LOT of games to play like we were early. Think last lap push versus the early/mid laps. We shall see.

 

To echo your point with some data, for UF to win, AR needs to be a little better than his average pure passer rating & have a much, much better QBR rating. In other words, a we may get more wins by improving his overall performance than by improving his pure passing performance.

RTG QBR
W 116.5 69.8 (126.7 & 90.6 w/o USF)
L 117.2 56.4

• RTG is calculated from aggregate statistics to give a pure interpretation of passing ability.
• ESPN's QBR analyzes each play a quarterback is involved in, e.g. sacks, fumbles, designed runs, scrambles & puts those into context. It changes slightly as the season progresses & the opponent's success changes.

 

This is hilarious to me.

Anyways, we ran for 227 vs UT and lost, so the stat is not even accurate.

What's more telling, is that we've lost to 3 top 10 teams. That's the reason we've lost, not the rushing. We had 227 vs UT and 210 vs LSU...both great performances and good enough to win, but those 2 teams have elite QB's. That's the MAIN key to college football these days.

 

Great point. If AR had an 60% completion rate in every game, the running game would have really improved and we would be undefeated. Furthermore, if AR had a completion rate of 70%, we would have blown every one out, including GA!!!

EVERYTHING HINGES ON THE QB!!!!!

 

We need a AR to play well, of course. But we've lost because our defense. We're reaching really hard on this thread.

AR played lights out vs UT and we lost. He was overall solid vs LSU (including 109 on the ground, with a 81 yard run) and we lost. He barely threw vs Mizz and we won - because we held them to 17 points.

Again, we lost to 3 top 10 teams....simply because they are better right now (and our glaring weakness is D).

 

This wasn't a thread about defense...

 

It's a thread about how we win when we rush well, and lose when we don't. And that's not accurate this season. Heck, the stat quoted is not even accurate...we rushed for 227 vs UT and lost.

 

It depends on if those extra few passes he needed to complete to get to 60-70% completion were those god awful terrible do nothing wide receiver screens we continue to try with no success.

 

Change your shirt

 

When I go to The Swamp I see us win more than we lose (well, not counting the 6 football seasons back when I was a student and Dickey was coach).
But my last 2 were Bama last year and KY this year, so maybe my mojo ain’t what it used to be