Passing game 2nd half mizzou

I was curious to go back and see what AR looked like after halftime. I had thought during the game we were about to see a meltdown similar to the UK game. We didn't, and he had a nice TD pass that was really critical on 3rd down. I wanted to see what every play looked like that was intended to be a pass:

Drive 1

• 1st & 10 at FLA 25
  (15:00 - 3rd) Anthony Richardson pass complete to Keon Zipperer for 5 yds to the Fla 30
  
  
• 2nd & 14 at MIZ 33
  (15:00 - 3rd) Anthony Richardson pass complete to Xzavier Henderson for 1 yd to the Misso 32
  
  
• 3rd & 13 at MIZ 32
  (15:00 - 3rd) Anthony Richardson run for 2 yds to the Misso 30

Drive 2

• 2nd & 10 at MIZ 43
  (9:30 - 3rd) Anthony Richardson pass incomplete to Justin Shorter

• 4th & 2 at MIZ 35
  (7:24 - 3rd) Anthony Richardson run for 32 yds to the Misso 3 for a 1ST down

Drive 3

• 3rd & 5 at FLA 28
  (15:00 - 4th) Anthony Richardson run for 5 yds to the Fla 33 for a 1ST down MISSOURI Penalty, Face Mask (15 yards) (Isaiah McGuire) to the Fla 48 for a 1ST down

• 1st & 10 at MIZ 16
  (15:00 - 4th) Anthony Richardson run for 4 yds to the Misso 12

• 3rd & 3 at MIZ 9
  (11:10 - 4th) Anthony Richardson pass complete to Ricky Pearsall for 9 yds for a TD, (Adam Mihalek KIC

Drive 4

• 2nd & 19 at FLA 48
  (3:50 - 4th) Anthony Richardson pass complete to Montrell Johnson Jr. for 5 yds to the Misso 47
  
  
• 3rd & 14 at MIZ 47
  (2:57 - 4th) Anthony Richardson pass intercepted

So there were only 10 potential plays called in the 2nd half (might be misremembering one of these as designed run) where Richardson dropped back to pass. In those 10 plays in the 2nd half, the results were:

4-6, 20 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT
4 runs, 43 yards, 1 4th down conversion, 1 3rd down conversion

So I just want to say that despite that stat line not looking the greatest, it is also far superior to what he did against Kentucky. I believe this is partly a sign of his maturation and development, and also a sign that Missouri's defense was not as good as Kentucky's.

A few odds and ends:
297 yards for Florida, 17 points, in 46 plays. That's 6.45 yards per play, which is good, and 17.5 yards per point, which is bad. The missed FGs hurt that number. With the made FGs that climbs up to 12.9 and anything under 13 is good. What is becoming evident with this team is that every possession is important because they or only getting about 10-11 possessions per game, which is insanely low (only 8 against Missouri). So they need to rethink long FGs if they aren't high percentage. It may be better just to go for it from now on with those 45 plus yard FGs as long as the down and distance isn't too outrageous.

Florida is now 4th nationally in yards per rush. At the beginning of the seasons we all said the team would rise and fall with Richardson, but I actually think at this point it will rise and fall with the running game. That includes Richardson, but essentially Florida won't win games when teams slow down their running game. See UT and UK where UF only averaged 3.4 and 4.5 yards per rush. I just don't think AR has it this year to carry the team on his back with the pass - the one weird outlier being UT, but their secondary looks suspect. I do think AR can help open up the run with his legs - and despite worries about him getting injured, outside of one great pass, it was his legs that did the most damage against Missouri, extending drives and plays at least 3 times.

LSU will be a big test of this theory. Although UT just shredded them, their run defense for the year is only giving up 3.87 yards per carry - which implies that Florida will probably need to pass the ball to win next week. They appear much more vulnerable through the air - so this might be a tough matchup for Florida.

 

You just gotta go for the plays that give you the highest value. Our kicker, I double checked this morning is 4-4 under 40 yards and 1-5 over 40 yards. So we only have a 20% chance to get points on kicks over 40.

So as long as your season stats on converting (factoring in distance) are better than 20% we should be going for it and not kicking. I’ll have to break that down to see what are conversion rate is based on distance.

 

So looking at the rest of the schedule here are the rush defense rankings based on yards per rush.

Uga - 3.5, #39
Lsu - 3.87, #56
Fsu - 3.97, #60
USC - 4.28, #86
Van - 4.64, #108
Tamu - 4.67, #109

Georgia has a really good pass defense too so uf is probably in trouble there.
Tamu, fsu, and usc are also decent against the pass (all top 50) so if they do manage to slow Florida down like Kentucky did Uf will be in trouble in those games. Kentucky only has the #70 rush defense too, but the are #11 nationally in pass efficiency defense.

So just food for thought.

 

tennessee by a lot. #7 nationally. 2.79 per play allowed. Should be an interesting match up with Alabama next week who has one of the best rushing games in the country.

 

I wouldn't say I'm optimistic. During the game I called for him to be benched because of how he looked emotionally done - similar to the UK game.
That being said, I think he pushed through that and helped Florida win against Mizzou. That's a sign of growth, albeit maybe not as much growth as we were hoping for.
He is going to get challenged again by LSU, let's see what he does.

 

On the 4th and 5 - that was the 50 yard attempt. Is our percentage on 4th and 5 really less than 20%? Although at that point our kicker was 1-3 on the year at 40+, so it was 33% but I still thought it made more sense to go for it.

On the other one it was 4th and long, so I get trying it. Hopefully at some point they scrap the hurry up after a long run. It hasn't worked all year.