Florida football: One area the Gators must improve on in the second half of the year

Florida football has exceeded just about everyone’s expectations so far this season. Their season-long win total was 5.5, and many people were saying that Billy Napier wouldn’t make it to the end of the season.

As the Gators head into their bye week, they sit at 5-2, and any rumblings about Napier’s job security early on in the season have quieted down.

But no football team is perfect. Especially not one with a pair of losses and a tough schedule ahead of them.

With five games left, the Gators need to improve on one defensive metric that has bothered them all season.

Florida football: Keep it contained

We wrote about this issue earlier in the season after week four. At that point, the Gators ranked 5th in total defense. Now, they’ve dropped to No. 20 in the country.

The issue that has stuck around with Florida all season has been their inability to limit explosive plays.

What’s odd about this trend is that the Gators’ defense is on the better side of the spectrum when it comes to success rate on defense. For reference, a successful play for an offense is a first down where they gain 50% of the yards to go, a second down where they gain 70%, or a third/fourth down where they convert.

But when they do give up a successful play, things go downhill.

The numbers on this haven’t changed a whole lot for Florida since we last talked about this week four. Overall, offenses add an expected 1.61 points per successful play, down from 1.7 a few weeks ago.

They’ve slightly improved on limiting big rush plays, surrendering an additional 1.35 EPA which is down from 1.53.

But Florida’s passing defense is just about in the same spot as they were earlier. Offenses add 1.85 EPA per successful play in the air, which was at 1.84 earlier in the season.

Now, are some teams more prone to big plays? Absolutely.

But where this becomes a concern is when we realize that it hasn’t gotten a whole lot better as the season has gone on.

With a tough five games ahead of them, Florida’s defense will have to be better at limiting big plays if they want to close out the year strong.