Florida football: Breaking down the usage rates for the Gators

Florida football had their bye week this past weekend, giving them a chance to get themselves right ahead of their showdown with Georgia.

Bye weeks are a good time for looking back at the first half of your season to break down what has been working, but also what hasn’t been working.

Looking at the usage rates for players is a great way to break down exactly who is carrying the load on offense, and can be useful for coaching staffs as they look for things that they can improve on coming out of the bye.

The Gators have a handful of guys that they can go to on offense when they need to make a big play. But who isn’t getting enough usage on that side of the ball? And just as important, who’s being used too much?

Florida football: Getting the right guys the ball

Breaking down usage rates is useful, but only if you have all of the information. One critical data point that you must look at in tandem with usage rate is EPA per play. In other words, how effective is a certain guy when he gets the ball?

First, let’s get into some guys that need to see their usage rates go up over these final five games.

Eugene Wilson in the run game – Obviously, we can’t expect a receiver to get a steady dose of running plays. But when you have a guy like Wilson, you almost have to force-feed him the ball in any way you can.

Eugene’s usage rate on run plays is currently just 1%. Now, factored into that is the fact that he missed a couple of games, but it’s still something that Florida football needs to change.

When Wilson is given the ball on the ground, his EPA is 1.1, which is third on the team. With more volume, we can expect that to regress to the mean a little bit, but there’s no denying his explosiveness.

Jet sweeps and end-arounds are plays that are designed for guys like Wilson. Florida needs to get him the ball more in those situations in order to upgrade the offense.

Arlis Boardingham in the passing game – We wrote about it in the offseason, and we’ve seen it come to life over the last few weeks. Arlis Boardingham is going to be a star in Gainesville. He saved the comeback against South Carolina when he converted a 4th and 11 and scored multiple times against Vanderbilt.

Overall on the year, Arlis’ usage in the passing game is 8%. However, he has the highest EPA on the team on passing plays at 1.115.

His size has proven to be a major factor for defenses downfield already, and he’s rapidly developing as both a pass catcher and a route runner.

In just his freshman season Arlis has already had a bigger impact than a lot of fans thought he would. Expect that role to keep increasing over the last five games of the season.

Florida football: Be willing to adapt

It’s an optimistic and fun thing to find the guys who are overperforming in their roles and have the opportunity to take on an even bigger role in the future.

But you also have to look at the guys who are underperforming and be willing to take the ball out of their hands a little bit.

And this isn’t meant to call him out, but there’s only one guys who’s usage and EPA have a bad relationship.

Montrell Johnson in the run game – Before I get fully into this, it’s important to note that Johnson’s usage rate on the ground is inflated a bit because of the time that Trevor Etienne missed.

But still, while being used in 38% of run plays, Johnson’s EPA is only 0.131. For reference, that’s less than Jonathan Odom’s and Graham Mertz’s.

Montrell is a great back when you need to muscle out a few yards and beat someone up. But he hasn’t shown much burst and explosiveness to create big plays.

Now, this is not me saying that Johnson should stop saying the field. With his size, he’s still an elite blocker, which we got to see at South Carolina.

He should also still be the Gators’ short-distance back. But the majority of the carries need to be going to Trevor Etienne.