Aaron Philo’s struggles are reopening the question Florida thought it had answered

After back-to-back beat downs, everyone on Florida’s roster is back under a microscope. Among those with a particularly increased lens is Aaron Philo, who has now been replaced in garbage time in back-to-back weeks.

As we said last week, Philo isn’t necessarily the primary problem with Florida right now. But it also isn’t clear whether or not he is the solution.

Florida’s QB battle is bound to get a second look

Philo was 21 of 28 passing for 227 yards. He had one TD and one INT. On the surface, that's not too bad.

He also had two fumbles. 

Oops.

And the INT wasn’t much better.

Hey, remember when in July Jon Sumrall was talking about Tramell Jones and stated:

"Tramell did some really good things, through, in the spring at times. His highs were like, 'Whoa.' The problem, at times was the lows. You're like, 'Hey, we can't do that. That'll lose the game.'"

Were those lows any lower than these lows?

Asking for a friend.

Astute observers will note we here at Hail Florida Hail spent the offseason musing that Jones felt like he had the higher ceiling and the only reason why Philo was getting the nod was his prior knowledge to the offense. And in reality, Sumrall basically admitted this part out loud when he named Philo the starter.

And for the first month of the season, we also tried to pivot to positivity, and we gave Philo his flowers. We even wrote, after the Ole Miss win, a piece titled “Aaron Philo’s biggest perceived weakness is becoming harder for Florida fans to criticize.”

Are we able to retract that statement?

Among the very real problems from these past two losses is that opposing defenses have loaded the box and have dared Philo to beat them deep.

Spoiler alert: he hasn’t.

On 28 passing attempts on Saturday, Philo’s ADOT (Average Depth of Target, AKA how far down the field the receiver is when targeted) was 6.1 yards. South Carolina QB LaNorris Sellers had an ADOT of 12.7.

Of the 87 QBs who have taken at least 150 dropbacks this season, Philo is 72nd in ADOT. Some of that is a byproduct of Buster Faulkner’s offense, but is it fair to ask whether Buster Faulkner’s offense is a byproduct of the perceived limitations of Philo’s ability to throw the ball downfield?

For what it’s worth, too, within this same group of 87 QBs, Philo is 58th in Percentage of Pressures Turned into Sacks. 20% of the time when Philo is pressured, it turns into a sack.

And so we recognize that two weeks in a row, Tramell Jones has come in during garbage time against an opposing defense that was already thinking about the post-game celebration. But Sumrall himself is the one who said in July:

“Just because you start game one doesn’t mean you start game 12.”

If Philo wants to keep justifying his place as the starter, he'll need to prove he isn’t simply a byproduct of the talent around him.

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