It’s no secret that Florida’s offense went from one of the most dynamic offenses in the country to the literal worst five-game stretch in Florida over the past ten years. There is plenty of factors going around, but at the core of their struggles has been their complete inability to run the ball. Florida is averaging 2.8 yards per carry over their last three games. That is the 14th worst rate in the country when looking at everyone’s last three games.
Buster Faulkner has been trying to come up with answers and at his press conference yesterday he had an interesting assesment of how he thinks Florida did against Oklahoma.
Buster Faulkner trying to find answers for Florida’s offense
Faulkner was asked about the offense stalling in general, and he pointed to the fact that Florida’s inability to run the ball has allowed defenses to pin their ears back and attack the QB.
But in talking about the run game, he did offer up this assessment that we found interesting:
“I know the stats won't tell you that and the result won't tell you that last week, but when we handed the ball off, other than the situational stuff, it was a solid run performance. You know, I think it was 98 rushing yards? Getting the sacks knocks you way down. So I do think we ran the ball better last week than we did the week before.”
To be fair, Duke Clark did provide a spark at times, and Jadan Baugh’s TD run was essentially the long highlight of the game.
But going back and watching the game, there was something we picked up on from Oklahoma’s defense. Their defensive line shifted a decent amount, and when they did shift, it was almost always in the direction the run was going.
By our unofficial count, looking at the 17 designed run plays Florida had prior to their garbage-time drive with two minutes to play in the game, Oklahoma shifted their defensive line and/or set up in a shift on nine of Florida’s 17 designed runs. Florida ran into that shift on seven of those nine occurrences and, by our unofficial count, gained six yards on those seven runs.
On the two times that Florida countered away from the shift, they picked up 11 yards. Florida’s lone TD drive came during a string of plays where Oklahoma wasn’t shifting, and Florida as a whole picked up 60 yards rushing on the eight plays we counted where Oklahoma didn’t shift.
If you want to get really deep into the weeds, the bulk of Clark’s runs came when he started directly behind Jones, rather than to the side of Jones, and Oklahoma often didn’t shift on those plays.
It’s something to watch this Saturday against Kentucky, and it will be something to monitor as to whether or not Faulkner’s offense has a tell that teams have figured out.
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