Florida’s offense had a good day against Mississippi State, scoring at will for most of the 45-28. Pro Football Focus gave the Gators an 85.0 overall grade on Saturday, including an 80.1 on passing plays.
Every week, Gators Wire breaks down PFF’s grades for Florida, but we’re changing things up to make it more digestible. This article will focus only on the passing game. Check back for separate stories on the run game and defense over the rest of the week.
There are three main elements of the pass game — quarterback play, receiver play and pass blocking from the offensive line. Before getting into the numbers, here is a quick refresher on how PFF comes up with these grades.
Understanding PFF grades
The grading scale ranges from minus-2 to plus-2 with increments of 0.5, and players are given a grade on every play they are on the field for. A zero grade means a player did his job, while the two ends of the scale represent extreme success or failure — think red zone interception at the end of a game or a game-winning touchdown pass when applying it to quarterbacks.
There’s a level of subjectivity to it, but each grade is reviewed at least once. Once all plus-minus grades are in, the numbers are converted to a 0-100 scale to easily compare players. There are some loosely defined tiers within the system — 90-100 is elite, 85-89 is Pro Bowl level for NFL players, 70 to 84 is a starter and 60-69 is a backup. Anything 59 and below is considered a replaceable talent.
Since we’re looking at college athletes with a system designed for the pros, we will consider anything above 65.0 as a solid performance.
Quarterbacks
Florida head coach [autotag]Billy Napier[/autotag] remains committed to a two-quarterback system for now. [autotag]DJ Lagway[/autotag] is still getting a good amount of snaps (24), but it’s not the same 50-50 split seen in Week 3. With [autotag]Graham Mertz[/autotag] healthy, he’s taking closer to two-thirds of the offensive snaps (43).
Mertz dropped back 23 times on Saturday, compared to just seven from Lagway. The veteran starter completed 19 of 21 passes for 201 yards and three touchdowns, while the true freshman completed all seven of his pass attempts for 76 yards.
Two hundred yards on 19 completions isn’t ideal in the SEC, but that’s the playbook Billy Napier runs at Florida. Both quarterbacks saw 70% of their attempts target receivers travel fewer than nine yards, including 42.9% of throws for Lagway going behind the line of scrimmage. These aren’t all screens, but the playbook isn’t asking receivers to run deep routes often.
The good news is that Mertz looked good on the two deep balls he threw, grading out at 86.3 beyond 20 yards. Another positive sign is Lagway lowering his time to throw from last week. There are questions about the true freshman’s ability to make reads at a college pace, but he looked good against a weak defense.
Lagway earned a higher passing grade (79.0) than Mertz (74.6), but Mertz was on the field for several more plays.
Receivers
The receivers had a good day as well, grading out at 79.1 as a unit. Chimere Dike played the most snaps — 56 of 67 offensive snaps — lining up mostly in the slot on the right side. Elijhah Badger lined up 49 times for Florida on the left side, and it was a bit of a revolving door out wide on the right.
Badger and Dike are the two primary receivers in Napier’s offense, but the latter struggled to a 56.4 receiving grade. That explains Dike’s lack of target (3), but at least he brought all of them in. Badger had a better day, grading out at 65.9, but it’s still a borderline replaceable performance.
Aidan Mizell took the bulk of snaps on the right side (34), followed by Marcus Burke (18), TJ Abrams (7) and Andy Jean (1). Mizell caught all five of his targets for 36 yards and a 75.7 receiving grade, but it was Burke who shined brighter over fewer snaps. Burke caught all four targets that came his way for 45 yards and a touchdown, ending the game with a strong 80.3 receiving grade.
The tight ends played a big role in Saturday’s win as well. Hayden Hansen got the start at the primary tight end position, playing 57 of 67 offensive snaps, but it was Tony Livingston instead of Arlis Boardingham who came in on the left side in 12-personnel situations.
Livingston emerged as a pass-catching threat, especially on play action, catching three of four targets for 18 yards. His 79.8 receiving grade was the second highest on the team.
Boardingham and Hansen both hauled in touchdown catches on their lone targets. Hansen went for 35 yards to score and earned a 66.3 receiving grade, while Boardingham (67.6) scored in a goalline situation from three yards out.
Montrell Johnson and Ja’Kobi Jackson combined for five catches and 49 yards on checkdowns. Jackson impressed with 43 yards after the catch and a 77.8 receiving grade.
Pass Blocking
Florida’s pass-blocking unit received a 92.9 grade from PFF on Saturday — the single highest figure for any position group.
Left tackle Austin Barber led the charge with an 85.3 pass-blocking grade, followed by left guard Knijeah Harris (84.6), center Jake Slaughter (83.2) and right tackle Brandon Crenshaw-Dickson (80.0).
Right guard Damieon George Jr. struggled a bit, but his 67.6 grade is still above our threshold for a solid outing.
Backup left tackle Devon Manuel (79.7), backup left guard Bryce Lovett (79.0) and backup right guard Kamryn Waites (78.0) all held their own over limited snaps this week. All three were on the field for 6-9 pass-blocking plays, though.
As a unit, Florida ranks seventh among FBS programs on PFF’s pass-blocking rankings with a season-long grade of 85.2. Slaughter has been college football’s best pass-blocking center (90.3).
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