The Florida Gators and the Art of A Conceptually-Based Offense
"I don't think we've ever ran the same play out of the same formation twice."
Dan Mullen is well regarded as one of the smartest offensive minds in college - no, all of football. Fans and analysts alike often find themselves flabbergasted as to how he can coach in circles around even the best defensive head coaches and coordinators in the game.
There have been two times this season where that's happened, albeit once against a good defense and another versus a rather bad one. Against Ole Miss in week one, as ESPN's Jordan Rodgers pointed out, Mullen and his coaching staff called the same passing concept - high-low route combos to each side, from different formations and against different coverages - ten times. Quarterback Kyle Trask connected with a receiver on nine of them, throwing two touchdowns in the process.
And against Georgia, Mullen utilized the oft-open wheel route to his advantage. Trask completed eight passes on wheel routes for 217 yards and a score, per our tracking, against the SEC's No. 1 defense entering the game. Much like the high-low concept, Mullen made note that he never called the same wheel-route play twice, but utilized the concept in various ways to different levels of success.
"The wheel route was something that was an advantageous matchup for us on Saturday and we created a bunch of different ways to do it," shared Mullen this past week. "And we're able to execute it."
A running back led the team in receiving against Georgia, that being Malik Davis who caught numerous passes on wheels. The second leading receiver? Running back Nay'Quan Wright, who took one wheel route reception 50 yards down the field. Considering Trask set UF and SEC passing records throughout the game, those facts are a bit odd, but it's what the concept allowed Florida to do offensively.
Heck, even tight end Kemore Gamble's first career touchdown reception came on a wheel-route run from the in-line tight end position.
"You know, you're always going to do it," said Mullen. "Now, how you get people there's going to be very different.
"We're a very conceptually based offense, so you have this conception and now there might be 10 to 15 different ways that we're going to run this concept within the course of a game to attack it, because we feel that's going to create an advantageous matchup for us."
On how to execute a particular concept from different looks, Florida's offensive coordinator Brian Johnson described it as "part art, part science."
"I think it’s just everyone having a great understanding of the defensive leverage and how the ball should come. For example, the play that stands out the most if not even the wheel route. It’s probably the touchdown to [tight end Kyle] Pitts, when [Trask] threw the go-route right off the right hash.
Based on how that defender was playing him, he was obviously kind of playing for a back shoulder and he was kind of trailing Pitts, thinking we would just back shoulder up high to him, and Kyle [Trask] saw it and threw it over the top and he was able to make the play...
The biggest thing is when you’re playing man coverage, throw it where they ain’t. Throw it away from the defense, give our guy a chance to make the play and we were able to do that." - UF offensive coordinator Brian Johnson
As Rodgers pointed out in his video breakdown, great offensive play-callers don't have hundreds of plays ready to call. Rather, they have a select few, with numerous ways to execute specific concepts. With a smart, capable quarterback in Trask at the helm and loads of weapons owning unique skill-sets surrounding him, Mullen plays chess when he calls plays, not checkers, so to speak.
As a result, very few defenses in the nation could hang with the Gators' offense, if any.
