Florida’s season should be hitting the midway point this weekend with a date with Misouri in The Swamp. Instead, a COVID-19 outbreak, which included a positive test for head coach Dan Mullen, has put a pause on Florida’s season, forcing postponement of both last Saturday’s home date with LSU and this weekend’s scheduled game against Missouri. By the time the Gators are scheduled to finally play a home game again, on Halloween, nearly a month will have passed between Gators home dates. The whole thing is a sobering reminder of the strange new normal in the 2020 college football season, where very little is certain and nothing can be taken for granted. 

Florida has played three games, however, and there are certainly some observations that can be made. The offense is electric, ranking third nationally in yards per play, sixth in S&P+ offensive efficiency, second in offensive success rate, eighth in scoring offense  and third in pass efficiency offense.  Florida ranks second in the SEC in all of those categories, behind only Alabama.

On the other side of the football, things are about the opposite. The Gators defense has been putrid, ranking in the bottom half of college football in yards allowed per play (58th of 77) and pass efficiency defense (67th) and dead last in third-down defense. Opponents are converting a staggering 59 percent of third-down opportunities against the Gators, including the 12-of-15 that Texas A&M converted in upsetting the Gators 41-38 on Oct. 10. Florida began the year with championship aspirations, but they won’t win more than seven games if that defense doesn’t improve.

Individually, Florida has seen some tremendous performances, some expected and others very much pleasantly surprising. With the Gators on a second consecutive bye week, SDS thought it a perfect time to take a look at their top five performances through three games.

5. Zachary Carter, DE

As the rancid numbers above suggest, Florida has had few standouts on defense.

Ventrell Miller leads the team in tackles, but he hasn’t been as consistent, especially in pass coverage, as the staff would like him to be. The best Gators defender, at least based on consistent production, has been Carter.

The senior has 14 tackles, 1.5 sacks and 3 tackles for loss on the season and earned SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week honors after Florida’s Week 2 win over South Carolina. He has added 8 pressures, and on a per-snap basis he has been the Gators lineman most likely to get to the quarterback or disrupt a play, per Stats Solutions.

A versatile player who can move inside or outside, Carter is also the only reliable edge setter Florida has had to date. While this may limit his numbers in the aggregate, as it did to Cece Jefferson in his senior season, it doesn’t limit Carter’s importance. This is one of Florida’s most critical players.

4. Brett Heggie, C

Heggie has played all four years at Florida, but this is the first season he has been asked to play center. The adjustment has been seamless and perhaps a boon for Heggie, who is playing the best football of his career. Heggie has ranked as the SEC’s best center through the first month of the season, per Pro Football Focus. He has allowed only 3 quarterback pressures on 121 passing snaps, which ties him for best on the Florida offensive line. Heggie was named SEC Offensive Linemen of the Week after Florida’s opening win over Ole Miss. The result of this productive play has been Heggie’s name shooting onto NFL Draft boards and a Florida offensive line that looks vastly improved from a season ago. Heggie was also recently named to the watch list for the Rimington Trophy, honoring the best center in college football.

3. Kadarius Toney, WR

What a difference a year makes.

Last season, Toney busted out of the gate like a man on fire with an explosive performance against rival Miami, only to see his season shortened by injury and a lack of consistent playing time thereafter.

As I wrote earlier this fall, the knock on Toney has never been an indictment of his huge talent. 

It has always been consistency. It has always been, “Can he learn to execute the play as called?” or, “Can he become a terrific route runner?” That simply had not happened yet, and as a senior, Toney was running out of time.

The 6-foot receiver has been all that and more in his final season in The Swamp. He has shown massive improvement as a route runner — Mullen says “it is night and day”– and has scored in multiple games, placing second on the team with 4 touchdowns. In sum, Toney has collected 297 yards on 23 touches, averaging more than a first down per touch.

Most impressive? Toney’s usage rate ranks fourth on the team among skill playres, behind only Kyle Trask, Kyle Pitts and Trevon Grimes, and his 23 touches in three games are more than he had the entirety of his junior campaign (22).

2. Kyle Trask, QB

What more is there to say about Trask? A 2-star recruit rated in the 2,000s, Trask has become the model of consistency at the position. In his first full season as a starting quarterback since ninth grade, Trask leads one of the nation’s most prolific offenses and ranks fourth in the country in passing efficiency (196.00) and first in the SEC in passing touchdowns (14). He also averages 9.7 yards per attempt, 2 yards more than the national average (7.4). He has also cut down on mistakes — throwing fewer “dangerous/interceptable” passes per game than a season ago, per Stats Solutions, and has only 2 turnovers on the early season (a lost fumble and an interception).

Despite these outstanding numbers, there are still those who think the starting quarterback for an offense that ranks third nationally in yards per play, sixth in efficiency and fourth in passing efficiency is somehow, well …

It’s strange to die on the top of Mount Wrong, but Trask has never cared much about what so-called “experts” think. The reality is that if Florida is going to play for the SEC Championship in Atlanta, it will be Trask who leads them there.

1. Kyle Pitts, “tight end”

Pitts has been a touchdown machine as a junior, registering 7 TD receptions in his first three games. That pace puts him ahead of LSU receiver Ja’Marr Chase’s SEC record-setting 20 from a year ago, a staggering thing to think about. To put things in tight end perspective, Pitts’s 7 touchdowns are tied with the late Auburn great Philip Lutzenkirchen for the most by an SEC tight end in a season this century — and Pitts has done it in three games.

Pitts is only 3 touchdowns away from tying Alabama legend Ozzie Newsome’s SEC record of 16 career TDs for a tight end. If he stays healthy, he should eclipse ex-Florida star Aaron Hernandez’s records of 111 receptions and 1,382 career receiving yards.

This is one of the best football players in the SEC, and Florida’s MVP in 2020 to date.