An in-depth look at whether Vanderbilt exposed Florida's offense

For a team that just won the SEC East title, Florida couldn’t have raised more red flags than it did against Vanderbilt.

The offense is to blame for that after a horrible Homecoming performance, and now Gainesville is left to wonder whether the Gators’ struggles were a fluke or did the Commodores give everyone else a blueprint on how to stop the Gators?

Let’s take an in-depth look into what went on with sophomore quarterback Treon Harris and the aerial attack in The Swamp.

His struggles resulted from a combination of many things: 1) Shuffling along the offensive line; 2) Vanderbilt doing a great job of mixing up coverages; 3) Turnovers.

The first two things resulted in an eye-popping statistic for Harris:

Inside the pocket: 12-for-16 passing, 158 yards

Outside the pocket: 0-for-8 passing, 0 yards and an interception (his first of the season)

That’s pretty cut and dry.

While Harris has been known to improvise, extend plays and make plays on the run — like he did with his 66-yard TD pass against Georgia two weeks ago — Vanderbilt simply has better personnel and speed across the board that sped up Harris’ decision-making while blanketing his options.

However, Harris found loads of success with short passes, finding extremely lonely receivers for big gains. Let’s take a look at some examples:

It all started with his first pass of the game, which was ruled a touchdown before the review showed that Brandon Powell dropped it. TE Jake McGee occupied the two defenders playing zone in the middle of the field while Powell beat his defender in man coverage. Despite the drop, short and over the middle is where Harris got most of his big plays on Saturday as you’ll see.

His first completion went to TE DeAndre Goolsby, one of three tight ends that Florida has used frequently this season. He found him here on a short out route, and Goolsby would rumble 24 yards to the Vanderbilt 17-yard line. That helped set up Florida’s only touchdown of the day.

The ensuing drive, Florida continued to find success with high-percentage passes. This was the Gators’ longest play from scrimmage on the day as Harris found DeMarcus Robinson with no defender within 5 yards of him before he scampered 36 yards to the Vanderbilt 33-yard line. This drive could’ve resulted in points after a fake field goal picked up the necessary yards to convert the fourth down, but CeCe Jefferson fumbled the ball away.

Here’s one more example from the first half. Antonio Callaway gets matched up with middle linebacker Zach Cunningham on a crossing route and picks up 11 easy yards. This drive stalled at the Vanderbilt 18-yard line when Harris fumbled. Yet another missed opportunity to put points on the board.

Florida was in Vanderbilt territory again two drives later when Harris threw his first interception of the season. However, that play came on a bootleg, just the second play of the game that was designed to take Harris out of the pocket. It didn’t get any better for him on the move the rest of the game.

At the end of the first half, with the mistakes aside, Harris was 7 of 15 passing for 101 yards while leading an offense that managed a respectable 201 total yards of offense against a stout Vanderbilt defense.

But from the late stages of the second half up until the fourth quarter, Vanderbilt starting bringing the heat on Harris.

The Commodores were aware that true freshman Fred Johnson was starting at right tackle in place of the team’s usual starter there, redshirt senior Mason Halter, who moved over to left tackle to fill in for the injured David Sharpe. As a result, Vandy took advantage of that with 3 sacks and 6 hurries.

The ‘Dores even managed to get pressure when only rushing three at times. Here’s a look at one of those instances before Cunningham suddenly showed at the line to blitz. Florida didn’t adjust, and he came untouched around Halter to corral Harris immediately.

Right before that play, a designed rollout to the left was called. Harris was forced to throw it away on the play, and he was hit hard and slow to get up.

The Commodores did a beautiful job of mixing up their defenses throughout the game, switching from man to zone repeatedly and faking blitzes.

The third quarter continued to be a struggle for Harris. That is, until the fourth quarter when he rebounded to go 5-for-6 passing for 57 yards.

How did he manage that? Well, he went back to short passes.

When Vanderbilt would take away the middle of the field, Florida would run screens. On this play, the Commodores sat in a zone in the middle of the field to take away those slants and crossing routes that were killing them. However, the offense dialed up a screen in which Harris quickly threw to Powell, who raced for 17 yards.

Harris found Robinson on a couple short passes on the drive that resulted in the Gators’ game-winning 43-yard field goal. Here’s a look at his last completion of the game, which was a 7-yarder. Florida would only pick up two more yards before Austin Hardin’s kick.

While Vanderbilt did expose some of Florida’s weaknesses (offensive line, Harris’ struggles outside the pocket), the Gators also got away from their strengths before realizing it and getting back to them.

UF has playmakers that can get yards after catch in Robinson, Callaway, Powell, Goolsby and McGee, and the passing game should revolve around getting the ball to them mostly with quick slants, crossing routes, screens, etc.

With that said, South Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Florida State and whoever the Gators meet in the SEC title game will certainly take note of Vanderbilt’s approach.