Florida Football: Studs, duds and thuds from the 2019 season

Thuds

Injuries

Injuries across the board hurt this team at every turn of the season. Defensive linemen missing the game against LSU made it hard to get off the field on defense. Losing Toney for half the season didn’t help either. Add that with losing a starting quarterback, and this season was doomed from the start.

Turnovers

Florida‘s turnover margin was still positive, but having over a turnover a game really stifled what they could do on offense. This team had the potential to beat their top challenges, but something had to keep them from achieving that goal. I think turnovers had at least part of the reason.

The run game

Dan Mullen is known as a quarterback whisperer, but any quality offense needs to be able to run the ball to stay balanced. That did not happen this year. Outside of one monster game from Lamical Perine, there was not any dominating performance. One reason is because of Kyle Trask. Trask stepped up in a major way for the Gators, but he netted negative rushing yards due to sacks and an inability to break free.

There was also no quality depth behind Perine, and that will be an issue looking forward for the Gators. With him graduating, I’m not sure what their plan to run the ball next year will be. Whatever it is, it has to involve more from the quarterback position. Ask Tim Tebow, Dak Prescott, or Nick Fitzgerald how Dan Mullen made them successful, and they’ll all at least mention running abilities.

Florida’s season isn’t officially over, but these things will be what inevitably defined the 2019 season for the Gators.