- Aug 1, 2018
- 7,669
- 12,385
Great find and here's a synopsis, wait, I meant to say a brief summary...
The 2018 football season is officially in the books for Florida, and that means it's now easy to quantify just how much improvement Florida made in Year 1 under new coach Dan Mullen.
Spoiler: It was a lot.
We'll break down the massive jumps Florida made in the major statistical categories the NCAA tracks below, while hitting on a few highlights from the season here first.
The biggest change is probably not too surprising, among the categories we tracked and updated on at various points throughout the year. Florida's offensive line was massively better this fall.
Under the direction of co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach John Hevesy, Florida shot up 98 spots in the national rankings from 2017 to 2018 by giving up just 18 sacks in 13 games. A year ago, quarterback Feleipe Franks was harassed early and often (and, granted, also ran out of bounds behind the line of scrimmage for a few sacks) to the tune of 37 total sacks in just 11 games. That was a massive improvement on offense.
Florida also was extremely efficient under Mullen. The Gators improved their scoring offense by 86 spots in the national rankings, going from just 108th nationally with 22.1 points per game to 22nd nationally at 35.0 points per game. That was nearly a two-touchdown difference in scoring output across the season, a remarkable turnaround.
The Gators made a similar leap in turnover margin, jumping 82 spots, from 89th in the country to 7th.
Florida's passing efficiency was also notably improved, moving up 77 spots with a jump from 112th to 35th as Franks got much more comfortable and began to operate the offense at a relatively high level down the stretch.
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