Florida vs

Oregon St.

at Las Vegas
Sat, Dec 17
ESPN
11:30 AM Pacific
Rotation: 215
Odds: Oregon St. -10, Total: 53

Game Analysis

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Lean – Florida (+9)  24   Oregon State  28

It appears as if there has been an overreaction on the market to the players that will be missing from Florida’s team for this game, and I’d prefer the underdog.

Florida will be without dual-threat quarterback Anthony Richardson, who was actually more of a one-threat quarterback given his poor 53.8% completion percentage. What made Richardson dangerous was his running (722 yards on 89 runs) and the threat of his running made it easier to find speedy receivers down the field for big plays, which led to an average of 14.5 yards per completion and an overall average of 7.8 yards per attempt and 7.2 yards per pass play, which was good considering he faced teams that would allow 6.0 yppp to an average quarterback.

Bowl game starter Jack Miller is a former 4-Star recruit that battled CJ Stroud for the starting job before last season before transferring to Florida. Miller is undoubtedly a better passer, but he’ll be without some big play receivers, and he won’t have the benefit of teams keeping an extra defender near the line of scrimmage to defend against the quarterback run. I’ll assume that overall Miller would have produced the same overall numbers in the passing game (more completions but less yards per completion) and I’ll adjust for the absence of receivers Justin Shorter, Daejon Reynolds and Trent Whittemore, who combined for 908 yards on 77 targets (11.8 YPT). The remaining wide receivers combined for a more modest 8.7 YPT, which is a significant downgrade. TE Deon Zipperer (8.4 YPT on 21 targets) is still out with injury and his backups combined to average just 3.4 YPT on 35 targets. Overall, the receiver adjustment works out to 1.0 yards per pass play, and I also made an adjustment for the absence of an All-American lineman. I still rate Florida’s pass attack at 0.2 yards per pass play better than average for this game (instead of +1.4 yppp), and I wouldn’t be surprised if Miller played better than I project, as I believe I’m being conservative in thinking his overall passing wouldn’t be better than Richardson.

Oregon State has a very good pass defense (5.7 yppp allowed to quarterbacks that would combine to average 7.0 yppp against an average defensive team), although the Beavers will be without top CB Rejzohn Wright (worth about 0.3 yppp), who has opted out of this game. I project just 5.6 yppp for the Gators in this game.

Florida can still run the ball effectively without Richardson, as Montrell Johnson and Trevor Etienne have combined for 1532 yards at 6.0 yards per run. That average will probably go down some without the threat of Richardson keeping the ball in the read-option, and without All-American G O’Cyrus Torrence, but I still expect the Gators to run the ball at a decent clip. I project 5.4 yards per rushing play against an Oregon State defense that was 0.5 yprp better than average defensively this season.

Oregon State’s offense rates at just 0.2 yppl better than average with Ben Gubranson at quarterback over the final 7-plus games of the regular season and I project the Beavers to gain 396 yards at 6.0 yppl against a Florida defense that is still likely to be better than average even without NFL-bound LB Ventrell Miller, whose numbers aren’t particularly overwhelming (0 sacks and 8.5 TFL). Florida’s defense was 0.4 yppl better than average for the season and they were 0.4 yppl better than average in week 3 against USF when Miller was out. Also, the defense performed better over the final 4 games with Powell-Ryland taking the starting spot of dismissed LB Brenton Cox, as Powell-Ryland had 3 sacks and 2 additional tackles for loss in those 4 games while Cox had just 2 sacks and 6 other TFL’s in 8 starts. I did adjust a bit overall for Miller being out but I still rate the Gators’ defense at 0.3 yppl better than average heading into this game.

I did dock Florida a point for special teams given all the depth that they lost in the transfer portal, as many of those guys were on the special teams units (while barely playing otherwise). Overall, the math favors Oregon State by just 4.6 points with 52.2 total points after all of the player adjustments and adjusting for the perfect scoring conditiions in Vegas on Saturday. Oregon State also applies to a negative 30-67 ATS bowl situation that is based on their good spread record and Pac-12 teams are just 8-28 ATS in bowl game the last 6 years. I’ll lean with Florida at +7.5 or more.

  • Team Stats
  • Game Log
  • Florida
  • Oregon St.
FLA
Offense
Defense

Rush

  • Run Plays 34.6 36.8
  • Run Yards 219.8 191.3
  • YPRP 6.4 5.2




Pass





  • Pass Comp 15.5 18.2
  • Pass Att 28.7 30.8
  • Comp % 54.1% 59.1%
  • Pass Yards 226.3 225.0
  • Sacks 1.2 1.8
  • Sack Yards 7.1 9.9
  • Sack % 3.9% 5.4%
  • Pass Plays 29.8 32.5
  • Net Pass Yards 219.2 215.1
  • YPPP 7.3 6.6

Total

  • Total Plays 64.4 69.3
  • Total Yards 438.9 406.3
  • YPPL 6.8 5.9

TO


  • Int 0.8 0.8
  • Int % 2.6% 2.4%
  • Fumbles 0.4 1.1
  • Turnovers 1.2 1.8
 
  • Points 31.8 28.8
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