Gasparilla Bowl Preview

BY JAKE WEINSTOCK

For the final time this season, the Tulane Green Wave (9-4, 7-2) will lace it up and put the finishing touches on the story of this 2024 season, one that saw gut-wrenching disappointment in September, only to be followed by a stretch of 8 consecutive wins -- most of which came in dominant fashion, and then the two-game losing streak that the club finds itself on, currently, having lost to Memphis on Thanksgiving night and then in the Conference Championship Game for the second consecutive year. All-the-while, breaking in a new head coach in Jon Sumrall and replacing 13 starters off of the 2023 team.

To get to 10 wins (or more) for the third consecutive year, the Wave will need to topple the scorching-hot Florida Gators (7-5, 4-4) who enter having won 3 straight, against then-ranked LSU, Ole Miss, and of course Florida State. The Gators indeed have 5 losses, but none are anything to be embarrassed by. They've dropped 3 games to College Football Playoff teams (Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas) and 2 more to programs that had very clear, well-defined paths to the CFP on the last weekend of the regular season (Texas A&M and Miami) before faltering over Thanksgiving weekend. They are 5-0 in games started and finished by DJ Lagway, as they are 5-1 with him as the starter, overall. He was injured early on in the Georgia loss.

Lagway has been uneven, statistically, having completed just 57.9% of his passes, but has a yards per attempt average of 10.0 and an average depth of target of 12.0. His "big-time" throw percentage is 10.1%, well above the standard average of ~3-5%. Accuracy has obviously not been a consistent strong-suit, as his feet are frequently all over the place, but he does and will make some "wow" throws that light up social media feeds. That said, he takes sacks, as opponents have converted 19% of pressures into takedowns. Ideally, quarterbacks want to have that figure be at or near just 10%. His numbers when blitzed and when not blitzed have remained remarkably identical through the (small) 6 game sample size, so it will be interesting to see how Greg Gasparato chooses to deploy coverages and rushes, without his full compliment of options on the defensive front.

Florida wants to run and impose their will, physically. Only 35 of the 134 FBS teams have called a designed run on a higher percentage of their offensive snaps. Florida uses a healthy rotation of backs, but they've been primarily paced by Jordan Baugh, who has turned 119 attempts into 600 yards (5.0 yards per attempt) and 7 touchdowns, with an impressive 3.12 yards per attempt average after contact. The Gators mix in both zone and gap schemed runs, but have leaned pretty significantly towards the former. It will be quite telling if they come out with much of the latter, thinking they can physically impose their will on our Green Wave.

I am hesitant to include these statistics, because Florida's strength of schedule has quite clearly been insane, but for the sake of consistency for you, dear reader; the Gators rank 47th in points per play, offensively, 69th in points per game (26.4 points per game), 92nd in yards per game (351 yards per), 85th in third-down conversion percentage, and 93rd in punts per offensive score. Again, these ranks are deceptively low because of the schedule that Florida has played.

On the other side of the ball, the Gators have shifted away from a downhill, attacking, cover 1/cover 3 scheme early in the season with a lot of blitzing and a lot of simulated pressures to much more of the now-typical "bend but don't break" two-high shell coverage-based defenses that have become the norm in the modern game. With that decrease in aggressiveness, the Gators have seen a decrease in volatility, and have been able to avoid giving up explosive plays. That has translated to frustrating the heck out of opposing offenses and quarterbacks who have refused to remain patient, and instead forced a great many throws that they shouldn't have (Exhibit A: Dart, Jaxson). Ty Thompson will need to be smart with the football -- this is quite simply not a game Tulane can win if the Wave are -2 in turnovers, for example.

It won't be easy, as the Gators average over 17 pressures per game on enemy quarterbacks. Opposing quarterbacks have been held to a middling 90.9 quarterback rating and a 64.1% completion percentage. Even against their schedule, Florida is allowing a stingy 4.0 yards per rushing attempt (49th best average, in the FBS) while they've allowed 7.5 yards per pass attempt (78th best average, in the FBS).

Prediction: Ultimately it's hard for me to predict Tulane matching Florida's physicality, given what we just watched in West Point, 14 days ago. The Wave will need to throw to get ahead and win the turnover margin, if they're going to have a realistic chance, today. This is not an opponent against whom we want to play from behind against, or play from behind the sticks against. Florida 41-20