Tale of the Tape: Something to work with in Kurt Roper offense

South Carolina coach Will Muschamp put it out there on radio: If he’d just hired Kurt Roper earlier in his Florida tenure, he’s still be head man with the Gators.

The directness of the statement gave verbalization to a simple reality: the first leg of Muschamp’s tenure with the Gamecocks is in many ways a bet on Roper to remove the offensive stain on the new coach’s resume.

With Roper being the man on the spot, it’s worth delving into what his offense tries to do, especially in 2014 with Florida. A closer breakdown of game video shows an offense with a bit more diversity than one might expect and a big hole in the middle that might make a difference.

The spot to start at: The Kurt Roper offense was faster than what Gamecocks fans are used to. It’s not quite an Oregon/Auburn/Baylor-level blur offense, but you saw enough speed to put pressure on the defense.

Even before accounting for any further loosening of the reins or hurry-up lessons Muschamp took from his Auburn stint, we should see a bump from the 2015 Gamecocks’ approach: a no-huddle that scrambled to the line and almost always checked to the sideline or ran a basic zone handoff.

The 2014 Gators had a running game with some nice diversity. It mixed a range of zone- and gap-blocking looks, often running off-tackle counter runs particularly effectively. Those Florida teams didn’t seem to attack the edges particularly well, and the quarterbacks didn’t quite get that involved, but Roper coaxed solid rushing totals out of passers in his last year at Duke.

The passing game was, at times, pretty nuanced, often relying on a short, controlled approach. They threw a lot of short drags that took time to develop or hitches to take advantage of off-coverage.

But both the running and passing games were scaled back in the second half of the year, and that points to the biggest thing that held back Florida’s offense: numerous passer problems.

The Jeff Driskel who played the first half of Muschamp’s final season in Gainesville appeared to be a broken player. Having gone through so many offensive staffs and injury, he was erratic, missing open passes and locating balls poorly with regularity. He was so off-target, he got benched for Treon Harris, a true freshman “athlete” who was only solid as a runner.

Between Perry Orth, Connor Mitch, Lorenzo Nunez, Michael Scarnecchia and true freshman Brandon McIlwain, the Muschamp-Roper braintrust will have more total talent at the spot that so badly tripped them up last time.

By the end of 2015, the Gamecocks’ offense was caught between an inconsistent, scaled-down base package with a barrage of curveballs. It might take a bit to get some spots reloaded and everything in place, but there’s a lot of intriguing elements Roper’s attack can bring to the table with the reins loosened.

Offense notes

▪  The Muschamp-Roper Gators worked almost exclusively out of one-back, one-tight end or two-tight end looks. That fed into power running, and the tight ends tended to be key, moving around the formation and setting things up.

▪  At times, defenses squeezed down on Florida’s base power runs, making them more of a grind than a play that can break some big gains.

▪  For the considerable level of raw receiving talent, the Gators’ receivers were not terribly consistent. The team also was not heavily reliant on screens despite facing defenses geared for the run.

▪  Roper’s attack had to change considerably when Harris replaced Driskel. In the team’s best late-season game, an upset of Georgia, the Gators hardly ever passed and ran almost exclusively zone plays inside, hammering ahead with only a few big plays when things broke outside.

Defense notes

▪  Muschamp’s Gators relied on a 4-3 base defense, but one with a lot of hybrids and flexibility. The buck defensive ends are tall and can act like linebackers, and the nickel safety is sort of a do-everything player. That flexibility sometimes means more bucks on the field in passing situations and moving them around or standing them up.

▪  The team had a variety of blitz and pressure packages, but didn’t seem particularly reliant on them. In 2014, linebackers and defensive backs had relatively few sacks, but the line did more than enough.

▪  Despite boasting a pair of five-star cornerbacks, Florida played a bit more off coverage than one might expect. They could lock down and press at spots, but the team played more zone and the stats bore out that it was on the bend-but-don’t-break end of things (and it didn’t bend much).

▪  Safeties and slot corners were a particular issue, but that might have been because of personnel. The final three defenses of Muschamp’s tenure were all excellent, even when they didn’t produce eye-popping pressure numbers.

Bonus: Key points from Roper’s more successful Duke offense

The game broken down here was a bowl (when teams can throw everything they have) where the Blue Devils lost a shootout against a not-great Texas A&M defense, and with offensive wizard David Cutcliffe overseeing things for Duke. That said, the offense looked well-run.

Roper’s last and best Duke attack was extremely diverse both on the ground and through the air. The running game had multiple elements: sweeps, zone and power runs, a little bit of a three-back diamond package.

Tight ends were mobile and involved in the passing game. The staff found ways to feed star slot receiver Jamison Crowder all over the field and deployed a solid screen game. Quarterback Anthony Boone wasn’t an ace passer, but the staff managed to coax enough productivity out of him.

The Blue Devils even effectively integrated a short-yardage package with a second quarterback. Intriguing to say the least.