2020 Florida football predictions on the HG

By Jake Wimberly:

What’s to like:

Year three of the Dan Mullen era in Florida has a lot to be desired. One, the Gators return on paper the top quarterback in the SEC in Kyle Trask. Trask completed right at 67 percent of his passes a year ago, and had a great touchdown to interception ratio (3.6/1), throwing 25 touchdowns to only seven interceptions.

The Gators also gave up only 15 points per game and if you took off the 42 LSU put on them, this group was one of the best in the country.

Mullen has also slightly raised the Gators recruiting profile and used the transfer portal to bring in some guys who have and will continue to contribute to the program.

What’s not to like:

Mullen’s big game track record. If the Gators are truly going to make the next step under Mullen, which is the SEC title game and College Football Playoff, then he has to coach better in big games and against teams with more talent.

Mullen for his career has only a 33 percent winning percentage when coaching against better talented teams. That played out again last year, as the Gators lost to LSU and Georgia, who out recruit the Gators, but did beat Auburn who recruits slightly ahead of Mullen’s club.

This year Mullen plays only two teams of such and that is Georgia and LSU; who are annually on the schedule. He will likely need to beat both to win the SEC East.

What does the Hourglass Say?

2020 Florida pick: Gators 11-1 overall, runner up in the SEC East

2019 HG analytics pick: 10-2; Actual Record 10-2 (100 percent)

2018 Analytics Pick 8-4; Actual Record 10-2 (83 percent accuracy)

2017 Analytics Pick 7-4; Actual Record 4-7 (75 percent accuracy)

Three-year analytic percentage on Florida = 86 percent

  2020 Florida Analytics –

Hour Glass National Recruiting Ranking (three-year metric): 9th – Inside our Realistic College Football Playoff, National Championship Talent line. The Gators have a roster worthy of playing for a National Title.

National Coaching Rank for Dan Mullen on HG Scale: 12th (Dan Mullen 2020 coaching value set at 12) – Average coaching value for 2020 set at 6.5. – Mullen is well above average in coaching in college football.

Returning Florida quarterback play rated 9th in the country in our Power Five quarterback Rankings. Average quarterback metric for 2020 set at 11.66.  Florida quarterback metric value is 21.9 – Florida quarterback play is considered well above average on our metric.

ODE Analytics – NOTE: ODE is our offensive and defensive scoring efficiency ranking for each team. We use a two-year evaluation of each program.

Florida ranks 8th in the country in our 2020 ODE evaluation. Offensively they have a ranking of 11th in the country and defensively 14th in the country.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

This team is close – but, sometimes it takes a year or two to go from close to over the top and this is where Dan Mullen and Florida are in 2020. They are trending right in every metric we have, and the biggest question is Georgia this year.

Georgia has won three in a row and six of the last nine versus the Gators. If Mullen can pull off a victory against Kirby Smart, his team may be headed to the College Football Playoff in 2020.

Florida has the easiest schedule in the SEC on our metric scale and the table is set for a great year in Gainesville.

Projected Hour Glass W/L record: Games in red denote games that could be a one possession game or even a different outcome than projection.