Film Room: How Florida Kept Texas' Defense Off Balance

The once No. 1-ranked Texas Longhorns have fallen 18 spots in the Associated Press poll over the past two weeks after taking losses to the unranked Oklahoma Sooners and Florida Gators. The latter of those two games was particularly brutal, as the Gators took down the Longhorns at home, handing them their second loss of the season for the second year in a row.

Many things went wrong for the Longhorns on Saturday, however their defensive struggles were particularly noticeable. Defensive coordinator Will Muschamp's unit surrendered 313 yards, the second-most they have all season, and in general was not up to the standard the have set this season.

Those struggles were in spite of the fact that Florida was forced into starting quarterback Tramell Jones Jr., a sophomore who had 64 pass attempts to his name prior to the game, after regular starter Aaron Philo Jr. went down with an injury. So, how did Gators offensive play-caller Buster Faulkner create advantages for his inexperienced passer?

Well, he had a little trick up his sleeve.

How Florida Beat the Texas Defense With Boot-Action

Faulkner utilized many tools from his utility belt to maximize Jones' strengths and minimize his weakness, however his favorite was arguably boot-action.

Boot-action is when the quarterback fakes a hand-off to the running back and then 'boots' out of the pocket the other way. It causes conflict in the second-level, gets the quarterback's legs involved and lets the passer make a simple half-field read instead of a complicated full-field one.

Florida used boot-action, or had Jones go through the footwork of the boot while handing the ball off, on 22.2% of their plays. It was their most consistently effective action, keeping Texas off-balance all game.

*A 'successful play' is one which gains 40% or more yards to the first down line on first down, 70% or more on second down, and 100% or more on third or fourth down

Why was it so effective? Faulkner's unit was able to execute simple, complementary concepts over and over again, forcing Texas to be great at all three levels.

Here is what that looked like:

Florida's success with boot-action starts with their ability to establish the run. Jones is in the 'pistol' a few yards behind the center and with running back Jadan Baugh directly behind him, giving Florida the ability to threaten all parts of the field with the run.

This time, the Gators are attacking the field, or wide, side of the field with an outside zone run. This run has the entire offensive line move in one direction while looking to open a hole through either the A, B, C, or D gap.

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As Baugh takes the handoff, he attacks the outside shoulder of the tight end, forcing the end man on the line of scrimmage to either defend the inside or outside gap. Once he chooses one, Baugh attacks the next, reading the next inside defender the same way.

This time, the outside man 'boxes' the run, forcing Baugh to cutback inside, following his blockers for a five-yard gain.

Florida only turned one of those boot-runs into a gain of more than five yards, but their ability to grind out yards in those looks forced Texas into overcommitting, which opened major holes in the passing game.

Take this play for example:

Here Florida has a play-action-boot called with a slide route from the detached tight end on the back side.

As Florida's line moves to sell the fake, linebackers Rasheem Biles and Brad Spence bite down, taking a read step in case the Gators really do hand the ball to Baugh.

However, once Jones pulls the ball, Spence gets stuck with his eyes in the backfield, staring down Baugh while the real ball-carrier evacuates to the backside of the play with a wide-open man running with him. Safety Kobe Black also fails to properly react to the slide route, giving Jones the easiest 1st-down completion of his life.

Florida used a play-action bootleg pass five times against Texas, gaining an average of 8.8 yards on those attempts.

Faulkner was not a one-trick pony on Saturday, however his boot-action game made life easy for his inexperienced passer and left the Longhorns completely dumb-founded.

While the unorthodox nature of Faulkner's play-calling makes it unlikely that Texas will see quite that much bootleg in any one game for the rest of the season, Muschamp still needs to recognize that his unit is not bullet-proof, and they will need to be better prepared if they want to take down the Ole Miss Rebels this weekend.

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