It's early, but Florida's offense looks scary good already

Over the spring and summer I made a series of decisions to secure my family's financial future. I liquidated my wife and I's retirement accounts, cashed out my kids' college savings, and sold one of our two family cars to purchase every share of Jon Sumrall's Florida program I could afford. But I'm beginning to worry I didn't go far enough.

With the added caveat that it's early and they haven't faced a murder's row of opponents quite yet, the offense in particular looks more fearsome than even the most optimistic projections (mine) anticipated. In terms of pure counting statistics, the Gators rank:

2nd in scoring (54 points per game)
17th in rushing (246 yards per game)
24th in passing (298.3 yards per game)
3rd in total offense (544.3 yards per game)
4th in yards per play (7.97)
16th in red zone touchdowns (82.35 percent)
2nd in gains of 20-plus yards (23)

A quarter of the way through the season, one in every nine Gators plays goes for at least 20 yards. Counting against that number are the 12 touchdowns Florida has scored from inside the 20 yard line. Remove those plays, and the explosive play ratio is now 1-in-8. And Florida's counting stats would be even gaudier if Vernell Brown III didn't take two punts back for touchdowns against Campbell. 

Coordinator Buster Faulkner's decision to bring quarterback Aaron Philo with him from Georgia Tech, along with Sumrall and company's ability to keep Jaden Baugh, Brown and Dallas Wilson from capitalizing upon the king's ransom awaiting each of them in the transfer portal, has built an offense that builds upon itself to threaten defenses at all three levels. Baugh ranks 19th in the nation at 8.48 yards per carry, which sounds good until you consider he's carried the ball 54 times and none of the 18 players in front of him have registered even 40 carries. Baugh has also selflessly hurt his yards-per-carry average by scoring four touchdowns to date from seven yards or fewer, destroying his personal numbers for the betterment of the team. One could say he also sacrifices his body for the team, but something tells me he blocks like this because he finds it fun.

Complimenting him, Philo is eighth nationally in passing efficiency, hitting 73.4 percent of his throws for 11.3 yards per attempt. Most telling from Philo's stat line are his completion and attempt numbers from his first three games as a Gator:

-- 16-of-21 vs. Florida Atlantic
-- 16-of-21 vs. Campbell
-- 15-of-22 at Auburn

Sure, two of those games were blowouts, but Auburn was not. (The Tigers hit a 35-yard touchdown pass was 24 seconds left to make the 44-39 final appear closer than the game really was.) Sumrall and Faulkner clearly know what their offense is and what it is not, and they've identified the number of times they want Philo throwing the ball, as well as who they want him throwing it to. Brown has 14 catches for 246 yards and two touchdowns thus far, while Wilson is at 12 for 225 and two; no other Gator has 10 receptions, 100 receiving yards, or multiple touchdown catches.

Knowing what you want to be and executing it are two different things, and the most encouraging aspect thus far is that Florida has yet to go consecutive possessions without scoring. "I had no doubt how we were going to play on offense," Sumrall said after Saturday's Auburn game, which saw the Gators throw for 252 yards and run for 243, go 10-of-15 on money downs, and score on all five red zone trips. "Offensively, I knew we were going to run the ball on them; I knew we were going to throw the ball on them."

So, what does this all mean? Again, Florida has admittedly played a soft schedule thus far: FAU, Campbell and Auburn (whom I have ranked 15th in the SEC right now). Between now and Halloween, Sumrall's team plays three of the top four teams in the latest AP Top 25, starting with No. 4 Ole Miss at home on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC). November looks relatively light by SEC standards, but Florida has to survive late September and October first. 

But oddsmakers don't see this Saturday's game as a battle between the fourth-best team in the country and the 21st (Florida's current ranking).

No one's ready to put a crown atop Sumrall's head or mock Florida into a Playoff bracket just yet, but the Gators have to be more than encouraged by what they've seen thus far. And if you see me on Facebook marketplace selling off my furniture later this fall, you'll know why.