Florida Football vs Miami: 3 Keys For Graham Mertz & Film Breakdown

Florida quarterback Graham merch is going to need to have a good game and be a key contributor against Miami this upcoming weekend for Florida to win this game and the way I've kind of broken it down is is there's three different types of plays that I want to see merch be able to do consistently throughout the game in order for Florida to win I think he'll need a to to to make these three type of plays three type of throws essentially to beat Miami this upcoming weekend again this is week one so we have no 2024 film to go off of but if we're talking about Miami's defense I would go out and limb and say I think they're going to be pretty good this year right they were a good defense last year one of the better defenses in the ACC only giving up 227 yards per game through the air I would imagine them having another solid defense this year I think last year they only gave up 30 points or more three times in the regular season one was against Drake way Drake may excuse me one of the best quarterbacks in college football last year the other time was against Louisville I think they got 31 in a win I believe maybe 38 and the other game was against Texas A&M which Miami was already ahead handily they already had the game in hand andm was able to score to get past that 30 Mark last year with that said I think Miami's defense is going to be pretty pretty solid so with that said what does gr Mish need to do what are the three takeaways or three keys I think Merz needs to be able to do and perform for Florida to have success and we're going to watch a few clips of film we're going to dive into it uh here in about a minute or two that kind of demonstrates the point we're trying to get get across right right number one I think merch is going to have to play to one of his strings and that was getting the ball out quickly getting the ball out on time that's part of Napier's offense you don't want to take unnecessary sacks that was something Mar did very well last year only 8% of the sacks he took last year was his fault according to PFS so for just for some context uh Quinn Ys led the SEC last year I'm grouping Quin yers in uh his last year 2023 performance I'm just grouping him into SE quarterbacks this year he would have led the SEC uh with Sachs being his fault of 25% and merch was number one as far as Sachs not being his fault last year at 8% so continue to get rid of the ball quick to avoid sacks also 47% of merch's throws the ball was out in less than two and a half seconds it's tough to get to the quarterback if the ball is coming out quick the ball is coming out on time you have good Rhythm right so number one for Merz lean into what made you good last year even even if you weren't chunking the ball downfield as much as maybe gator fans want you to at least initially that's okay take what the defense gives you that's Point number two take what the defense gives you lean into if they're going to give these throws then take it take these quick short throws have the defense start creeping in lean into taking what the defense gives you you want to control the game and control the clock I if you're on the field cam Ward's not on the field that's a good thing right so number one Play to your strengths get the ball out quickly we talked about how good he did that last year number two take with the defense gives you and that kind of goes hand in hand if you're taking the defense gives you you're probably getting the ball out quickly right so that's number one that's number two number three is a little bit different number three I think you are going to have to have one or two big completions to win this game so number three is strategic deep shots built off of Point number two you want the defense a Miami defense who's athletic good DBS able to cover ground you want them to start getting bored almost you want them to be like man they've taking five or six yard throws these quick Slants throws you want them to start creeping in a little bit and then you want to take some strategic deep shots and and once they start creeping in it would obviously help if you get the Run game going but once they start creeping in a lot of Mer's success last year especially his deep throws rough play action he had 11 touchdowns and zero interceptions off play action his yards per attempt were 9.2 off play action compared to 7.4 when he wasn't using play action so I think get the defense to creep in you want to stay in in in running Downs or first and 10 or or second and seven third and five you want to stay in those Downs where the Run game is a threat so Merz can use play action to take to take the Deep shots we're going to see in the film we're about to watch here in a second uh his deep shots are off play action we're going to see him get rid of the ball quickly we're going to see him go through his progressions quickly get rid of the ball quickly be on time and take some shots downfield so with that said let's watch these films it's just it's broadcast footage so I apologize the film's not perfect but does a good job getting the point across as far as merch playing to your strengths taking the defense gives you get rid of the ball quickly but also take some strategic shots down field and real quick this is your first time tuning in to the channel thank you for watching we put out SEC quarterback content on a regular basis film breakdowns we have two live shows per week we're starting this week on week one so if that's your cup of tea please like share and subscribe with that said let's transition into this film breakdown we'll wrap the video up all right so here we're going to see a deep shot from merch like we talked about we want to get the defense to start creeping up so we're going to see this safety here starts creeping up here that's a play action run right here to this running back right so as we talked about play action and then the Deep shots that was something merch had more success on push the ball down field than just straight drop back without it and I think I think these type of plays is something you can do against Miami if you can start get them to creep up again you can see the safety start creeping in just a little a little bit we'll go ahead and and play it here boom yeah you can kind of see the safeties coming up coming up coming up coming up and then too late right boom little bit no man's land you got how many one two three four five six seven guys pretty much within five yards now you only have four DBS essentially to guard the rest of the field so we're going to see let's go ahead and play here boom so we're going to see play action safety is trying to get back in time we're going to see merch hits peol number one running across the middle here and then you can I guess March gets cut out of the video footage but you can see still able to push the ball downfield about 25ish yard throw not quite 25 yeah about 24 actually yeah good throw there right so play action push the ball downfield get the defense out of position next clip and both these the rest of these clips are actually all play action I believe from from merch let's see if we going to yeah so we get to keep going yep play action we're going to see this is kind of a short to immediate throw this is what we want to see but again it gets the defense out of position one two three four five six seven all here notice the linebacker moved in here for the the the threat of the run I'll delete all this he moved in here from the threat of the run and now he's going to try to recover this is where Merz goes with the ball right where the backer probably should have been if I'm not mistaken all right so we'll go ahead and play it let's let's see boom play it right ball comes out shter immediate throw again going through going through his progressions uh but the use of play action getting the defense out of position ends up being a good throw there right taking the defense gives you this last clip we're going to watch is this a good example of March getting rid of the ball quickly something that we want to see especially at the beginning of the game against Miami want to see him get rid of the ball quickly right so just a recap we I think he's going to have to have deep throws I think he's going to have to lean into what he was good at and that's taking what the defense gives you and right here get rid of the ball quickly don't let them get any pressure on you against another quick play action and we're going to see this Ball's out in like two seconds remember 47% of his throws the ball was out in two and a half seconds here boom okay so here we go sorry I'm doing a new uh a new video thing so give me a second to figure it out so here we go play action the ball comes out quickly again notice the defense just starts creeping up here there's seven guys in the box if you can do this you can hopefully have some success against uh Miami's defense ball comes out quickly we talked about less than two and a half seconds the ball's out ends up being a good play there for for Mar TR so just a recap against Miami what do we want to see well we want to see the ball come out quickly right just like this throw here uh lean into what he does well that's running ne's offense the ball coming out quickly like this throw here boing any sacks right and then you want to take what the defense gives you all these clips he took what the defense gave him these three Clips right now yes play action really helped with that too but he took what the defense gave you number three I think you're going to have to have some deep throws to beat Miami um this upcoming weekend but Florida fans quarterback fans SEC fans let me know your thoughts I want to hear from you what do you think merch needs to do how do you think uh Florida needs to attack Miami's defense let me know your thoughts in the comments below and again please like share subscribe it really does help we'll see you next time peace