Luke Del Rio will start for Florida Gators against Vanderbilt

The Florida Gators will start redshirt junior quarterback Luke Del Rio this week against the Vanderbilt Commodores. This will be the seventh start of Del Rio’s career at Florida.

“Moving forward to this week, Luke will take the starting reps in practice,” McElwain said Monday. “The other two guys will get their reps as well.”

Redshirt freshman Feleipe Franks entered the season as the starter but has been pulled from two of the team’s first three games in favor of Malik Zaire and Luke Del Rio. It was Del Rio that finished the comeback win against Kentucky, finishing 9-14 for 74 yards with a touchdown and interception.

Del Rio entered the Kentucky game with 5:54 remaining in the third quarter and the Gators trailing 24-14. The redshirt junior threw an interception on his first drive, one that he took responsibility for after the game.

“It was a miscommunication on my part. The wideout did a good job of keeping it skinny. I thought they stayed two high, they rotated down, the boundary safety stayed in a two-high alignment but it ended up being a single high,” Del Rio explained last Saturday. “Josh did a good job at running a single high adjustment. I thought he was going to bend it in. That’s on me.”

After the interception Del Rio completed 7-of-11 pass attempts for 67 yards, including a touchdown pass to Freddie Swain that tied the game. Franks was 7-of-12 passing for 85 yards, including a 45-yard touchdown to Tyrie Cleveland in the second quarter.

Florida hosts Vanderbilt, who is coming off of a 59-0 loss to Alabama last week, at noon this Saturday in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

Nick de la Torre
A South Florida native, Nick developed a passion for all things sports at a very young age. His love for baseball was solidified when he saw Al Leiter’s no-hitter for the Marlins live in May of 1996. He was able to play baseball in college but quickly realized there isn’t much of a market for short, slow outfielders that hit around the Mendoza line. Wanting to continue with sports in some capacity he studied journalism at the University of Central Florida. Nick got his first start in the business as an intern for a website covering all things related to the NFL draft before spending two seasons covering the Florida football team at Bleacher Report. That job led him to GatorCountry. When he isn’t covering Gator sports, Nick enjoys hitting way too many shots on the golf course, attempting to keep up with his favorite t.v. shows and watching the Heat, Dolphins and Marlins. Follow him on twitter @NickdelatorreGC