ATLANTA — The time has come for Jim McElwain to think about the future of the Florida Gators.
For five games in 2015 it looked as if McElwain had his starting quarterback in Will Grier before a PED suspension ended that ride abruptly. Through three games in 2016 it looked like Luke Del Rio would be the answer. Del Rio never rebounded after a knee injury against North Texas. Purdue graduate transfer Austin Appleby will exhaust his eligibility after the Gators’ bowl game, so the time is now. Florida needs to pick a freshman quarterback and see what they have moving forward.
“That’s one of those deals I think we have to sit down with them and their parents and handlers and all that,” McElwain said of playing a freshman at quarterback. “I’m not sure it’s fair, but at the same time, I know they want to play. So we’ll see.”
This move could have been made sooner. A home game against South Carolina would have been a nice icebreaker for either Feleipe Franks or Kyle Trask but McElwain didn’t pull the trigger. You can argue that it was the right decision to wait. Florida was playing for a chance to win the SEC East all the way up until its game with LSU in Baton Rouge. Getting to Atlanta was priority number one for McElwain and Appleby provided a veteran guide to an offense that was struggling.
Now, the Gators need to develop a quarterback for the future and McElwain knows it.
“That’s something we’ve got to do,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure that happens sooner or later, and that’s my responsibility, and it will get done.”
Florida will likely play in the Outback bowl on January 2. They’ll have 15 bowl practices to get Franks or Trask meaningful snaps with the first string offense, many of the same players that will return next season. That’s 15 opportunities for a young freshman to start getting his feet wet and a start in a bowl game, which is otherwise meaningless, to let your freshman quarterback not have his first snap come against Michigan in 2017.
Doing this would burn a potential redshirt for either Franks or Trask. Quite frankly, that doesn’t matter.
If you’re good enough to play quarterback at a high level for the University of Florida you’re not going to be in Gainesville for five years. If Franks is the answer for the Gators, he won’t be the starting quarterback in 2020, so why concern yourself over a redshirt season in 2016?
“He makes all the decisions like that, and I leave it up to him. That’s why he’s the coach of the Florida Gators,” Franks said after the game. “What I do is I sit back and learn from guys like Appleby that have been there and played the game and know what they’re doing and know a lot about what they’re doing. I think it’s a big thing for me to do that. Just learning from them, it’s helped me a lot in just every aspect of the game.”
McElwain seemed cautious about burning a redshirt for either freshman, but Kyle Trask was largely unconcerned about that status.
“It’s never about the redshirt,” Trask said. “It’s always about what the team needs. If that’s what Coach wants, and he’s going to make whatever decision he wants to make and we’re going to roll with it.”
McElwain was eventually going to turn to Franks or Trask. Whether it was 2016, or 2017, or beyond that it was inevitable. Florida has been looking endlessly for a quarterback since Tim Tebow left and now it’s time to see what you have in your two freshmen. To steal a line from former Florida Athletic Director Jeremy Foley,
What should be done eventually must be done immediately.