Treon Harris has Florida Gators confidence soaring

Nashville — Will Muschamp walked over to his freshman quarterback after the Gators’ convincing win against SEC East rival Georgia and pulled him in for a hug.

Muschamp smiled and assured the quarterback who had just handed the ball off 60 times that “we’re gonna throw it more.”

Throw it more he did. A week after merely existing long enough to hand the ball off to Matt Jones and Kelvin Taylor (a la quarterback Mike Winchell in Friday Night Lights) Harris played an integral role in Florida’s 34-10 win over Vanderbilt.

Harris threw the ball 21 times, completing 13 passes for 215 yards. He also carried the ball 10 times for 49 yards and two touchdowns.

“We put some things on him tonight,” Muschamp said. “They’re going to load the box, we’ve got very talented guys outside who can go get the football. We still created some things in the run game.”

Harris was calm during his first official road game. The freshman’s calm, cool demeanor struck Vernon Hargreaves before the Georgia game.

“I was kind of nervous for him, just because it’s a big game,” Hargreaves said. “I went up to him before the game and went to him, started talking to him and he was like, ‘yeah, I’m ready.’ I’m like, ‘ok.’ Obviously, he was.”

Harris began the game hot; completing seven of his first eight pass attempts. The confidence that Harris has in himself and the confidence he exudes is infectious. His teammates can’t help but believe when he is in the game.

“He’s special. He’s a special player,” All-American cornerback Vernon Hargreaves said.

“I see a spark. I don’t know what it is about when he gets in with the offense but it’s a spark. I’m pretty sure y’all see it too,” junior defensive lineman Jon Bullard said. “It’s just like the whole offense clicks and this — I don’t know. I just watch from the sideline and they putting up points and that’s the most important thing to me.”

Harris has provided a spark, for sure. The Gators have won both games that he’s started and the offense has made a complete 180. Last week Florida had 445 total yards and followed that up with a 429-yard encore this week. The two performance’s couldn’t have been any more different with 418 rushing yards to 27 passing yards against Georgia and more balanced 215-to-214 passing to rushing yard ration against Vanderbilt.

The change came in part to the coaching staff’s confidence in Harris, who was given the ability to check out of plays this week if he didn’t get the right look.

“He’s a guy that’s overly coachable. He continues to work hard. The game comes easy to him,” Muschamp said. “He’ll continue to get better and continue to improve. We’ve got all the confidence in the world in him moving forward.”

The biggest change this week had to be Roper’s willingness to take shots down the field. Muschamp and Roper have both previously stated this season that the offensive line hasn’t been able to provide a long enough pass block to take those shots, but Florida — despite having three offensive linemen go down at different parts of the night — did take shots down the field.

“We’re definitely comfortable with Treon throwing the deep ball and our receivers going to get it,” junior running back Matt Jones said. “Like I said, Demarcus Robinson, he is definitely a great receiver like you all know, and Quinton Dunbar. So we love to throw the ball deep to those guys. In practice they make big plays and they made big plays tonight.”

As the media gathered and waited to speak with players following the game, Florida offensive coordinator Kurt Roper walked by.

“Hey,” he shouted towards us. “We completed a forward pass today. We didn’t set football back any farther.”

With the way the Gators have looked with No. 3 at quarterback, there will be plenty more forward passes as the Gators host the Ole Ball Coach and the South Carolina Gamecocks next Saturday at 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

2 COMMENTS

  1. This is a great win for Florida, oddly enough it was just as big, or bigger, than the win over Georgia. I know some may think that is crazy, but what Florida did against Georgia was totally unexpected. This was a game where UF performed like a good team should against a bad team on the road. There was no letdown, which could be excused after an emotional win and in a game that was the classic “sandwich” game between Georgia and South Carolina. Keep it up and FSU might even have to pull off a comeback against UF.

    • I actually agree with everything you said snow flake. Treon looked really good on the deep ball. It just solidified that Driskel is not a D1 QB even further when he skipped the ball to our receiver on that screen pass. Treon throws a beautiful ball too, and he knows what touch passes are. Overall great win. Now we SHOULD throw even better on SC. Statistically they are worse than Vandy but we all know stats doesn’t mean anything in football. Keep it up and Go Gators!