With just 10 days until the Florida Gators open the 2017 season head coach Jim McElwain isn’t ready to name a starting quarterback.
There’s an old saying in football, “If you have two quarterbacks, you have none”
Well, according to Jim McElwain, he has three.
“You’re going to see a bunch of them in there playing. I mean the three guys have done a really good job,” McElwain said Wednesday. “I think there’s some things that they all bring to the table that are really good. Now the key to us is putting them in those positions, you know, that play to their strengths.”
Malik Zaire, Luke Del Rio and Feleipe Franks all remain in the quarterback battle. Each has different strengths. Zaire is a mobile, Franks has a cannon for an arm and Del Rio has three years of experience with the playbook and system, as well as game experience for Florida.
Still, McElwain knows what the perception is. Most think he hasn’t named a starting quarterback because none of his options are good enough or one of the three hasn’t separated from the pack. Hardly where any football coach would want to be just over a week before the season, but a notion he rebuffed on Wednesday.
“I know we will have somebody at the position. This is not — don’t read into this — ‘we’re not happy where they’re at.’ It’s the competition has really brought out some good things,” McElwain said. “It’s going to be developing through that. Ultimately the guy that the team moves with the best. The guys that create positive plays on third down and get the ball in the end zone. That’s kind of where we’re at.”
Asked again why he’s not concerned with not having a starter McElwain exclaimed he wasn’t worried or concerned because, “I like the they’re playing.”
McElwain even floated an idea that all three quarterbacks will play. Did he mean in the opener against Michigan or perhaps just throughout the season? Is it a Jedi mind trick?
“Absolutely, definitively not doing that,” he said with a laugh.” There are no mind games.”