The number of people who foresaw this coming is likely a small one.
The latest chapter in his story makes for a long enough anecdote of its own. Luke Del Rio won the starting QB job last offseason, and things generally went pretty well for him and the Gators when he was on the field. Of course, many fans are going to remember him for the Arkansas game, although the sum of his work isolated that as an aberration: Del Rio played that game with a non-functioning throwing shoulder, and it’s the one loss he’s been responsible for of the seven he’s played in at QB.
But he wasn’t on the field for even half of the season, missing a combined seven of Florida’s 13 games due to a knee and then a shoulder injury. The winter of 2017 rolled around, and Feleipe Franks, believed by many to be the most naturally talented quarterback on the Gators’ roster, confirmed those beliefs by winning the starting job over Del Rio and Notre Dame transfer Malik Zaire. Though he struggled in the opener against Michigan, Franks rebounded with a decent- not great, mind you, but decent- game against Tennessee, which he capped off with one of the greatest plays in college football history.
The play: Part II pic.twitter.com/dQq9B3QS69
— InAllKindsOfWeather.com (@AllKindsWeather) September 16, 2017
That game, and Franks’ performance in it, drew a lot of comparisons to Will Grier’s short career at Florida, in which he struggled in his first game and then a good portion of his second as the starter, but came alive in the fourth quarter against the Vols. Grier, of course, capped that day against the Vols with a play only slightly less memorable than Franks’.
The play. http://t.co/2UhekVj9U5
— InAllKindsOfWeather.com (@AllKindsWeather) September 27, 2015
Grier, of course, would ride the momentum he built against Tennessee with a game for the ages over 3rd ranked and eventual Sugar Bowl winner Mississippi. So the next line in the sequence for Franks, if the pattern continued, was a tremendous performance in his next game.
Instead, the polar opposite happened. Franks was 7/12 for 85 yards against Kentucky last week, and more than half of those yards came on one play where the Cats either forgot or refused to cover Tyrie Cleveland, the Gators’ most explosive receiver. The offense was so ineffective that Jim McElwain actually yanked his prized youngster early in the third quarter for second time in three games, this time in favor of Del Rio, who led Florida to its 31st consecutive victory over Kentucky.
Less than 36 hours later, McElwain announced that Del Rio would start against the Commodores in the latest twist to the long road he’s traveled in his football life, both mentally and physically. He started at Alabama, but that didn’t go as planned, so he transferred to Oregon State. That didn’t work either, and so he transferred to Florida, where he sat out another year and watched the trials of Will Grier and Treon Harris unfold. Then came aforementioned “Florida starting QB” chapter of his story, which ended with the second of two injuries, and seemingly closed the book on him. And then came the Kentucky game.
For all the bouncing around he’s done on depth charts and around the country, I’m sure that deep down, Del Rio knows this is his last chance. It has to be for several reasons, not the least of which is that the Gators currently have one of the top-rated quarterbacks in the country committed to play for them and may want or need him to step in right away. He’s likely going to have a shorter leash than Franks did, too, given that Franks is a freshman who still has a ton of room to grow and develop while Del Rio is a two time transfer who reached his ceiling long ago. For some, this knowledge can be a bit unnerving.
But for Luke, it may not be. His unquestionable intelligence and command of the offense more than makes up for his relative lack of arm strength, and he can be a serviceable quarterback with enough help around him. He’s also not the type of quarterback who ramps up the mistakes when the level of competition suddenly spikes, and Vanderbilt- despite what Alabama did to them last week- still has a very good defense that’s physical and quick enough to force mistakes. Which helps explain why McElwain went with the lower risk, lower reward Del Rio over the ultimate boom-or-bust Del Rio. for this game. And maybe for longer.
So let’s see what you can do, Luke.
