Florida Football: Feleipe Franks named Gators’ Week 1 starter
Florida football head coach Jim McElwain surprised the college football world by naming Feleipe Franks the Week 1 starter over Malike Zaire.
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Jim McElwain has kept his cards close to the vest when it comes to who would be his starting quarterback going into Week 1 of the college football season. Right up until the eve of the Gators’ season. Only four days before the Gators opening game against No. 11 Michigan, McElwain officially named Feleipe Franks the team’s starting quarterback.
This announcement may come as a shock to some fans. It was widely assumed that senior transfer Malik Zaire was a near lock to be named the Gators starting quarterback. McElwain insisted that the team would have an open competition between Zaire, Franks and incumbent Luke Del Rio. He even suggested that the team could play all three quarterbacks against Michigan.
Franks is a 6-foot-6, 4-star recruit from Crawfordville Florida. He was named the No. 5 pro-style quarterback in the 2016 recruiting class. While he doesn’t have any in-game experience in McElwain’s offense, Franks does possess just as much experience in the scheme as Del Rio and one year more than Zaire. Del Rio was incredibly inefficient last year and Zaire has only been on campus for the summer.
Committing now to a player like Franks gives McElwain a young building block. With four years of eligibility remaining Franks could be the cornerstone for years to come. That’s something that Zaire, essentially a one year player, does not offer. But for Zaire fans this isn’t all bad.
It’s entirely possible that the Gators could still use Malike Zaire as a red zone, option quarterback throughout the 2017 season, similarly to how Urban Meyers used Tim Tebow early in his career.
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Regardless of how the Gators coaching staff decides to split up the reps among its quarterbacks this season, committing to Feleipe Franks is a good move that should pay dividends for the team for years to come.