After an eventful offseason, Florida football opens the 2017 season on Sept. 2nd against Michigan. Here are five bold predictions for the Gators’ campaign.
The Florida Gators have had one of the more eventful offseasons in all of college football.
From a much publicized quarterback competition between Notre Dame transfer Malik Zaire and redshirt freshman Feleipe Franks, to a mass exodus of talent to the NFL from the team’s secondary, to a bizarre case of eight players placing improper charges on their university student IDs, it’s been an interesting summer in Gainesville.
The Gators are coming off a season which they finished 9-4 and won the SEC East for the second season in a row under second-year head coach Jim McElwain.
However, this season the SEC East could be a whole lot tougher.
Kirby Smart has been building an incredibly formidable program at Georgia, which is currently ranked the No. 15 team in the nation by the AP Poll.
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If the No. 17-ranked Florida Gators are to have any chance of holding off the surging Bulldogs, they will need to take the next step under coach McElwain and finally deliver a balanced attack on both sides of the ball.
McElwain is known as an offensive-minded head coach, but thus far in his Gainesville tenure, the Gators have relied on their stout defense to keep the team in games while the offense largely failed to find consistency.
However, this may be the season where Florida’s offense becomes something to be feared, after an influx of new, hungry talent.
With that in mind, here are five bold predictions for the Florida Gators’ 2017 season.
5. Florida will lose Week 1 to Michigan
Week one is going to be a seriously important game for the Florida Gator if the team wants any chance of winning the SEC East in 2017. Harbaugh
Currently ranked the No.17 team in the nation by the AP poll, Florida will be facing off against coach Jim Harbaugh’s No. 11 University of Michigan Wolverines on Saturday Sep. 2, in a game that could have serious college football playoff implementations.
On paper the two teams are relatively well matched. They each have stout, top-10 defenses, fairly pedestrian offenses and a pair of headstrong third year head coaches. One factor that could seriously swing the tide in Michigan’s favor is star running back Jordan Scarlett’s suspension.
Scarlett and a plethora of his teammates, including starting receiver Antonio Callaway, have been suspended by the university for a multitude of issues ranging from marijuana abuse, to misusing school-issued funds.
In past seasons, losing that many players for the first game of the college football season wasn’t that big of a deal, since most teams would schedule smaller, out of conference schools to serve as a warmup before in-conference play. However, after college football shifted to a four team playoff system teams began scheduling more challenging, out of conference games in-order to strengthen their playoff resumes.
In such a potentially tight game, being without two of the team’s best offensive weapons will surely hurt the Gator’s ability to attack Michigan’s stingy defense, especially with the team breaking in a new, first year quarterback.
4. Jabari Zuniga records more than 9 sacks
The Florida Gators had one of the best defenses in the nation last season. However, the team wasn’t particularly good at getting pressure on opposing quarterbacks. Maybe it was because the team was so good in coverage that opposing offensive coordinators had to shift to a quick, three-step drop passing scheme? Or perhaps the defensive line just wasn’t able to get consistent pressure from its four down lineman.
While Florida’s defense ranked fivth in the nation in total defense, it only ranked 38th in the nation at total sacks with 31. That’s a whopping 15 less than the team’s 2017 week one opponent.
Three of the Gators four starting defensive lineman, Caleb Brantley, Joey Ivie and Bryan Cox Jr departed Gainsville for the NFL following the 2016 season. The one player who remains, Jabari Zuniga, may be the most intriguing on the entire Florida Gators defense.
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Last season, Brantley, Ivie and Cox combined for 5.5 sacks. Zuniga nearly matched that number by himself, with five quarterback sacks during his redshirt freshman campaign. Now that the promising end has a year of in-game experience under his belt its worth asking just how good Jabari Zuniga can be?
Zuniga, a three-star recruit from Marietta, Georgia, lead all freshman in the SEC in sacks during his second season on campus, a feat that even former Gators great, and future first round draft pick Dante Fowler Jr wasn’t able to accomplish.
Much like Fowler, who played in a different scheme under a different head coach, Zuniga shows of the kind of difference-making ability that forces opposing teams to take notice. But unlike when Folwer played for the Gators, teams won’t be able to double team Zuniga consistently, because of the emergence of his defensive line-mates Jordan Sherit, who recorded 3.5 sacks last season, and CeCe Jefferson, who recorded an additional 1.5 sacks for the team last season.
Unlike last season’s defensive line that prided itself on stopping the run, but was weak against the pass, this season’s squad looks primed to deliver a more balanced attack, with more sack.
If Florida’s new look defensive line is able to consistently apply pressure to opposing quarterbacks from every position, it will allow Jabari Zuniga a chance to feast on unsuspecting quarterbacks, and potentially surpass Fowler’s career sack total, 14.5, after only two seasons.
3. Malik Zaire will score more rushing touchdowns then passing touchdowns
After deciding to leave Notre Dame after the 2016 college football season, many Gators fans assumed that Malik Zaire transferred to Florida in-order to become the team’s new starting quarterback.
After suffering through a season of mediocre quarterback play from Purdue transfer Austin Appleby and Oregon State transfer Luke Del Rio, the Gator faithful welcomed a change to a more dual-threat quarterback in 2017, even if it came in the form of another transfer. That was at least until Aug. 30, when coach Jim McElwain named redshirt freshman Feleipe Franks the Gators starting quarterback.
While this is surely an unfortunate situation for Zaire, who struggled to find consistent playing time at Notre Dame, it might not be all bad for the graduate transfer.
Coach McElwain has already stated that he intends to play more than one quarterback in any given game, so Zaire could find himself in a similar position to that of Tim Tebow when he first arrived in Gainesville.
Feleipe Franks definitely offers upside as a prototypical pro-style pocket passer that Zaire does not, but his athleticism doesn’t hold a candle to the Fighting Irish transfer.
While Zaire hasn’t been able to show off his passing abilities consistently thus-far in his college playing career, he has found success as a runner. Having a mobile, duel-threat quarterback in short yardage and red zone situations definitely gives a team an advantage, and for the Gators, Malik Zaire could fill that role.
Zaire could be inserted into the game in specific packages that optimize his playing style. That wrinkle would give the Gators a different look from the vertical passing scheme the team will surely employ with Franks.
Definitely look out for Zaire’s inclusion on goal line plays, where his dynamic running abilities could insure easy read-option touchdowns.
2. Florida doesn’t have a thousand-yard rusher for the second year in a row
It’s been awhile since Florida has had a truly transcendent star running back prospect, and it doesn’t look like that will change anytime soon. Currently slated to start for the team is junior running back Jordan Scarlett.
Scarlett, a 5-foot-10 back from Fort Lauderdale rushed for 889 yards as the star of the Gator’s committee of running backs during his sophomore season. While conventional wisdom would suggest that Scarlett could be in for a bump in production as he enters his all-important junior season, that simply may not be the case.
The Gators do have an incredibly veteran offensive line, and are starting a rookie quarterback. Those are two factors that typically signal a commitment to running the ball, but with Scarlett’s impending game one suspension, things become much less clear.
There are currently four running backs behind Scarlett on Florida’s depth chart. Players like redshirt senior Mark Thompson and true sophomore Lamical Perine are eagerly waiting in the wings for their chance to take over the starting job.
In reality, while Scarlett may not lose his job as the team’s lead back because of his absence in week one, he is without a doubt giving his competition a chance to get more in-game reps, and potentially improve upon their stock, and eventual pitch count once Scarlett return.
Having a lead back who can take over games and break the century mark is something all team hope to recruit, but it looks like in 2017 the Gators will again find themselves relying on a running back by committee.
1. Feleipe Franks is named the SEC Freshman of the Year
Many fans, this writer included, were shocked when they heard the news that Felipe Franks was named the Florida Gators starting quarterback less than a week before the team’s week one game against Michigan, but after some analysis it makes perfect sense.
Franks, a 4-star, pro-style recruit from Crawfordville Florida, has spent his first season in Gainsville in coach McElwin’s quarterback room, learning the ins and outs of the Gator’s pistol spread offense.
While redshirt players obviously can’t take in-game reps during the season, they do get to practice with the team, and build chemistry with its position players both off and on the field.
And now it’s clear that McElwain believes that his young signal caller has the tools needed to be a cornerstone of his offense for years to come. After cycling through a small army of quarterbacks in his first two years as the Gator’s head coach, it’ll be nice to have some consistency at the position.
Starting a freshman is not without its challenges, but Franks is entering a situation that is very conducive to his immediate success.
Franks will be the lone freshman starting for the Gator’s offense, with a veteran offensive line in front of him, and a stable of experienced ball handlers spread out across the field. This collection of players should help to boost Franks confidence and encourage him to allow his receivers to make plays, instead of playing the game too conservatively, or recklessly.
Additionally, Franks will also have a freshman quarterbacks best friend in 2017: one of the nations best defenses. A stingy Gator defense will insure that Florida remains competitive in every game they suite up for, and wont force Franks to have to outscore his opponents.
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If Feleipe Franks is able to take advantage of the system he has inherited, he has the tools needed to be the best rookie signal caller in the entire nation, and a shoe-in to be named the SEC’s Rookie of the Year Award.