Michigan at Florida: 3 storylines to follow in week one
1. Just how many quarterbacks will Florida play?
There’s an old adage in football that states, “If you have two quarterbacks, you actually have none.” Apparently no one told this to Jim McElwain.
In a recent interview, McElwain stated that he could end up playing as many as three quarterbacks in his squad’s Week 1 game against the Michigan. This comes as a surprise to some fans, who simply assumed that recent transfer Malik Zaire was a near-lock to start for the Gators in 2017.
Zaire, a duel-threat graduate transfer from Notre Dame chose to attend Florida over a number of other strong suitors in hopes of finally finding some consistently. In four seasons at Notre Dame, Malik split duties with players DeShone Kizer and Everett Golson, but never truly received the nod to be the team’s starting quarterback.
This, he surely assumed, would have changed upon arriving in Gainesville, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Joining Zaire in Florida’s QB room are Luke Del Rio, a redshirt junior who played for the team last season, and four-star redshirt freshman Feleipe Franks.
Unlike Zaire, Del Rio (the son of Oakland Raiders head coach Jack Del Rio) and Franks are both traditional pocket passers whose playing styles share little resemblance to that of Zaire. For a coach to shift his offensive scheme so drastically over the course of a game to accommodate such a varied cast of quarterbacks seems quite odd, and extremely ineffective.
However, it could all be a smokescreen.
In reality, Zaire brings a new wrinkle to McElwain’s offense that he hasn’t had while at Florida. Zaire’s running ability opens up a new set of read-option and run-pass-options plays that Del Rio and Franks simply do not possess. This dynamic new running scheme could help to open up the passing game, and unleash the pistol spread offensive scheme that McElwain is known for his time at Colorado State.
But if Zaire is the guy why not just anoint him the guy?
Well Michigan’s head coach Jim Harbaugh also hasn’t named a starting quarterback going into week one, and forcing him to prepare for two drastically different types of quarterbacks could be part of Jim McElwain’s plan to catch the Wolverines off-guard. Much like Michigan, Florida hasn’t been known as an offensive juggernaut in college football for some time, so any advantage they can get against a team of Michigan’s caliber is worth a try.
Related Story: Florida Football: Is Malik Zaire a good fit with the Gators?
Update:
Coach McElwain has named Feleipe Franks the starting quarterbacK for the Florida Gators’ Week 1 game against Michigan.
Franks, a 6-foot-6 former four-star pro-style recruit from Crawfordville, Fla., spent his first season on Florida’s campus redshirting, but is now expected to receive extended playing time in the Gators Week 1 game.
Next: Florida Football: Feleipe Franks named Gators’ Week 1 starter
While McElwain could again be using this as a smokescreen, and could still potentially intend to use Zaire in a similar way to how former Gators coach Urban Meyer used Tim Tebow early in his career, only time will tell exactly what will happen.