Florida Football: All is not lost after Feleipe Franks injury vs. Kentucky

As Florida football showed in a rallying win over Kentucky, the loss of Feleipe Franks can be overcome. What’s next for the Gators?

Sure, the Gators were likely playing on raw emotion after watching their star quarterback get seriously injured late in the third quarter on the road. And the pain of Franks being carted off the field with Florida down 21-10 to Kentucky gave the team a motivating factor.

But this is Dan Mullen and a proud program deep in history and talent. Florida can – and will – definitely overcome this loss.

Why? Well, Mullen for one. He has become quite the quarterback whisper over the years, helping groom signal callers such as Alex Smith, Chris Leak, Tim Tebow and Dak Prescott. Of course, his best work to date likely was Franks, who appeared to be a complete bust until the Gators hired Mullen to turn him and the program back around.

It was the typical next-man-in approach when Franks was carted off, as Kyle Trask came on and engineered Florida to a 29-21 victory. Trask completed 9 of 13 passes for 126 yards and even found the end zone on a four-yard run late in the fourth quarter that gave the Gators their first lead since 7-0 in the first.

Trask is a 6-foot-5, 240-pound redshirt junior from Texas who has waited for his time to shine. There might not be anything better in the college game today than a smart – he was named SEC Academic Honor Roll – kid who has sat on the sidelines, studied the playbook for years and now gets his chance on the big stage of the SEC.

And Florida has plenty of talent around him including Lamical Perine, Josh Hamond and Freddie Swain. Plus, the Gator defense was able to recover in the the final period and keep Kentucky off the scoreboard over the last 20 minutes of the game.

If Trask is not mobile enough for the Florida offense, Mullen can also push Emory Jones to compete with him for the job. Jones, a redshirt freshman from Georgia, is smaller at 6-foot-2 and under 200 pounds, but he is also smart, making the SEC Academic Honor Roll and was a highly-recruited prospect out of high school who picked the Gators over Ohio State, Florida State, Auburn and Alabama.

There will be little time for Florida to enjoy this dazzling victory, as they host Tennessee before a cupcake game to finish September with Towson. October, though, will show us who the team really is starting with Auburn coming to “The Swamp” followed by road dates at LSU and South Carolina before a neutral site meeting with Georgia to begin November.

The Gators have the ability to overcome this loss of Franks, but they will need to be at their best to survive the gauntlet of foes on the horizon.