Florida survives upset-minded Miami, but can Gators trust Feleipe Franks?

Florida defeated Miami 24-20 in the first game of the college football season, but it didn’t come without its fair share of head-scratchers from the Gator signal-caller.

Feleipe Franks put up good numbers, and for many parts of the game, he looked like the quarterback everyone expected him to be. The talent was there, the decision-making wasn’t.

Franks tried to give away the game vs. Miami with a pair of mind-numbing interceptions but also made throws and scored the game-winning touchdown.

Now the Gators were able to come away with a narrow win, and this game will be forgotten if Florida goes on to have a great season the rest of the way, but for now, it’s hard to believe Dan Mullen really has faith in the redshirt junior signal-caller.

Franks, a former four-star recruit has never really lived up to the expectations that were set for him in his time in Gainesville. He was benched for part of the season last year, came back and showed flashes, but the moral of the story is he has been inconsistent.

In the 2019 season opener, Franks was 17-of-27 for 254 yards and two touchdowns but he also had two costly interceptions, including one late that came very close to costing the Gators the game.

That is the crux of the issue for Franks, the inability to make the correct decisions, especially down the stretch. It is something teams and coaches can stomach in a week in a season opener. It’s why teams for the most part schedule cupcakes to open the season, Miami, however, is not that, and Franks has shown a tendency to be wildly inconsistent. If this trend continues on into SEC play, it could spell disaster for Florida and possibly get Franks benched for good.

Unfortunately for Miami, the offense under a young offensive line and redshirt freshman quarterback Jarren Williams wasn’t given the time to capitalize on the Gator mistakes.

Both the Miami and Florida defenses were good, but the Gators defense did what they need to do against a young offensive line and that was to exploit them on the way to 10 sacks and holding the Hurricanes to 94 rushing yards. Linebacker Ventrell Miller finished the game with two sacks and 4 tackles.

The Miami defense wasn’t able to get nearly as much pressure on Franks as the Gators did on Jarren Williams, but they still held Florida to just 306 total yards and 52 yards on the ground.  They also picked off Franks twice and made two fumble recoveries. But the Miami offense wasn’t able to capitalize off the turnovers, and it’s why Miami lost this game despite winning the turnover battle 4-0.

I would argue too, that despite the loss Jarren Williams played better than Franks in his first college start. The redshirt freshman threw for 214 yards on 19-of-29 passing and one touchdown. He also made some plays with his feet, but that won’t be reflected in the stat line do to being brought down a whopping 10 times. If the Miami offensive line can put it together, the Hurricanes could have something special in Williams.

All in all, the game came down to the Florida mistakes, Miami not being able to capitalize on them, and the Florida defense feasting on a young Hurricane offensive line. It might have been a sloppy game to start the season, but it was wildly entertaining and that’s all that we college football fanatics can ever ask for.