Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence and Ohio State’s Justin Fields started out the season as the sexy picks to win the Heisman Trophy and rightfully so.
In today’s college football world, if you brand anybody or anything with Clemson, Ohio State or Alabama, there is sometimes a labeling issue that speaks louder than the ideas that any writer or fan can give using credible analysis.
If you want to shed the labels, take Florida quarterback Kyle Trask and do the math.
Saturday night’s 63-35 beatdown of the Arkansas Razorbacks in the Swamp added on to what is a mathematic dream for the football and numbers analysts.
Trask finished 23-of-39 for 356 yards and six touchdown passes as seven different Gators scored. Trask has five games with four touchdown passes and two with six scoring tosses. All totaled, he has 28 touchdowns and only three picks in the Gators’ 6-1 start.
“The wideouts did a really nice job and Kyle Trask did a really nice job distributing the ball and taking what they were going to give us all night,” said Gators coach Dan Mullen.
Trask has completed a paltry 70.1 percent of his passes in what has been a season that has shown his hard work and attention to playing football. His ascension into elite status began with his work ethic in high school.
“Kyle shows the character that he has,” Mullen explained. “It’s one of the great learning things. In high school, he probably could have transferred, but he stuck it out with his team, helped his team and he was really successful.”
Trask continued in his trek to Florida. He waited his turn and worked behind former Gators’ quarterback Feleipe Franks, his opponent on Saturday night. Trask could have entered the transfer portal as a graduate transfer, but didn’t. His story is proof of staying the course and continuing to work.
“He stuck it out until his number was called,” said Mullen. “He waited until his number was called and from there you see he was completely prepared for the moment his number was called. From that moment, he has done nothing but prepare even harder to prepare even more.”
Mullen explained the Razorbacks’ game plan as they played dime coverage and rushed only three for much of the night. Arkansas wanted to take the pass away as much as possible, so the Hogs used three down linemen and two linebackers.
With that, Trask was engaged as he had five touchdown passes by halftime and Florida led 35-14.
“You’re going to have to kind of execute your way down the field and we were able to do that most of the night,” said Mullen of Trask’s patience.
The first drive of the evening was a 14-play, 75-yarder that ended with a 9-yard touchdown pass to Trevon Grimes, who caught the second from 23-yards out early in the second quarter as Florida took the lead for good at 14-7.
“I think I did a great job of just being efficient and taking it one play at a time,” explained Trask. “Our offense did an excellent job of executing and doing their job every single play.”
Mullen was concerned about the Razorbacks’ firepower as they have had a penchant for hitting big plays all season.
“We knew we needed to score in the second half and not just play tempo of the game,” said Mullen. “They hit a bunch of explosive plays and could score in a hurry. We needed to keep the foot on the gas and we needed to continue to try to score.”
Franks came back to Gainesville and threw a 47-yard touchdown pass to Mike Woods and also hit a speed route to Trelon Smith for 83 yards.
At the outset of the second half, he marched the Razorbacks 75 yards and Rakeem Boyd capped this drive with a 12-yard run.
Trask once again closed the door on Arkansas with a pair of 8-play drives that ended in a 1-yard run by Emery Jones and an 11-yard toss to tight end Keon Zipperer which was his second touchdown of the night.
Franks met with Mullen and former Gators teammates with emotional exchanges at the end of the game.
