Florida starting quarterback Feleipe Franks has been out since suffering a knee injury in Week 3, but junior backup signal caller Kyle Trask has played well in his place.

With Trask starting, Florida has gone 3-0 and just beat No. 12 Auburn, 24-13, last Saturday. But he has developed a bit of a fumbling problem, which former Gators coach Steve Spurrier addressed in a guest appearance on ESPN’s The Paul Finebaum Show on Tuesday afternoon.

“He’s gotta learn how to protect the ball back there,” Spurrier said. “He’s had three balls knocked out. Of course, the Auburn defensive tackle scooped two of them up and took off running. Fortunately, he fell down on one of them or that could have turned the game around, who knows. But Kyle just hasn’t played a lot.

“I was talking to Dan Mullen later about it, and he said, ‘You know in practice, we don’t hit the quarterback, so he goes back there, holds it in one hand, throws it somewhere.’ But you gotta feel the rushers, and he’s gotta either protect it, throw it away or something. But we’ve escaped I think three times so far this year, he’s lost the ball back there, and he hasn’t played all that much yet, so that’s one area that I’m sure he’s going to work on this week.”

While fumbling has been a problem, Trask has limited his interceptions. He’s attempted 97 passes and only throw two picks with seven touchdowns. Trask has completed 72.2 percent of his passes and averaged 9.1 yards per attempt.