GAINESVILLE — Florida’s 2017 football season is finally, mercifully, in the books following Saturday’s 38-22 defeat to rival Florida State at The Swamp.

Gators fans may hope they’ve reached the nadir of their suffering, losing Chip Kelly and then losing for the seventh time in eight years to their archrival Saturday. It’s always darkest before the dawn, or so we’re told as children. Only time will tell.

Until then, all that’s left to do is take inventory of a season gone terribly wrong.

The Gators finished 4-7, suffering just the program’s second losing season in five years after enduring zero losing seasons from 1980-2012.

What made this failed season even more difficult to bear was the special year it was supposed to be. There was a palpable sense of optimism in and around the Florida program all summer, and effusive praise rained from all corners of the media world, who pegged the Gators as contenders to capture a third consecutive SEC East division title and compete for a College Football Playoff spot.

After signing his best recruiting class and stockpiling the offense with playmakers, Jim McElwain spoke openly at SEC Media Days about “kicking the door down in Atlanta” with his third football team.

Indeed, 2017 was supposed to be different. It was, as it turned out. Just not in the way Gators fans, coaches, administrators and players imagined.

In the end, the season will be remembered as much for the drama and disasters off the field as it will for the pitiable, abjectly poor product on the field. From the day Florida got off their plane from Hoover and SEC Media Days, the Gators were swimming relentlessly and hopelessly against the current.

Here are the 10 things we’ll remember most about Florida’s worst football season since 1979. (It edges the 4-8 2013 campaign because while Florida didn’t lose a home game to FCS Georgia Southern in 2017, it under-performed even more disastrously once preseason expectations are considered.)

10. Marcell Harris’ Achilles’ injury the week after SEC Media Days

Less than a week after being selected a preseason All-SEC safety, Florida’s Marcell Harris tore his Achilles’ and was lost for the season.

The injury deprived the Gators of their most vocal captain, and an otherwise young secondary of its defensive heartbeat before the Gators held their first practice in two-a-days.

This was a different Florida defense as a result of the injury, but perhaps more critically, Florida never recovered from the leadership void left by Harris’s absence.

9. Boat-raced by Michigan in Arlington

Florida took a respite from its usual season-opening dish of Sun Belt, WAC and MACtion competition to venture outside the friendly confines of The Swamp and play an opponent that could claw back.

In Arlington at Jerry’s World against Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan Wolverines, it didn’t end well.

Florida led for a bit in the first half, thanks to two Wilton Speight interceptions their young secondary returned for touchdowns. But Michigan pounded Florida for 215 yards on the ground and scored the game’s final 23 points, winning 33-17 in a game that was hardly that close.

In his first start as a Gator, highly-touted redshirt freshman Feleipe Franks struggled with ball security and his backup, highly-coveted transfer Malik Zaire, did little better. A Gators offense McElwain built up the whole summer gained just 192 yards on the afternoon, and a game Florida intended to use as a season-opening statement about its return to national prominence turned into a resounding dud.

8. Franks fails to get better

At 6-5 with tremendous arm strength, Feleipe Franks was highly-coveted in recruiting circles. But there were always concerns in recruiting circles that he was a bit of a project, a player that had faced limited competition and was woefully under-coached in high school from Crawfordville, Florida.

Those concerns came to fruition in 2017.

Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Franks won the starting job in camp but quickly demonstrated he wasn’t up to the task, losing the job in game two on the road at Kentucky.

He was forced back into the starting role after Luke Del Rio was lost for the season due to a broken collarbone suffered against Vanderbilt, went 0-3 in October as the starter and lost the job again, only to reclaim it when Malik Zaire was also lost for the season to injury in November.

Franks continues to struggle to read progressions. He telegraphs passes. He lacks pocket awareness and takes unnecessary sacks. He lacks fundamental understanding of the playbook. He can’t audible. He can’t snap the ball with any urgency. He can’t or doesn’t check down or improvise when what’s called goes awry. And he continues to struggle with ball security. He is, in essence, a failure.

7. Franks failure to get better results in a spectacularly poor performance against Florida State

Against Florida State, Franks put all his flaws on film one last time, an emphatic reminder of how little he’s progressed despite spending over two years on Florida’s campus.

He accounted directly, through an interception and a fumble returned for touchdowns, for 14 of FSU’s points. He contributed indirectly, through two more red-zone interceptions, to 14 more of FSU’s points.

On a day when FSU’s offense collected only 12 first downs and 216 yards, Franks was the winning difference. For Florida State.

I wrote earlier in November that no matter who is hired, it is becoming increasingly clear Feleipe Franks isn’t the answer for the Gators at quarterback. That remains probable heading into the off-season.

6. Two brutal home losses in October

Heading into 2017, the Gators had lost only once in The Swamp under Jim McElwain. “The Swamp is Back,” or so said shirts printed for students ahead of the season.

It isn’t.

Despite two charged, raucous cauldron-of-sound environments, the Gators dropped two vital home games in the beginning of October, first to a reeling LSU team coming off a homecoming loss to Troy, and then to an offensively-limited Texas A&M team starting a true freshman.

The losses all but vanquished Florida’s chances of winning the East, and set the stage for …

5. “Death Threats” Comments by McElwain

In the build-up to Florida’s showdown with rival Georgia, Jim McElwain made what, at the time, seemed like a flippant, off-the-cuff remark about how things were tough during Florida’s 3-3 start and the coach, as well as players on the Florida team, had received “death threats” as a result.

It was a bizarre — and profoundly serious — thing to suggest. Naturally, Florida’s administration was concerned, and pressed for more information. McElwain demurred, and Florida’s athletic association responded in turn with a statement noting McElwain had opted not to elaborate.

Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

As the two sides dug in, the Gators readied for Georgia, and when the Bulldogs pummeled Florida 42-7 at The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, Stricklin and UF had seen enough.

4. McElwain fired and the Gators quit on the field at Missouri

In truth, McElwain’s two SEC East division titles had only served as rouge to cover up longstanding acrimony between the head coach and the UF Athletic Association.

McElwain arrived at Florida complaining loudly about subpar facilities, and even after receiving multiple upgrades and a commitment from new athletic director Scott Stricklin to do more, he used the bully pulpit of an Outback Bowl postgame interview to call out his own administration.

“We’ll see what kind of commitment we get from our administration moving forward,” McElwain said after crushing Iowa 30-3 last January. It was a bizarre comment, but one that wasn’t forgotten by October, when Florida was 3-4 and reeling from a combination of offensive ineptitude and off-field scandal and distraction.

Stricklin saw his opportunity to rid the program of McElwain, a coach he didn’t hire, and took it.

A week later, the players responded in turn, all but refusing to compete on the field in a 45-16 loss at Missouri. Time will tell if that loss was rock-bottom, but it remains instructive as to how far Florida has to go to get back to its lofty program standard.

3. Of course, Florida still beat Kentucky

For the 31st consecutive time.

This one might have been the oddest too, coming on the road in an electric Kroger Field environment rollicking and frothing at the mouth for a win with a 27-14 lead in the fourth quarter.

Enter Luke Del Rio, who replaced the ineffective and lost Feleipe Franks and led Florida on two fourth quarter scoring drives to win 28-27. On the final touchdown, Kentucky had only 10 men on the field, and as a result failed to cover Florida WR Freddie Swain, who calmly caught the winning score unmolested.

2. They beat Tennessee too, on the Heave to Cleve

In September, Florida avenged last season’s loss in Knoxville in the most satisfying, cruel and Butch Jones way possible.

After Tennessee rallied to tie the game at twenty in the fourth quarter, Florida had nine seconds and 63 yards to traverse to avoid overtime, and none of the momentum if the game got there.

Instead, they won, on a parabola of a post pattern to Tyrie Cleveland, who torched Micah Abernathy, mystifyingly in single-coverage, for the winning score.

At the time, it felt like the type of play that changes a season.

Instead, it ends up being one of the season’s only wonderful memories for the Gators.

1. The Credit Card Nine

Was there ever a question what the largest memory of Florida’s 2017 season would be?

The suspension of nine Gators for credit card fraud as practice began in August loomed over Florida’s campaign like the specter of Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer offenses past looms over every Florida team that takes the field at The Swamp.

The suspensions deprived the Gators of their top two returning playmakers, All-American WR Antonio Callaway and running back Jordan Scarlett.

Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

But it did far more than that. It divided the locker room, robbed Florida of valuable linebacker and offensive line depth, and revealed a culture where players relied upon as leaders were instead investigated for defrauding the university and other citizens.

From a football standpoint, the suspensions weakened the Gators.

From a culture standpoint, the suspensions broke the Gators.

And now, for the third time in 8 seasons, a new coaching staff will have to pick up the pieces.