It was the middle of the second quarter when Kadarius Toney finally touched the football Saturday afternoon against South Carolina.

With the score still tied, coach Dan Mullen knew it was time to involve the senior playmaker.

Florida went to Toney three times in four plays, including on a well-run delay route on a crucial 3rd and 14, where Toney extended the drive with a 16-yard gain. By the end of the drive, Toney had helped Florida convert two vital third downs and the Gators had the lead again, 17-14. They would never relinquish it in their 38-24 victory.

“We knew we needed to get him the ball. I think you’ve seen how he’s grown as a player for us,” Mullen told the media following Florida’s win. “He’s always been a get-it-to guy for us. But he’s taken such a huge step as a wide receiver, and he showed that today.”

Toney, the latest SEC perimeter playmaker to be dubbed “the human joystick,” has always been electric with the football in his hands. He made big plays for Jim McElwain as a freshman and continued to do it when Mullen arrived late in Toney’s freshman season.

He helped beat Mississippi State with his arm for Mullen as a sophomore:

He delivered a first-possession haymaker to the U as a sophomore, taking a third-down screen pass to the house:

Toney could always make plays.

He’s simply too fast, has too quick a first step, is too agile and too elastic with his body, and has too much balance and body control to not. It was the other stuff — route running, making smart decisions with the football on down and distance, learning the offense — that held him back. Toney challenged himself in the offseason ahead of his senior year. How could he become a complete football player? How could he find the consistency the staff believed he was capable of but hadn’t seen?

A former high school quarterback out of tiny Eight Mile, Alabama, Toney came to Florida and had to learn not one, but two offenses in his first two years on campus. That’s a challenge for anyone, let alone a player learning a completely new position. It was hard on Toney. There were dark moments, like an injury that cost him much of his junior year and a late-season return that saw him buried on the Gators’ depth chart.

There was doubt in the fan base, too, and not from a small number of people. Twitter and message boards were full of questions about whether Florida was better off sitting Toney and playing a more natural wide receiver. It’s the kind of noise people think kids should block out, but that’s easier said than done in a sport dominated by the active social media presence of big-program fan bases.

Early in the 2020 season, Toney has channeled the noise into motivation, playing the best football of his life. The senior averaged a first down a touch in his first three seasons on campus, a testament to just how electric he is with the ball. But now he’s doing it on high volume: 11 receptions for 145 yards and 2 touchdowns in Florida’s first two games in 2020.

There are still the silly house calls, the play where Toney defies the laws of physics and shows not only his speed and stop-on-a-dime moves, but his sneaky good physicality.

https://twitter.com/SECNetwork/status/1312460588551864321?s=20

Actually, the full-speed replay doesn’t really do Toney justice there. That touchdown is better evaluated in freeze frames, where you see the Gator playmaker weave his way through a swarm of Gamecocks on his way to the house.

Except now there’s Toney the route runner, like the play he made last week with this little dig to complete a perfect route and get the Gators a drive-extending first down.

https://twitter.com/TampaBayTre/status/1309905041512427521?s=20

This is Kadarius Toney 2.0, the enigma turned Florida X-factor, the guy defenses can’t forget about in their obsession to hold, harangue, and hope in defending tight end Kyle Pitts. The guy who looks like such a different dude, he’s spawning full-fledged message board apology threads from the Florida fan base.

There are still doubters, but now they are mostly hopeful cynics in opposing fan bases.

That’s fine.

Opposing fans — even Kirby Smart apprentices — can ignore Toney at their own risk. Defensive coordinators and head coaches like Smart won’t. They’ll know, for example, that while Pitts caught 2 touchdown passes against South Carolina, it was Toney who led the Gators in receptions and yards. This is a versatile, deep, veteran Florida offense, one with multiple “get-it-to” guys.

Saturday, Kadarius Toney was the best of them. It probably won’t be the last time.