Pretend it never happened.

Picture a universe in which Feleipe Franks never threw a Hail Mary to Tyrie Cleveland, and Florida won or lost to Tennessee on an overtime field goal. That’s obviously not an easy thing to do, considering that will be remembered as one of the greatest single plays in Florida football history.

After that first drive, the Gators spent the majority of the day stuck in an offensive rut. They didn’t look like they made any whole-sale adjustments in the two weeks since not scoring an offensive touchdown against Michigan.

It was bad, but it wasn’t all bad.

Contrary to what we saw against Michigan, Florida actually flashed some big-play ability. The Gators even showed that they could sort of have an intermediate passing game. And hey, they might even have themselves a quarterback.

The offensive performance was by no means a sign that Florida is going to be an offensive juggernaut. With that defense, it doesn’t have to be.

But the Gators at least has to have a few guys who look capable of turning nothing into something. That’s what they saw against Tennessee, and that’s what they need to see against Kentucky.

Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

The 30-year streak might make it difficult for certain Florida fans to consider Kentucky a legitimate threat, but after watching what that defense did to South Carolina, the Wildcats are all sorts of capable of shutting down Florida. Shoot, they’re a lot more capable than Tennessee and that awful run defense.

Florida actually looked decent running the ball against the Vols (who doesn’t?). Take away Franks’ rushing yards and that 74-yard run from Malik Davis and Florida still ran for 5 yards per carry. Fumbles from Lamical Perine and Davis overshadowed the fact that they both got to the second level and made plenty of people miss while doing it.

I mean, Davis was half a step from scoring the longest regular season rushing touchdown of the Jim McElwain era. He fumbled, but let’s not forget that the near-touchdown took some serious explosion, which has been lacking in Florida’s offense under McElwain.

Without or without Jordan Scarlett moving forward, Davis needs to get more touches. The same could be said for Kadarius Toney,

Doug Nussmeier will undoubtedly try and find a way to get Toney more than the five touches he got against Tennessee. He’s the closest thing Florida has to South Carolina’s Deebo Samuel, who gashed Kentucky on the first play from scrimmage for a 68-yard touchdown.

Toney has the ability to make people miss in the open field. Bubble screens, jet sweeps and quick outs can turn into monster plays with his quickness.

He’s another freshman, by the way.

Young or not, his touches were directly related to Florida’s success. As our Neil Blackmon pointed out, the Gators got at least one first down on every possession that Toney got a touch. For an offense that gained five first downs in a two-and-a-half-quarter stretch on Saturday, that’s huge.

It’s clear that Toney needs somewhere around 10 touches per game. Anybody who can get the ball in a variety of looks like he can needs to be on the field as much as possible.

I’m still not sold on Florida’s ability to consistently stretch the field, but why can’t they take a few more deep shots with Franks like the Hail Mary? Sure, that was a broken play. But it’s not like Franks lacks arm strength. He and Toney nearly connected on a long TD earlier, but Toney wasn’t able to secure it after hitting the ground.

Florida doesn’t lack speed on the outside, either. Even if Nussmeier can’t dial up a bunch of long touchdowns, just showing that willingness to air it out could at least open up things in the intermediate passing game.

That’s obviously easier said than done. The protection has to hold up to prevent Franks from taking an unnecessary shot. But against a Kentucky defense that hasn’t pressured the quarterback a ton yet, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Nussmeier roll Franks out more to see if he can hit on a few more home-run plays (or draw up the underrated defensive pass interference play).

And while the fumble in the Michigan game might’ve scared Florida off from running any designed runs for Franks, he has plenty of ability to scramble for positive yards and avoid a coverage sack. His elusiveness set up the game-winning pass against UT. Franks must find a way to keep those talented Kentucky linebackers guessing.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about the Florida offense under McElwain is that the defense always seems to know what’s coming. Because of their limitations at the quarterback position, their offense has been predictable. With some emerging young playmakers, Nussmeier has a chance to keep the Wildcats off-balance.

Will that be enough to fend off an upset hungry Kentucky squad? Who knows.

At the very least, Florida’s arsenal has a few more weapons than it did at this time last week.