Feleipe Franks had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

To be fair, the entire Gators team had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day in last year’s 42-7 loss to Georgia. It was the program’s worst loss to its SEC East rival since 1982. It was the final game of the bizarre, train wreck of an ending to the Jim McElwain era.

Franks wasn’t even on the field when Florida scored its lone points of the day in the final 3 minutes to prevent the shutout. But Franks was on the field for the 3 quarters that saw Georgia get out to a 35-0 lead, and no, it wasn’t pretty.

Here’s the best way to sum it up. On Florida’s first 3 drives, Franks was 1-of-5 for -1 yards, he was sacked and intercepted. The Gators had a total of 2 yards after those first 3 series. And from there, it didn’t get any better.

Franks’ final line was about as bad as it gets:

  • 7-19, 30 yards
  • 0 TD passes, 1 interception
  • 2 fumbles (1 lost)
  • 1.6 yards per attempt
  • 2.4 quarterback rating

Now fast forward to this year’s matchup against Georgia. Franks is — to the surprise of many — looking like the quarterback Dan Mullen hoped he could be in Year 1. Besides owning a 15-5 touchdown-interception ratio, the second-year starter is looking to lead the No. 9 Gators to their sixth consecutive win and second over a top-10 team.

There’s no question that Franks is a different quarterback than he was at this time last year.

The real question is if he’ll come full circle Saturday.

Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Mullen said that he “honestly didn’t know” how Franks performed against Georgia last year.

“Obviously I don’t think it was very good because it didn’t end well for Florida,” Mullen said on the SEC Coaches Teleconference.

It ended, of course, with McElwain losing his job and Gator fans immediately trying to figure out who in the world was going to come to Gainesville to resurrect the woeful Florida offense. Mullen did exactly that. The Gators have the No. 35 offense in the country, which is a significant improvement from last year’s No. 109-ranked group.

This year’s Florida offense is actually averaging 1.5 fewer pass attempts per game than last year, yet it’s posting 31.5 more passing yards per contest. Gone are the days of watching Franks average 1.6 yards per attempt in a game like he did against Georgia. He’s up to 7.7 yards per attempt, and as long as Franks throws for at least 33 yards on Saturday — something he didn’t do in this game last year — he’ll have already surpassed his 2017 yardage total with a month to play. He’s already thrown more TD passes than every Gators’ QB since Tim Tebow.

Besides the numbers, the differences in Franks operating in Mullen’s offense compared to McElwain’s are obvious. Kirby Smart noticed them, too.

“They’re certainly more experienced now and they spread the field more now than they did in the past, but some elements of their offense is similar and that does carry over not just for Feleipe but for the personnel on the field,” Smart said on the SEC Coaches Teleconference. “Some of those same personnel is on the field. You want to watch those guys play against your guys.”

That was Smart’s way of saying, “yeah, obviously I still watched film on Franks’ performance against us last year.”

The lack of creativity that Smart probably saw from McElwain’s offense should’ve been clear. Florida running back Lamical Perine claimed that his grandma could’ve called out last year’s plays against Georgia (Martez Ivey and David Reese told me at SEC Media Days that they’d have people who weren’t even big football fans text them during games and tell them how predictable their play-calling was).

This was McElwain’s idea of “getting creative.” He’d have Franks split out wide on a wildcat run to Kadarius Toney … and Franks and another Florida receiver were tasked with somehow blocking 3 Georgia defenders (that’s Franks at the top of the screen):

Believe it or not, Franks did not get a block in and Toney was gobbled up for a 1-yard loss. Before Toney was even tackled, CBS announcer Brad Nessler said “well the problem with that is your quarterback is not gonna throw a block for you.”

Uh, ya think?

Compared to McElwain’s, Mullen’s offense is night and day in terms of creativity. That much we know. Some of Franks’ best moments during his revived season came in trick plays. Whether it was the catch from Lucas Krull against LSU or the throwback pass to Toney at Mississippi State, Mullen has found ways to make Florida far less predictable than it was at this time last year.

You can bet Smart’s defense has had to prepare for the likelihood that Franks is involved in some trickery. Maybe Toney is, too. And not in a “let’s run the wildcat with basically one outside blocker on the fastest defense in college football” way.

While Mullen deserves plenty of credit for building Franks back up after Georgia performances were all too common, the sophomore signal-caller has improved in all facets. Turnovers are down and quality reads are up.

“(Franks) was very loose with the football, whether it was fumbling the ball in the pocket under pressure or throwing it into coverage for an interception. I think he’s become much more judicious with his throws and decision-making,” SEC Network analyst and former Florida receiver Chris Doering said on The Saturday Down South Podcast. “He’s always had a really good arm … I think he’s a little more selective of when to try to force it in and when not to. I think that’s been one of the biggest differences.”

Florida fans are eager to see if that improved offense can flip last year’s 35-point loss to the Dawgs in Year 1 with Mullen. Franks’ in-game benching against Georgia — a familiar move in the McElwain era — has to feel like it was ages ago. In a way, it was.

This is a new age of Florida football, with a new coach hoping to help guide Franks to a new experience against Georgia — a winning one.

What would it mean to see Franks come full circle after last year’s debacle in Jacksonville?

“That’d be great,” Mullen said. “Obviously for us to be successful, for us to win the game, your quarterback has to play well … I think it’d be great for everybody if he had a big game.”

What a crazy concept.