Greg McElroy believes Feleipe Franks has regressed since the end of 2018 season
Although Florida won its season opener over Miami, not everybody is sold on the Gators being a contender in the SEC this season. Or on redshirt junior quarterback Feleipe Franks having a strong season.
On Monday, ESPN college football analyst Greg McElroy said during “College Football Live” that he thinks Franks has taken a step back since last season. Franks went 17-for-27 for 254 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions in the Gators’ win over the Hurricanes on Saturday.
“I thought Feleipe Franks actually regressed from what he displayed down the stretch last year and still didn’t showcase the maturity that you’d want to see from him as he heads into Year No. 3 as a starter,” McElroy said on the show, according to 247sports.com’s Austin Nivison. “Florida has an awful lot to figure out in the next two weeks.”
Franks passed for 2,457 yards and 24 touchdowns with only six interceptions in 13 games last season. That was a marked improvement from 2017, when he passed for 1,438 yards, nine touchdowns and eight interceptions in 11 games.
With that experience, it’d be expected that Franks would continue to progress as he just began his second season in head coach Dan Mullen’s offense. But that wasn’t what McElroy, a former Alabama quarterback, took away from Franks’ first performance of the season.
McElroy also cited inconsistency on the offensive line as a potential concern for Florida, which he doesn’t believe looked like a team capable of repeating the success of its 10-win season a year ago.
“They could still achieve an awful lot, but if they play anywhere near like they did [on Saturday], that’s an eight-win football team, maybe at best,” McElroy said.
Franks and the Gators don’t play again until Sept. 7, when they host UT Martin at 7:30 p.m. ET. After notching a 24-20 win over Miami, Florida is in good position to open the year 2-0 before a big SEC East road game at Kentucky on Sept. 14.
He’s still salty that his boy McElwain got fired. Hasn’t said anything nice about UF since then.
Ya I don’t really take him seriously
Insightful
Just because he wasn’t all roses and smiles about your QB doesn’t make him wrong. Did you think his overall play was better in this game than the 2nd half of last year. I guess his experience as a college & NFL QB means nothing. He also seems to be in a majority of ex-players who are saying the same thing. I guess you only take those who pump sunshine seriously.
I was more or less agreeing with him. It was a Captain obvious moment for GMac
Sorry. My post was for Ben. This site is not good. I didn’t take your comment as sarcasm.
Well I will agree with upstate and also say insightful but please do take it as 110% sarcasm
darthA, besides the turnovers his stats were pretty identical to how he played in the second half of last season. The thing that seems to be getting lost in the equation is not only was it the first game of the season where there’s going to be some rust, but he was facing a far better defense than any he saw in the second half of last season. People seem to forget how good Miami is on D because they were 7-6. They were #2 in total defense and returned most of their top players, especially to their front 7. Their weakness is and has been their offense. Everyone kind’ve expected there to a bit of a struggle with a green offensive line facing the strength of Miami’s D. You take away the turnovers and he had a pretty good day accounting for all 3 TDs and a 64% completion percentage. I fully expect him to settle down and clean up the stupid mistakes as the season goes on.
Franks regressing since the end of the 2018 season? You think? Soooooooo glad he didn’t sign with LSU!!
We’ll see how far he’s regressed by the time we play you fools
Again it is asinine to extrapolate all this after one freaking game
It’s not one game. He has always sucked. Y’all tried to convince us all offseason that he was going to be some monster after another year of Mullet tutelage. But he’s the same old Franks. Average on his best day.
I would imagine if most teams play the same way as the first game for the rest of the season, they wouldn’t win more than 8 games. Did Franks play better vs Miami than he did at the end of last season, of course not. But there’s plenty of time to improve. He needs to do a better job finding the open receiver and stop overthrowing the deep (underthrow please? let your talented receivers make a play on it). His lack of maturity is concerning.
It’s hard to learn maturity when your HC is an absolute clown.
No, you the clown
“You the Clown”? Nice comeback. Now go sit in timeout and color.
I imagine CDM told Franks to have fun during the game as he tries to keep his team loose. That was Franks way of having fun, hopefully next time he just has fun with his teammates.
And yours is so great he ended up ranked behind the gators in the final poll? Coming off your last 2 games from what I saw same old dawgs…..
Ahh the old “behind in the final polls” bit. Classic. We were first in the east. Uf was 3rd. We lost to LSU and Bama. Uf got blown out by Mizzou and Uga. Keep thinking the final polls matter bud.
This is the ultimate overreaction. Dude it’s one game. This is also the same person who tried to convince us Khalil Tate had a horrible game after 378 yards passing and 150 yards rushing. While it’s true the interception was problematic, Mcelwain is not coming back get over it. In two weeks if he lights it up I’m sure the narrative will change. #afanofcollegefootball.
Too much common sense for the SDS trolls & Gmac
Gmac should know better
This. Was. The. First. Game.
He. Is. A. Third. Year. Starting. Quarterback.
Yes. A third year starting quarterback who got zero quarterback coaching in high school and precious little coaching by McElwain and Nussmeier. This was a first game and it’s nuts to make ultimate judgments.
I’ll be right there with you if he’s making bad decisions against Kentucky and Tennessee. But this was one play in a first game. His other interception was a bad pass. He may or may not have been responsible for the fumbled exchange with Perine. There was nothing wrong with the pitch that Davis fumbled.
Franks had a 63% completion ratio with two passing TDs and one rushing TD on Saturday night. Only three SEC quarterbacks had a higher season average completion ratio than 63% last season. Lock finished at 62.9%.
I think the Kentucky and Tennessee games will be a better barometer.
He had one completeion over 15yrds. I agree he has time to improve over the season and it’s “only one game” but last year it was this same story. He lights it up against bad defenses and struggles against good defenses. The worst part is he still behaves like a freshman. He has no sense of what it means to be a leader. His INT towards the end of the game was just plain awful. At that point in the game it’s inexcusable for a 3rd year starter to make that throw. All that said, I hope he’s still the starter in Jax.
UGADAWG, let me ask you a question. Try to put yourself in Franks’ shoes for a minute. You get forced into playing before you’re ready and immediately start getting bashed by everyone, including your own fans. For 3 straight years no matter what you do, you’re waking up to a constant barrage of insults and criticism on social media and wherever you look. Even when you do something good, like lead your team to 10 wins and a New Years 6 bowl win and your own fans still don’t accept you and continue to question you and it’s even worse from opposing fans. Do you think maybe when you have some success you might lash out a bit and let your emotions take over? I’m pretty sure 99.9% of us would. It’s human nature. Maybe if people laid off a bit and tried to actually understand where his so called “immaturity” is coming from then they’d understand. I don’t blame the kid at all for lashing out.
It’s life as a college QB in a power 5 conference. Maturity is EXPECTED. It’s what NFL teams look for. It’s not a tough ask.
Show me another power 5 Qb that has had to deal with the constant hate that Franks has. Sorry, but the world Franks has been living in for the last 3 years isn’t the typical life of a power 5 QB. As a Gator fan I can admit there’s a large part of this fan base that has unattainable ridiculous expectations. He was still being bashed after 10 wins and a #7 final ranking. You don’t see that at many other programs. Yeah there’s a maturity level that you expect out of your Qb, but like I said this is understandable. Franks’ skills will be what keeps him from the NFL not his maturity. Mayfield has already proven that NFL teams don’t place a lot of emphasis on maturity level.
Mayfield is an anomaly. Drafted by the Browns who have been a dumpter fire for decades. To be fair Mayfeild is an actual good QB. Franks is athletic but is wildly inaccurate and makes bonehead plays in the biggest moments.
I think your missing my point though. Franks is hated because he plays mediocre football and then flexes his muscles and does the Superman celebration. A little humility would go a long way for him. I hear what your saying about the criticism but he brings it on himself with his behavior. Hey it’s just my opinion.
I think a fair comparison would be to Will Grier at West Virginia in his first game in over a year and a half, against a top 25 team (Virginia tech), he threw for 371 yards, 3 touchdowns and 1 interception in a 7 point loss. It’s not unfair to criticize franks here
Joe Marks, GA fans are comparing Franks to freshman Jake Fromm’s performance in the Notre Dame game.
You mean in the second game of the season, after getting warmed up in the App. St. game and being surrounded by first round draft picks all over the field? Even then he only had a 141 passing yards 1 Td and 1 Int with a QB rating of 100.5 and Georgia won the game with a dominant rushing attack, just like they won every other game that season making life much easier for any QB. There was only one game that entire season where Fromm threw for more yards than Franks threw in this game. I’m confused with that ridiculous comparison, but that’s typical of a Dawg fan mentality.
I agree that Fromm had the luxury of a strong rushing attack but when he was asked to throw on third down he was clutch and insanely accurate. He was a true freshman. Your right the comparison is ridiculous because it’s not even close.
N we supposed to be scared sh*tless of this team?
It has been documented ad nauseum that Franks came to college with little or no prior quarterback coaching and that McElwain threw him into the fire before he was ready.
Franks has better size and is more physically talented than Fromm. Fromm is more accurate and has better pocket presence and intangibles.
Fromm is the better quarterback. But Franks will be better this year than last year. And if Jones or Trask gave the team a better chance to win, they would be starting. Armchair fans don’t have a clue what goes on in practice.
As for Franks being “wildly inaccurate,” the occasional head-scratching throw aside, this claim isn’t borne out by his completion ratio for the last four games of last year and the first game of this year.
Franks is relentlessly criticized, more than any other quarterback in college football, and that’s saying something. I don’t like the way he behaves after scores and on the sidelines, but I certainly understand it.
No one watched that game and came away thinking “Man, Franks is a really accurate passer”. Keep making excuses for him though. If he played at any other school you would be right there criticizing him just like everyone else.
First, I haven’t seen anyone anywhere saying that Franks “is a really accurate passer.” I wrote that his statistics don’t support the claim that he is “wildly inaccurate.” Big difference.
Second, I never comment on articles about teams other than the Gators. The only time I’ve ever made a comment on the UGA section of SDS was after an article by a Georgia SDS writer about the Gators. So no, I would not be criticizing him in a comment if he played at another school.
We don’t need Franks to be better than Fromm and he’s never going to be super accurate. We just need him to be serviceable. Running for more than 2 yards on first down would help.