You could see it coming from a mile away.

Tennessee had just stormed back from a 10-point deficit to tie the game in the final minute. Overtime was coming. It didn’t matter if Florida had 50 seconds or 500 seconds. After all, this was the offense that went the first 115 minutes of 2017 without an offensive touchdown. Without the suspended Antonio Callaway, the Gators had no shot of stretching the field.

On top of that, Florida had Feleipe Franks. You know, the redshirt freshman quarterback in his second career start who hadn’t shown any sign that he could complete a pass 20-plus yards downfield. Perhaps that’s why Jim McElwain inexplicably ran the clock all the way down to nine seconds instead of calling a timeout to preserve an attempt to get into field goal range.

We knew what was coming. Tennessee was going to ride its momentum into overtime against a gassed Florida defense, win and McElwain was going to be staring at an increasingly hot seat on the heels of an 0-2 start.

One Hail Mary changed all of that.

Franks finally showed off the arm that made him one of the top quarterback recruits in the country. Tyrie Cleveland finally showed that a Florida receiver was capable of getting behind a secondary. Florida finally got the heroic offensive play in a key game it had been searching for the last three seasons.

And finally, McElwain’s prayer was answered.

Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

If Franks doesn’t deliver the ball of his life, the Florida narrative is vastly different, win or lose. Despite the fact that the Gators finally got an offensive touchdown, there was an obvious takeaway point from Saturday.

Florida and Tennessee aren’t SEC East favorites. Shoot, they aren’t even top-25 teams.

That might still be the case. But for one week, McElwain won’t be peppered with questions about why his offense can’t get it done in the big ones.

Saturday was big. Like, real big.

Can you picture Florida fans had they blown a 10-point lead and lost to Tennessee in The Swamp for the first time since 2003? If there was ever a “must-win game” for a coach coming off consecutive division titles, this was it.

Everybody and their mother would’ve spent the week talking about how hot McElwain’s seat was. And understandably so.

Despite the fact that it had two weeks to prepare for Tennessee, Florida once again looked like a team that didn’t make any offensive adjustments. The passing game was predictable, ineffective and timid. On top of that, the clock management was sub-par. It wasn’t exactly McElwain’s finest hour.

There was also the fact that McElwain revealed at game time that the Week 1 suspensions were still intact against Tennessee. Well, he revealed that to the CBS crew, not the beat writers who cover the team every day. He admitted to CBS that he tried to “cover up” the suspensions.

Um, ya think?

Remember when McElwain announced Florida’s starting quarterback just hours after the team announced those suspensions ahead of the Michigan game? You bet he tried to cover up those suspensions.

You can bet that he would’ve tried to cover up the Gators’ inept offensive performance on Saturday had the Hail Mary not been caught.

It’s true that Florida had an atypical week with Hurricane Irma. McElwain spent virtually his entire time on the SEC coaches teleconference talking about the impact the storm had. He wouldn’t have gotten any sympathy from Gators fans had he used that as an excuse in another loss to Tennessee.

But McElwain didn’t need to change the subject Saturday.

All he needed to do was sit back and thank his lucky stars that for once, it all worked out.

Now, McElwain can talk about the fact that he has a lights out defense, and the two-time East champs are 1-0 in SEC play. That’s more than his counterpart can say.

Butch Jones is the one who will answer questions about how his team allowed the unthinkable to happen in the final play of the game. His team’s defensive effort, which was significantly better Saturday than it was against Georgia Tech, went to waste in Gainesville. The Vols took one step in the opposite direction of Atlanta.

Florida might not be good enough to win the East yet again, but it wasn’t playing for the division title Saturday. All it had to do was bounce back from an adventurous two weeks, and beat the team it beat 11 of the past 12 times.  Avoid 0-2 on Saturday and Sunday would be a whole lot easier.

By some miracle, that happened.