Ever since one Stephen Orr Spurrier took the job as Florida’s head coach for the 1990 season, offense has been king in Gainesville. After 12 glorious years of the Fun-‘N’-Gun, Gator Nation began to associate putting points on the board with having a good football team.

By Florida standards, these Gators are not a good football team.

Lingering offensive issues caught up to Florida on Saturday. The Gators lost 31-10 at Arkansas and produced only 241 yards of offense in the process. While the defense is good enough to keep them in any game — it scored the only touchdown Saturday — the offense is once again dreadful.

It’s difficult for many followers of Florida football to understand, particularly because the Gators have a head coach with an offensive background. While McElwain’s Alabama offenses from 2008-11 were never Spurrier-esque, they weren’t 3 yards and a cloud of dust either.

Like many offenses, in McElwain’s system the quarterback is the most important position. Florida fans have learned this the hard way, especially after watching the Gators get off to a 6-0 start with Will Grier last season, only to end 10-4 after a 4-4 stint with Treon Harris as QB1.

Grier’s absence didn’t immediately cause the offense’s decline. But on Harris’ third start after Grier’s suspension, the Gators had what looked like a very off day against Vanderbilt, winning 9-7. The tight win over the Commodores came on Nov. 7, 2015. Except it wasn’t just an off day, but the start of a frustrating trend. Almost one year later to the day, the Gators are still facing issues with maintaining sustained drives and scoring points.

Two big reasons stand out for the Gators’ offense and quarterback problems:

Recruiting woes

When McElwain accepted the job in December 2014, it looked like he had a favorable quarterback situation – in the short term. Harris, who has started the final six games of the season, was about to enter his sophomore season. His main competition was Grier, a former player Parade Magazine Player of the Year who redshirted his freshman season.

While Grier and Harris looked promising heading into 2015, McElwain was alarmed that they were the only two scholarship quarterbacks on the roster. Many would say uneven quarterback recruiting (the failure to sign an SEC-caliber quarterback every recruiting class) was the downfall of McElwain’s predecessor, Will Muschamp.

McElwain attempted to add a freshman quarterback in the 2015. The Gators were notably in the hunt to flip Deondre Francois from his Florida State pledge. If you’ve watched both Florida and FSU games this season, you know that Francois would certainly be UF’s starting quarterback right now. Instead of signing a freshman, McElwain landed two transfers: Joshua Grady (a graduate transfer from Vanderbilt) and Luke Del Rio, a journeyman who began his career as a walk-on at Alabama.

With one graduation (Grady) and two messy divorces (Grier, Harris) after the 2015 season, McElwain was left with Del Rio and the 2016 recruiting class for quarterbacks. McElwain tried to land five-star Jacob Eason, but couldn’t flip him, either.

Instead, the second-year coach added graduate transfer Austin Appleby from Purdue, four-star Crawfordville, Fla., product Feleipe Franks and off-the-radar backup Kyle Trask. All four played in the spring game, and Del Rio won the starting job in fall camp.

In a year in which true freshmen such as Eason, Jalen Hurts and Jake Bentley are leading their teams to SEC victories, Gators fans are wondering if one of the 2016 signees could give the Florida offense a spark it desperately needs.

While a true freshman rallying the team would make for a great story, there’s no escaping the fact that the source of Florida’s quarterback issues is recruiting in the 2014 and 2015 classes (the presence of Grier and Harris discouraging Francois from signing, but those two leaving UF after ’15).

Del Rio and the SEC

Long before McElwain arrived in Gainesville, he was interested in coaching Luke Del Rio as a quarterback in his offense.

He first noticed Del Rio in the eighth grade, impressed by the quarterback’s performance at an Alabama camp. Del Rio was recruited by McElwain at Colorado State, but the son of NFL coach Jack Del Rio chose to walk-on at Alabama instead. After a transfer to Oregon State didn’t work out, Del Rio was looking for a new home at the time McElwain was looking to build quarterback depth at Florida.

McElwain has always believed that he can win with Del Rio as his quarterback. Let’s not forget, the Florida coach has made other bold declarations about his belief in Xs and Os.

“You got to understand this. I believe I can win with my dog Claribelle (at quarterback),” McElwain said at his opening press conference. “That’s the attitude. There’s good players here. That’s just our responsibility to get that going.”

Del Rio was supposed to be the consummate game manager. He is a coach’s son and noted gym rat who first became familiar with the Doug Nussmeier offense in 2013. His brain and work ethic were supposed to be enough to overcome the measurables that kept him from getting a Power 5 scholarship out of high school.

For the past three weeks, what was supposed to be Del Rio’s best trait, his decision-making, has been one of his biggest problem areas. He has thrown six interceptions while going only 52-of-100 passing. Multiple interceptions were due to underthrown passes, calling attention to Del Rio’s noted lack of arm strength. He threw a pick-six on Florida’s first pass Saturday.

Moving Forward

McElwain knows more about offense than any writer or disgruntled fan on Twitter. He has coached offenses at Alabama that won conference titles and national championships. If the second-year coach sticks with Del Rio, fans should trust that the journeyman quarterback gives the Gators the best chance to win.

When one considers that McElwain almost had Grier, Harris and Francois all on his team’s roster for the 2015 season with 3-5 years of eligibility each, and then none of the three in 2016, it’s safe to say that the second-year coach hasn’t had the best luck when it comes to the most important position on the team.

Gators fans gave McElwain a pass for the suspension-induced second-half collapse last season.

But it’s time for McElwain to figure out how to change his quarterback luck. It’s why UF pays him a seven-figure salary. Florida fans (and recruits) have watched the Gators struggle on offense for the last year, and everyone’s patience is starting to wear thin.