I’ve been playing a little Madden NFL 20 over the past few days. Disclaimer: I’m not very good. Like, not at all. My receivers can’t catch, I can’t get any traction on the ground game, and getting a decent pass rush only works sometimes — the rest of the time I’m  giving up a long touchdown to one of the computer’s receivers because its team has picked up on my blitz from a mile away.

One feature in the new game, though, is called “Superstar X-Factor.” I’ve not quite seen it in action, but apparently specific players have special abilities that can be unlocked as you play if you hit certain achievements and milestones. Players can then truly take over a game.

I’m not even sure why I decided to lead with that, but it came to me while my editor asked me to write about Jake Fromm today as we get closer to Georgia-Florida. (Or Florida-Georgia.) “Superstar X-Factor,” of course, was devised in a meeting room at EA’s offices somewhere on the West Coast; it doesn’t exist.

If it did, though, Fromm could use it.

I’ve been watching the junior quarterback all season, and when looking back, I thought of this question: When has Fromm’s truly taken the bull by the horns this year and taken over a game? I mean, truly taken over.

We saw it in the Rose Bowl against Oklahoma, where he led a 7-play, 59-yard drive to tie the game late in the 4th quarter. We saw a glimpse of that this year against Notre Dame: Fromm’s ability to read opposing defenses and adjust on the fly based on what he saw, leading to a key go-ahead scoring drive in the 3rd quarter and, later, what turned out to be a game-clinching touchdown. His 5-play, 70-yard drive against Tennessee to put the Dawgs up 26-14 and firmly on the path to victory rings as another example.

So I’m not questioning his leadership qualities and his intangibles. He simply goes about his business week in and week out with a steady hand, safely and effectively and largely mistake-free, and NFL scouts and executives love that in a quarterback.

Maybe that — his biggest strength — also is his biggest flaw. He’s averaged just 200.8 yards passing this season despite 9 touchdowns and only 3 interceptions. He’s winning games, but is his rate of production sustainable if the Dawgs want to get to where they want to be?

Georgia’s offense this year has been largely predicated on how the Dawgs run the ball: they benefit from having one of the top rushers in the SEC in D’Andre Swift and a talented change-of-pace back in Brian Herrien. When they can move the ball effectively, Fromm is at his best. When they can’t consistently get leverage in the running game, that hinders what the team can do.

That’s when Fromm needs to find the “Superstar X-Factor” and take his game to the next level.

Forget about systems, playcalling, whether Justin Fields or Jacob Eason would have been better, all of that. Jake Fromm, not Fields or Eason, is Georgia’s quarterback. And sometimes the safe, steady approach doesn’t work. That doesn’t mean that he needs to turn into the second coming of Brett Favre and gun it all over the field; there needs to be some balance, order and structure.

After all, Georgia is 0-5 when Fromm throws it more than 30 times, though you could argue some of those performances were some of Georgia’s best, too, and ultimately the defense let down the Dawgs.

The Fromm I mentioned in the Rose Bowl and against Notre Dame? That’s the Fromm who needs to show up against Florida. And, beyond that, that’s the Fromm who can lead this team to the SEC Championship and potentially the College Football Playoff. But in all honesty, if LSU and Georgia make it to Atlanta, could you envision him matching numbers with Joe Burrow right now?

The issue is: We’re asking that same question about how he’s going to stack up against … Kyle Trask?

It hasn’t been a bad 2019 for Jake Fromm, but we might need to see him push himself to heights that he’s not reached before on Saturday and throughout the rest of the season. Where the Dawgs go from here could hinge on it.