Garcia: Gators’ key is whether Treon Harris can make throws like Will Grier
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The Florida Gators are without their QB 1, so they turn to Treon Harris. The good news is that Harris has significant playing experience. The bad news, however, is that he hasn’t been a very effective passer. Don’t get me wrong, Harris has a solid arm and is a very talented athlete, but he is not the passing quarterback that Will Grier is.
With that being said, the Gators will have to scheme teams with the running game. When you look at Florida’s offense over the past few weeks, you can see a much more cerebral quarterback in Grier. He was being baptized by fire but was progressing steadily each week.
We studied his Week 5 breakout performance against Ole Miss in particular.
Take a look the video clip on Grier’s 77-yard touchdown throw. It’s a perfect illustration of a quarterback being able to manipulate a defense with his eyes long enough to create a seam for his receiver, and then delivering a seed through the smallest of windows. You can’t beat the Cover 1 Robber coverage any better than Grier did on that throw, which Brandon Powell turned into six points.
Can Harris do that, beginning Saturday at LSU? It remains to be seen.
Hopefully Harris has been paying attention in meetings and film review to see where Grier’s head was during the pre- snap. The pre-snap read is something that I was very impressed with during the last couple of games that Grier played.
I don’t expect Florida to run the same offense with Harris that they had been running with Grier, but I also don’t think it will be totally different. Obviously, the Gators will try to get Harris going with the run game and play-action. But I don’t expect to see as much downfield passing or simple dropback plays like they ran with Grier.
As Florida prepares for the biggest game in the program over the past few years, they now have to do it without one of the better quarterbacks in the SEC. I would venture to say that both defenses will be stacking the box and making the quarterbacks beat them throwing the ball.
The Man. The Myth. The Legend.
