After five years, 64 wins, two SEC championships, two BCS championships, a dozen draft picks, one Heisman Trophy and an endless trail of humiliated defenders, the spread offense has had its day at Florida: New head coach Will Muschamp introduced himself Tuesday night by promising that his Gators "will be a pro-style attack offensively and defensively," run by an offensive coordinator who – unlike outgoing spread disciple Urban Meyer or either of his coordinators in Gainesville, Dan Mullen and Steve Addazio – has some NFL experience. The beast that terrorized the SEC appears all but dead.That should be good news for incumbent quarterback John Brantley, who admitted that "it was definitely better to hear more pocket passing" after a dismal debut in which he emphatically did not live up to the "heir apparent" tag he wore for two years as Tim Tebow's top backup. Everything about Brantley – his size, his arm, his uninspiring gait – suggests he'll be happier in a system that leaves him in the pocket to plant his feet and lob rainmakers downfield.
Still, when given the chance, he refused to rule out a transfer Tuesday night, insisting instead that he was focused on the Outback Bowl against Penn State on Jan. 1 and would "sit down and talk about it" after the new year. Which forces Gator fans to ask, in the wake of a season that set the program back at least six years: Do they really want their quarterback back in 2011?
On one hand, Brantley isn't an underclassmen with years ahead of him after some initial growing pains. He was a fourth-year junior who showed almost no promise in any particular aspect of the game: He can't run (73 positive yards for the year on the ground, on a long gain of 12), he's not a great decision maker (a 118.8 efficiency rating, 10th in the SEC among regular starters) and his 400-caliber arm was nowhere to be found. In fact, Brantley finished dead last in the conference in both yards per completion (10.4) and completions covering at least 25 yards (9).
For some context on that number, half the regular passers in the SEC hit on at least three times as many downfield strikes, and the two not-so-celebrated starters at Tennessee combined for four times as many. Pound for pound, Brantley posed the least threat to defenses of any quarterback in the conference, and the mildest threat of any Florida QB of the post-Spurrier decades, by far. In four of their five games against opponents that finished the season in the top 25, the Gators scored six points (with zero offensive touchdowns) against Alabama, seven points against Mississippi State, 14 against South Carolina (including a kickoff return for a touchdown) and seven against Florida State; in the fifth, the offense only put three TDs on the board against LSU by virtue of a pair of short-field starts in the red zone following Tiger turnovers.
On the other hand, he was shoehorned into a system designed for a more mobile quarterback, under a coordinator who managed to rein in Tim Tebow's big-play tendencies in 2009, too, and refused to change course even after it was obvious that a) Brantley is a fish out of water on the "option" part of the spread option, and b) It was getting him killed. He spent the entire second half of the season "banged up" in some capacity or another, and never looked like he was comfortably in control of the offense.
At worst, a pro-style, dropback teacher could do for Brantley what it did for Tennessee's Jonathan Crompton, who rebounded from a catastrophe of a season in 2008 to become a viable, productive starter on Lane Kiffin's watch in 2009. Applied to Brantley, the same rate of improvement Crompton showed from his junior to senior years would make Brantley one of the most feared slingers in the SEC.
If he goes, he'll also leave a void the Gators are in no position to fill by the fall. The other quarterback options on this year's roster were all freshmen, the best of whom were converted "Wildcat" types who don't add much as passers (Trey Burton, Jordan Reed). Behind them, there's a former two-star prospect who wasn't recruited by any other SEC schools (Tyler Murphy) and a handful of walk-ons.
That leaves the star commitment of the class of 2011, Jeff Driskel, the No. 1 "pro-style" quarterback prospect in the nation – a hyped, 6-foot-3, 225-pound local who projects as a virtual clone of John Brantley. It would be an awful waste to invest an entire season in one quarterback's trial by fire, only to throw another one right back into the pit at the first opportunity. If Brantley comes back, the offense could be in for another rocky transition year, but if he doesn't, it's almost assured of one.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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