By: Mike Anthony

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Every college football team enters a season with a plan.

Whether the plan is to contend for a national championship or merely try to make a bowl game, every team has a list of things that need to go right in order to end the season where it expects.

And without exception, a starting quarterback in a leg cast is a huge detriment to any team’s season goals, regardless of how bold or conservative they may have been.

That’s exactly where the Florida Gators now stand. The Gators opened the year with plenty of promise as veteran quarterback Feleipe Franks seemed to have Florida moving in the right direction, but Franks suffered a bad ankle injury in the fourth quarter of the Gators’ victory over Kentucky in one of the first SEC games of the season.

It’s easy to cite the ‘Next Man Up’ philosophy following any injury for a collegiate football team, but Florida has a ton riding on what happens next with Franks out of the picture.

Thrust into the spotlight is redshirt junior Kyle Trask. And – in true Hollywood form – Trask immediately set about pulling the Gators out of the fire.

Florida trailed 24-10 when Franks went down, but Trask ignited the offense, engineering drives that racked up 19 unanswered points that allowed the Gators to escape Lexington with a victory, if not their health.

Trask was able to deal with the immediate problem of replacing Franks on the fly and mounting a comeback, but now sees Florida pondering how it can achieve its goals with Franks done for the season.

For the time being, things should be just fine. Trask proved that he’s capable of commanding the offense. The Gators’ schedule also helps out as Florida hosts Tennessee – which is off to a nightmarish start – this week before taking on Towson out of the FCS next week.

Following that, the real tests begin.

Florida will face Auburn, LSU and Georgia in a four-game stretch that will cover all of October. That would have been a tall order even with the entire depth chart intact, but now the Gators have the task of navigating that top-10 minefield with a backup quarterback.

If nothing else, Trask is at least the same imposing physical figure that Franks was. Standing 6-foot-5 and weighing 235 pounds, Trask looked poised in hitting on 9-of-13 passing and bowling in for a rushing touchdown against Kentucky.

Replacing Franks’ big arm might not be possible, but there’s a chance that the injury might force the Gators into a more consistent attack, which is what their fans have been hoping for all along. The playbook will be limited in the coming weeks, but that could be a blessing in disguise.

Most agree that the Gators have top-10 talent all over the field, but that hasn’t shown on the offensive side of the ball in big games.

It may have taken a bad break – literally – but Franks’ injury could unwittingly force Florida into a new offensive direction that keeps them near the top of the rankings and allows them to remain as the only real threat to Georgia in the SEC East.