By: TJ Hartnett

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

The Georgia/Florida matchup at the end of October is always the biggest game of the year for either team.

It doesn’t matter what their respective records are, what they are playing for, what the season has been so far and even what the season will end up being after.

A national championship is nice, but there’s an argument that the only win that matters to the University of Georgia and to the University of Florida is the one they fight for in Jacksonville each year.

While UGA is sitting atop the SEC with a 7-0 record, Florida has floundered to a 3-3 first half going into a bye week prior to the big showdown against the Bulldogs.

Georgia has ridden the breakout performance of its freshman quarterback to great success, while the Gators have inexplicably kept a huge amount of potential on the bench.

Malik Zaire made headlines in the offseason when he picked the Gators to showcase his abilities as a quarterback. As a dynamic play caller who can beat teams in more than one way, he was expected to get the snaps from the get-go in 2017.

However, he’s spent most of the season as a spectator, while Florida has struggled to win half its games.

He’s the kind of player that was desperately needed in Gainesville, but it’s hard to contribute from the bench and with his lack of playing time, Florida’s struggles have continued, much to the surprise of no one.

The only game action Zaire has seen was coming in as relief during the second half of the season’s first game.

Luke Del Rio logged one start before his season was lost to an injury and the rest of the starts have belonged to redshirt freshman Feleipe Franks.

Franks has shown that he is not without skills, but he simply cannot seem to take the next step to being the kind of quarterback a team can rely on week in and week out. That’s what has been so frustrating for the Florida fans; there might be such a QB sitting on the bench every week.

The flipside to this very argument is that there is no guarantee that Zaire can turn their (admittedly, already lost) season around but what they’ve got on the field right now simply isn’t cutting it.

In the past two losses for Florida, Franks has totaled one touchdown on a shovel pass and thrown two interceptions. Why not play Zaire and at least find out what he can offer?

A follow-up question: is there a better time for finding out than against Georgia? The answer is no. You might think that a must-win game is no time to change things up so radically, but in fact it’s the perfect time.

With the bye week there’s extra time for the offense to get acclimated to a new QB and for a new QB to practice with the offense.

The downside is, of course, that they lose; but they have a very good chance of doing that if they put Franks up against Fromm anyway. If they play Zaire they are inserting a more experienced QB who could lead the upset, keep Florida in contention, and change the storyline for the Gators’ season.  The rewards far outweigh the risks in this situation.

That goes double since this would be against UGA. The fan base is already calling for Zaire and if he gets the start and leads Florida to victory he will be a hero in Gainesville.

If the worst thing that can happen is more of the same and the best thing that can happen is winning the biggest game of the year, then the choice isn’t a choice at all.

However, given that he’s been on the bench all season so far, there is no evidence that Florida has that kind of sense.