Alligator Army put into perspective what a Florida win against Tennessee on Saturday would mean for the team. That's back-to-back SEC road wins to cap the Gators' 3-0 start to the season, with a relatively easy path to 4-0 when they face Kentucky next week.
And the Gators couldn't ask for much more out of quarterback Jeff Driskel, who is clearly the team's definitive leading man at the position at this point. Here's Andy Hutchins at Alligator Army on Driskel inching toward Tim Tebow status, and he appears to be serious about this:
Jeff Driskel is what we wanted him to be 18 months ago, is the definitive winner of the 2012 Florida quarterback competition, and is very possibly a worthy heir to Tim Tebow's mantle. Blasphemous as that last bit may be, selling Driskel short after the best full game a Florida quarterback has played since Tebow aerated Cincinnati in the 2010 Sugar Bowl would seem like a disservice. He completed 14 of 20 throws for 219 yards, and though Hammond made the longest reception of the night happen with moves in the open field, Driskel made two throws that rank with the best I have seen a Florida quarterback since Rex Grossman make: he escaped pressure, rolled out, and fired a strike to Solomon Patton in the second quarter that moved the chains, and, under duress, he stood tall and dropped the pass to Reed for his touchdown into a box where Reed could make a (difficult) catch or the pass could fall incomplete. There's no issue with Driskel's arm strength, or accuracy, or composure, and the indecisiveness that plagued him in College Station wasn't evident on this night, as he bedeviled rushers and ran the ball eight times for 81 yards. If Driskel can sustain this level of performance as the stakes get higher and the defenses get more fearsome, he's going to enter the pantheon of great Florida quarterbacks; if he keeps improving, as I think he will, Driskel might eventually be a Heisman Trophy candidate. Really.
Is Andy prisoner of the moment? Maybe. But there is no denying that whatever the Gators' fate is this season, it's going to be heavily tied to Driskel's performance.
For more information on Gators football, head on over to Alligator Army. Don't forget to also take a look at our SEC blog, Team Speed Kills.