Florida football: 15 greatest quarterbacks in Gators history

Florida football has been known to have some outstanding signal-callers over the years. Here are the 15 best quarterbacks to star for the Gators all time.

The Florida Gators boast undoubtedly one of the best histories in college football. Florida football has won three national titles, seen three of its quarterbacks win the Heisman Trophy and has won eight SEC Championships.

Simply put, you can’t write the history of college football without referring to all the great stuff that has gone down in Gainesville. While Florida is largely defined as a blue-blood, that status didn’t really come into play until former Heisman winning quarterback Steve Spurrier took over his alma mater’s program in 1990.

Florida reached new heights and was in the mix for the best college football program in the country for the next 25 years. Though the Gators have had their issues at the quarterback position for much of the last decade, one could easily argue that Florida is easily the most influential passing school in the historically run-heavy SEC.

There might be some debate that the Air Raid really first came into play at the University of Kentucky in the 1990s, which has become an increasingly popular offense in the college landscape. That being said, Spurrier’s “Fun ‘n’ Gun” offense was unlike anything the SEC had ever seen.

Instead of the tired cliché of “three yards and a cloud of dust” offensive approach, Spurrier didn’t care about pounding the rock to the degree of his SEC coaching contemporaries. He had no problem with throwing the football on any down, and this led to him winning the SEC six times during his time roaming the Gator sidelines.

Florida would still pass the ball very well during the brief Ron Zook era in Gainesville (2002-04) after Spurrier left to coach the Washington Redskins in the NFL. But once Urban Meyer came to the Florida program in 2005 from the Utah Utes, things got even more interesting.

The Gators’ quarterback play became considerably more dual-threat with Tim Tebow become a transcendent superstar for the Florida program. Tebow would leave for the NFL Draft in 2010 and the passing game in Gainesville just hasn’t been the same.

So what we’re going to do today is take a look at the 15 greatest signal-callers in the history of the University of Florida. Naturally, this all-time list will be a bit skewed to quarterbacks to have played their college ball in Gainesville in the last 30 years. Without further ado, let’s get to No. 15.