Florida football: 15 greatest quarterbacks in Gators history
By John Buhler
Kerwin Bell was pretty much not recruited coming out of high school. He played for tiny Lafayette County and had to walk on to the Gators football team in 1983. He redshirted that first year in Florida, but was able to navigate to the top of the depth chart by his redshirt freshman season in 1984.
Bell completed 53.3 percent of his passes for 1,614 yards, 16 touchdowns and seven interceptions, as he would go on to be SEC Player of the Year for a Florida team that finished in the top five in the nation. Florida might have won the SEC Championship that year, but had to quickly vacate it, as infractions under head coach Charley Pell kept the Gators out of a bowl game.
Bell would persevere to have a great redshirt sophomore campaign in 1985. He completed 62.5 percent of his passes for 2,687 yards, 21 touchdowns and eight interceptions. This led to him being named First-Team All-SEC and being an honorable mention All-American for the 1985 Gators. He would be an honorable mention as an All-American the next year in 1986.
While Bell shined in his first two years as a starter, his 1986 and 1987 campaigns statistically weren’t all that much to write home about. He only had one more touchdown than interceptions during his final two years in Gainesville. Bell never threw for anything close to 2,000 yards again, as his yards per attempt well under 7.5 as an upperclassmen at Florida.
In four seasons playing quarterback for the Gators, Bell completed 57.6 percent of his passes for 7,585 yards, 56 touchdowns an 35 interceptions. He is both a member of the Florida-Georgia Hall of Fame and the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame.
After being a seventh-round pick by the Miami Dolphins in the 1988 NFL Draft, Bell had a journeyman playing career through 2001, playing both in the NFL and the CFL. He would then enter the coaching world. After winning a Division II national title with the Valdosta State Blazers, Bell would become the offensive coordinator for the South Florida Bulls in 2018, a position he holds today on Charlie Strong’s coaching staff.