Florida football: 15 greatest quarterbacks in Gators history
By John Buhler
John Brantley was born to be a Gator. His father John Brantley III played for Florida in the 1970s and his uncle Scot Brantley was an All-SEC linebacker in Gainesville, going on to play eight years in the NFL for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
So naturally, Brantley entered Florida with a ton of expectations. He redshirted his freshman year in Florida in 2007. Brantley would back up Tim Tebow in both 2008 and 2009, simultaneously sharing the quarterback room with Cam Newton. Florida would win a national title in 2008 with Tebow at quarterback, but would fall to the Alabama Crimson Tide in the 2009 SEC Championship.
Obviously, Brantley had huge shoes to fill once Tebow became a first-round pick by the Denver Broncos in the 2010 NFL Draft. As a redshirt junior, Brantley completed 60.8 percent of his passes for 2,061 yards, nine touchdowns and 10 interceptions. This would end up being former head coach Urban Meyers’ last year in Gainesville.
Brantley would play out his redshirt senior season in Gainesville under Will Muschamp in 2011. He completed 60 percent of his passes for 2,044 yards, 11 touchdowns and seven interceptions. Brantley might have struggled a bit as a starter, but it wasn’t like he was playing in an ideal situation in Florida either.
Once Brantley exhausted his collegiate eligibility, he would go undrafted in 2012 before briefly spending time in the Baltimore Ravens organization before retiring. In four seasons at Florida, Brantley completed 61.7 percent of his passes for 4,750 yards, 30 touchdowns and 18 interceptions. He averaged 7.4 yards per attempt and had a passer efficiency rating of 133.3.
Overall, Brantley is largely seen as the beginning of a dreadful decade of horrible Gators quarterback play. While he looked good at times backing up Tebow, it’s fair to say that Brantley didn’t live up to lofty expectations at any point during his Florida tenure. That being said, he was one of the most accurate Gators quarterbacks of all time and firmly cracks the top 15 in passing yardage and touchdown throws.