Florida football: Orange Bowl chance for Kyle Trask to set 2020 stage

It has been a year of the unexpected for Florida football. Not the least of which was the emergence of a new quarterback.

Coming into the season, there was a ton of optimism surrounding Florida football.

For about five minutes in Lexington, Kentucky, that optimism started to fade.

It was then that starting quarterback Feleipe Franks went down with a severe ankle injury, bringing about a junior from Texas who had not started a football game in, well, who knows how long — Kyle Trask.

Now, nearly a full season later and Trask is the toast of the state, leading Florida football to another 10-win season and a shot to win their second consecutive New Year’s 6 bowl game when they face No. 24 Virginia in the Capital One Orange Bowl Monday.

“If you watch Kyle, he did everything he was asked to do and he knew when his opportunity came to take advantage of it,” Florida Offensive Coordinator John Hevesy told the media Friday in Miami. “With a jump around here or there, he saw what University of Florida done for him, what his education did for him, what his opportunity was there, and he made the best of it.”

For Trask, he was thrust into the national spotlight instantaneously and was forced to face the burden of being the starting quarterback for Florida football.

It’s a burden he seems to have shouldered well.

"I mean, yeah, definitely a lot changed, but this is why you come to play college football at a school like Florida is to have all the responsibilities that come with starting and whatever,” Trask said. “But yeah, it definitely changed a lot. Like I said, a lot more responsibilities, but I think I kind of — I’ve adapted to — I mean, it’s given me a lot more experience and a lot more confidence on the field and things like that.”"

Trask went from being a back-up few outside of Gainesville really knew about to become one of the best quarterbacks in an already-stacked Southeastern Conference.

This season, Trask threw for 2,637 yards on 203-for-3015 passing and 24 touchdowns. Bear in mind, those stats didn’t come in a full season as Trask didn’t come in until the latter stages of the third game of the season.

He has one of the highest accuracy (66.9%) and completion (67.6%) percentages in the league with what started out being a suspect offensive line and wide receivers he had never thrown to competitively.

Now that Franks has entered the transfer portal and will leave Florida, 2020 will provide Trask with potentially a full season to show his talents and how much he has grown into the role of the Florida football starting quarterback.

"“The way this progression has gone with these young guys coming up, I mean, there’s a lot of potential for next year for sure,” Trask said."

And, the thought of leaving Florida never crossed his mind, despite seeing what something like the transfer portal did for LSU’s Joe Burrow and Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts — both vying for a national championship.

“I know the transfer portal has been a big thing the past couple years, but I get asked that question quite a bit, but I’ve always wanted to be a Gator, and I still felt like I wanted to compete and just once I get my shot I was going to take advantage of it,” Trask said.

He has a chance to keep making the most of it when No. 6 Florida football takes on No. 24 Virginia at 8 p.m. Monday, Dec. 30 in the Capital One Orange Bowl. The game will be at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.