As the 62-3 score went final on Tim Tebow’s second-to-last home game as a Gator, the quarterback could feel his time winding down.
Tebow knows it’s becoming more and more important to make sure his successor, John Brantley, is ready to take over the reins once he’s gone.
The sophomore showed how far he has come as a passer in the second half, going 9 for 13 for 146 yards and three touchdowns, but Tebow was more concerned with something else.
“I was actually trying to get Johnny to go around shaking hands with me, but he didn’t want to,” said Tebow, who takes a victory lap around The Swamp after every home victory. “But I’ll get that tradition passed on.”
Brantley gave Gators fans a glimpse into the future of the team’s passing attack against FIU (3-8, 3-4 Sun Belt) with touchdown strikes to redshirt freshmen Omarius Hines and Frankie Hammond Jr. — the first of their careers — but his reluctance to join the former Heisman Trophy winner on his post-game jog around Florida Field shows the Tim Tebow era isn’t over quite yet.
“I’ve been waiting for three years now, but you know what, I’ve just learned so much and I’ve taken it all in these three years,” Brantley said. “To sit behind one of the greatest players in college football is a blessing to me.”
With the win against the Golden Panthers, the Gators (11-0, 8-0 Southeastern Conference) extended their nation-best win streak to 21 games — the fourth-longest in SEC history.
Perhaps more impressively, the win made Tebow and the rest of the seniors the winningest class in conference history, running their record to 46-6.
The senior class has accomplished a lot together, but there’s still plenty of unfinished business for this group.
Brantley and the next generation’s time is edging closer by the week, but it will be on Tebow, senior linebacker Brandon Spikes and the rest of the current starters to close out the regular season with a victory on Senior Day against Florida State on Saturday.
A win against the Seminoles gives the Gators their first undefeated regular season since 1995 and the third in school history — UF went 5-0-1 in 1911.
Coach Urban Meyer and his senior quarterback have never lost to FSU in their time as Gators, and Tebow has dominated the Seminoles in his two seasons as a starter.
In the last two years, Tebow passed for 447 yards and six touchdowns and added 169 yards and three scores on the ground.
The Gators have won by a combined margin of 90-27.
The lefty grew up cheering for Florida in Jacksonville, and no one knows the significance of the rivalry better than him.
“Since I can remember watching football, I can remember watching that game,” Tebow said.
After the game against FIU, he told an anecdote about watching the game in 1996 — a 24-21 loss — as a 9-year-old.
His father had him go out into the yard and rake the leaves when the contest ended, and Tebow said he cried the entire time because he knew the Gators had lost and wouldn’t be able to win a national championship.
The young Tebow was wrong, of course.
Quarterback Danny Wuerffel and Florida went on to defeat FSU 52-20 in a rematch at the Sugar Bowl, giving the Gators their first-ever national championship.
The members of the senior class will take their third national championship in four years any way they can get it, but stomaching a loss in their final game in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium would be less than a storybook ending.
In that scenario, Tebow would be deprived of his final victory lap, with or without Brantley.
