John Brantley proved to be no stranger to speaking in clichés last season, and he is about to learn the value of another one: Timing is everything.
Maybe if Urban Meyer had actually left after the 2009 season and Florida had brought in a new coach with a pro-style offense, Brantley could have put together the year everyone expected of him.
But he simply can’t do that in 2011. Not after what happened last season.
Brantley is certainly a talented football player. As much retroactive grief as UF’s coaches took for choosing him over Cam Newton, the excitement for No. 12 was unbelievable before the season.
But it is hard to make the argument that, based on what we saw from him in 2010 (158.5 passing yards per game), Brantley can be a serviceable quarterback for a good Florida football team.
It’s easy to point to the change in coaching and play-calling, as Anthony does, and say those numbers can improve overnight.
But Brantley’s problems at this point run deeper than stats, systems and schemes. After a disastrous season full of bad snaps, poor decisions, all the check-down passes you can imagine and one historically bad negative-10-yard completion to himself, it’s not fair to expect a magical, 180-degree turn into a high-caliber quarterback.
His coaches had no confidence in him as the leader of the offense — something made evident when his playing time was basically cut to third-and-longs by the bowl game.
While the Gators continued to say all the right things, it was clear that affected Brantley in the long run.
For the rest of the season, he showed little confidence in himself. By the end of the year, Jordan Reed had become the more effective option, and even Brantley’s body language portrayed a quarterback poorly equipped to take charge and succeed.
As if the memories of last season won’t be bad enough come fall, Brantley will face pressure from more than just the defensive line, which rattled his confidence early and often this season.
He will face just as much heat from the sideline and especially from the stands.
People are, perhaps unfairly, already building up Jeff Driskel as the heir apparent — as everything Brantley couldn’t be — and the fans will have a short fuse for bad quarterback play this time around.
Back in 2006, Florida fans booed Chris Leak and demanded Tim Tebow take his starting job, and Leak finished that season with 210.1 passing yards per game, 23 touchdowns, a 144.94 efficiency rating and a national championship.
Is there any reason to think Brantley can get away with a few more subpar games before the “Dris-kel” chants start booming out of The Swamp?
