Quarterback Jeff Driskel was not ready to play when he stepped onto the field for the first non-garbage time snap of his career.
He did not know how to prepare and did not take it seriously that he was one injury away from being "the guy" at Florida.
Then John Brantley went down shortly before halftime and Driskel took the reins on Oct. 1, 2011, against Alabama whether he liked it or not.
The opponent was no slouch — the colors here remain the same, different players donning the Crimson and White — with Driskel presumably a bit more prepared than he was last time.
"They weren’t good," Driskel said of his memories from that night.
"Definitely underprepared. Didn’t know how to prepare at that time to play anybody, especially Alabama as good as they were.
"Just going in not knowing what you’re doing is not a good situation. I’m not going to let that happen again. I’m going to do whatever I can this week to prepare and be as ready as I can. I know that’s best for the football team. So, that’s what I’m going to do."
Driskel said Monday that his lack of preparedness hurt him on both the mental and physical sides of the game.
He made a mistake resulting in a bobbled snap, was rolled up on and injured.
Now things are different for Driskel.
He is the man in charge of Florida’s new-look offense and he is ready to instruct his understudy on how to be ready at the drop of a hat.
"Going in as the starting quarterback, you know what you’ve got to prepare for, you know what you’re getting into," Driskel said.
"At that time, I didn’t know how close I was to playing. You don’t realize you’re one snap away from playing. That’s where I went wrong as a freshman. I’m going to let Treon (Harris) know, ‘I could go down any play. You might have to go in and play well, so be ready to do that.’"
The student meets the teacher yet again: Will Muschamp would not be where he is today if not for Alabama coach Nick Saban — he admitted as much Monday.
Muschamp coached under Saban at both LSU and again with the Miami Dolphins, learning both how to teach the position as well as how to evaluate and develop talent.
Muschamp brings Saban’s tricks of the trade to Florida like teaching cornerbacks to shuffle step rather than back peddle, how to play pattern-matching zone and the robber variation of cover 3 defense.
"A lot of things, just from total program management," Muschamp said. "We’d talk in terms of evaluation of players and I learned a lot at the Miami Dolphins as well in that situation from our scouting department. But just philosophically, having an idea of what you want to be on offense and defense and special teams as a program. All of the things that I think are critical moving forward and where we’re at."
Secondary remedies: There were multiple lapses in coverage, numerous miscommunications and fundamental mistakes leading to Kentucky quarterback Patrick Towles’ all-out aerial assault on the Florida Gators Saturday night to the tune of 369 yards.
On the bright side for UF, Muschamp sees all the issues as correctable.
"173 yards on six plays and you can’t afford that and win games moving forward in those situations," Muschamp said. "But there were some things that are very correctable from a fundamental technique standpoint of how we play the slot and some things that are all correctable issues, they’re not things that can’t be corrected."
Follow Richard Johnson on Twitter @RagjUF
UF quarterback Jeff Driskel drops back in the pocket to attempt a pass during Florida's 36-30 triple-overtime win against Kentucky on Saturday at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
