Gators fans were expecting a lethal vertical passing attack last year, and John Brantley didn’t curb expectations when he talked about what he could do with a football.
“With the adrenaline pumping, I might be able to throw it through the stadium,” he said days before Florida’s season opener last September.
If that prediction came true, it would have been Brantley’s most noteworthy effort of the year. Instead, the quarterback settled on a mix of check-downs, misreads and turnovers as the offense stalled before it could even start.
Florida ranked 88th nationally with 184.3 passing yards per game, the team’s worst air attack since 1989 — the year before Steve Spurrier took over. The unit returns Brantley and 10 of its top 11 pass-catchers from last season, and the group expects to take a step forward this fall, thanks in large part to the addition of offensive coordinator Charlie Weis.
Fans will get a chance to measure how far the passing attack has come since last fall when the Gators take the field for the Orange and Blue Debut in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Saturday at noon.
Although Weis has only been in Gainesville since January, he is not afraid to poke fun at Brantley’s performance last season, when the quarterback’s 116.4 efficiency rating ranked 97th nationally.
“You came to run the spread; that made a lot sense,” Weis said sarcastically.
If that “Jersey swipe” stung, it was nothing compared to the venom Florida fans spewed while watching the offense devolve into little more than a series of passes in the flats.
The Gators were booed on Oct. 9 during a loss to LSU in The Swamp, and the hometown reception only grew more sour the following week during a 10-7 loss to Mississippi State.
The passing game was so ineffective that it was all but ignored toward the end of the season as the offense shifted to an unprecedented three-quarterback system. At times, Brantley became an afterthought, his role reduced to only third-and-long situations.
But if Weis hopes to energize the offense this fall, he will need Brantley to put last year behind him. Freshmen Jeff Driskel and Jacoby Brissett, who have a combined three months of college football experience, are the only signal-callers behind Brantley.
As far as exactly what Weis has done to improve the offense, fans will have to wait until Saturday.
Receivers are running deeper routes, pre-snap motions are different and terminology has changed. But, minor tweaks aside, receiver Frankie Hammond Jr. and other offensive players said the plays have not changed.
Brantley, on the other hand, says adjusting to the offense has been complicated.
“This is a new challenge for me,” he said. “Everything is so new right now. I’m thinking a lot, and I’m just trying to concentrate on what I have to do out there.”
He isn’t worried about chucking the ball out of the stadium anymore, although fans certainly would not mind watching someone finally air it out.
