The legend of Kyle Trask is one for the history books.
A four-year backup high school quarterback who received one Power 5 offer (UF) steps in after the Gators’ three-year starter goes down with a season-ending injury and becomes the SEC’s third-highest-rated quarterback. In his first-ever start on the road (in Baton Rouge, Louisiana), Trask threw for more yards than and the same amount of touchdowns as Heisman frontrunner Joe Burrow, only adding to the “In Trask We Trust,” motto the Gators football team has taken on this season.
Trask, minus an interception on a questionable third-and-one call, undoubtedly passed the “Can he truly lead?” test after keeping the Gators in the game for 50 minutes in arguably the rowdiest stadium in college football against the second-best team in the nation. This weekend, he must pass another test.
The “trap game” test.
There are two sides to the trap game coin. The first side is letting a loss that could have been a big win consume a team. Last season, Florida suffered a double-digit loss against then-unranked Missouri after falling to Georgia the week before. Players cited the reason for the loss as dejection from the loss in Jacksonville and the knowledge that the team’s National Championship dreams were over.
This season, the Gators football team is displaying a mental toughness it hasn’t in years. The team is night and day from the season opener against Miami. Each week, it seems like players take their assignments and criticism as fuel to improve from week to week. More importantly, it seems like players block the previous week out of their minds and focus on preparing for the next challenge in front of them.
The other side of the coin is getting complacent against a seemingly inferior team. Look at Georgia. The formerly third-ranked Bulldogs lost to an SEC East team for the first time since 2016 when they hosted South Carolina last week. An injury to the Gamecocks’ backup quarterback meant the third-stringer went in, took Georgia to double OT in Athens and brought South Carolina up to .500 on the season.
The Gamecocks are sandwiched between the two biggest games on Florida’s schedule: LSU and Georgia. After losing to the Tigers, the pathway to the College Football Playoff narrowed significantly. Even if the Gators win out the regular season, the team will need a win over either Alabama or LSU in the SEC Championship to nab a spot in the top four. Despite the win over Georgia, South Carolina is still unranked and still may rely on its third-string quarterback to top the Gators, who sit atop the SEC East alone. (Losing to an SEC West team while Georgia lost to an SEC East team means Florida tops its side of the conference alone.) Both sides of the trap game coin will shine brightly at the noon kick in Williams-Brice Stadium Saturday.
One of Kyle Trask’s most useful intangibles is how cool, calm and collected he is under center. Whether he throws a touchdown or an interception, he approaches the next play with nearly the same demeanor. It is clear that he’s a formidable leader for the Florida Gators.
With the fourth-highest completion rate among SEC quarterbacks and nearly 1,200 yards in four and a half games, he’s proven it. But even the coolest, calmest and most collected player could easily fall victim to being upset about the week before, looking ahead to the next big game and glossing over the current opponent due to the current opponent’s mediocre-minus-one-game season.
Trask must lead the team with that level-headedness he possesses if the Gators want to go 7-1 and remain the kings of the SEC East.
Ben
IMHO this is NOT a trap game for the following reasons: 1) Florida would have beaten a much better team in L.S.U. (Obviously they didn’t) 2) Georgia would have destroyed an inferior team. (Obviously they didn’t) If those two events had occurred, their is no doubt Florida would have a hard time getting up for this game. Their should be no way the players should take South Carolina for granted. If they do and lose, well shame on them. Two other points: 1) Technically Missouri leads the East with no losses, pending their appeal of N.C.A.A. sanctions. 2) Based on what I have seen this year, their is little chance of running the table to include beating Georgia and Missouri AND then beating Alabama/L.S.U. We can always dream though….