No doubt one of the major storylines for the 2010 season -- which kicks off in 65 days, incidentally -- will be the transformation of Florida from a Tim Tebow-led team to a John Brantley-quarterbacked club.
During Urban Meyer‘s sabbatical following the end of spring practice, de facto head coach Steve Addazio sang the praises of Brantley, saying, among other things, that the quarterback’s teammates “have tremendous confidence in him.” So, it should come as no surprise that Meyer -- “back” in total charge of his football program -- is pumping up a player who is unquestionably long on talent but very short on Div. 1-A experience.
Speaking to 1070 the Fan in Indianapolis by way of SportsRadioInterviews.com, Meyer used a question about Tebow’s departure to, as should be expected, espouse the virtues of Brantley. And how that will relate to the blessing of being the hunter instead of the hunted.
“Well I miss Tim,” Meyer said. “I speak to him about once a week. Obviously our relationship is as close as I’ve ever had with a player.
“We’ve got a guy named John Brantley, who’s a tremendous talent, he’s a different style of player, he’s more of the Chris Leak mold from 2006 when he was our quarterback.
“Very good young team around him. It’s maybe not a team of superstars, but it’s a team with some very, very good players that I can feel has a little bit of a chip on their shoulder, which is great to coach a team that has a chip as opposed to being the targeted one all the time. So it’s a little different this year, but we have good players.”
A little later in the interview, Meyer once again brought the discussion back to Brantley and the confidence the program has in him.
“I think he’ll be one of the best throwers,” Meyer said. “The leadership, the toughness and all those things are all to be determined. But what he’s shown so far in practice and in spring ball, and from what I hear he’s doing this summer, he’s going to be a really, really good player for us.”
We get the feeling that Florida will be ranked a little bit lower in the initial polls than is warranted, and that ranking will likely be based on the fact that the Gators will be Tebow-less for the first time in four years. We think that will prove to be a mistake once we get to the end of the 2010 season as Brantley has the talent and can gain the requisite on-the-job training to keep UF at the elite level they’ve been perched on since Meyer arrived in Gainesville.