Gators addition as daunting as predicted

This is why it didn’t seem fair when the SEC decided to give the Arkansas Razorbacks the toughest schedule in college football history.

First Georgia, then Florida. Maybe to the surprise of the SEC, the Razorbacks took on perhaps the second-best team in the conference — behind Alabama, of course — and fought until the bitter end.

The Hogs were respectable on offense, but the defense needs to practice covering receivers.

Against most teams in the SEC, Arkansas’ offensive effort Saturday would have been good enough to win.

The Gators, though, aren’t most teams. They’re too balanced, too deep and too talented, and they came away with a 63-35 victory.

The final result had to be disappointing for Arkansas quarterback Feleipe Franks, who was once the starter for the Gators. He got beat out by Kyle Trask, who threw six touchdown passes last night, five in the first half.

Franks, though, had nothing to prove.

He passed for more than 4,000 yards for the Gators and led them to numerous victories.

On Saturday night, he had a good game against his old team. He completed 15 of 19 passes for 250 yards and 2 touchdowns.

The biggest problem Franks had was getting on the field. The Gators’ offense owned the clock with a time of possession of more than 38 minutes.

Florida wasted no time flexing its muscle, and the first half told the entire story.

The Gators drove 75 yards in 14 plays while using 7:24 on the opening drive for a 7-0 lead, but saying the Razorbacks came to play would be like saying Florida has had a lot of rain in the past month.

Franks’ first play back in The Swamp was a 12-yard pass to De’Vion Warren. His fourth play was an 8-yard pass to Blake Kern. His fifth play was a 47-yard touchdown pass to Mike Woods to tie the score. The Hogs used only 1:35 to strike back.

His quarterback rating after one possession was 397.6.

Both teams went for it on fourth and 1 on their next possessions, and both failed. The Razorbacks put Florida back in action at the Hogs 49, and it took them nine plays to take a 14-7 lead after a 23yard touchdown pass with 10:03 to play in the first half.

Arkansas’ offensive line struggled to protect Franks on its next possession, and it also got hit with two false start penalties.

Florida needed just four plays to cover 74 yards to make it 21-7 with 7:17 to play in the half. Trask was 3-of-4 passing for all the yards, including his third touchdown of the first half.

Despite rushing only three on most downs, the Hogs had trouble covering the Florida receivers. They were getting wide open.

It took the Razorbacks just 22 seconds to answer. After a second good kick return by Warren that was wiped out by a holding call, Trelon Smith took a handoff at his own 17, made one move and raced down the right sideline for an 83-yard touchdown.

Not sure you could have convinced the ESPN announcers, who seemed to be in love with the Gators, but at that point a pretty good game was developing. The Hogs were not in awe of Florida like the announcers.

On the Gators’ fifth possession, they scored their fourth touchdown for a 2814 lead.

They weren’t through, with a fifth touchdown pass from Trask making it 35-14. The Gators had 366 yards of offense in the first half and had the ball for 21:34.

Arkansas didn’t quit in the second half, but they didn’t have the manpower to overcome the second-best team in the SEC.