UF quarterback’s remarkable rise
Kyle Trask: From high school backup to Gators starting signal-caller.
GAINESVILLE — Some days, Kyle Trask wonders the same thing many have since UF’s quarterback burst onto the scene a year ago this month.
How did everyone — recruiting analysts, college recruiters, even his own coaches much of his career — whiff so badly when it came to gauging his talent and potential.
“I don’t know,” the mild-mannered Trask said this week. “You’ve got to go ask them.”
Despite being virtually ignored while serving as a backup quarterback at Manvel High School in Texas and later lost in the shadows at UF, Trask kept quiet, kept his head down and kept working.
The patience and persistence eventually paid off last season. Those qualities could come in handy again beginning with Saturday’s season opener at Ole Miss. If both teams clear COVID-19 testing, kickoff is set for noon and the game will air nationally on ESPN.
Trask aims to lean on past experiences to navigate a 2020 season sure to be filled with uncertainty amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“I think you have no choice but to be patient in times like this,” he said. “You’re going to have to be very flexible this year because things are going to happen that are unexpected more times than not.
“That will help me in the end.”
The Gators plan to follow his lead.
Trask stepped in for injured starter Feleipe Franks during the third game of the 2019 season — a comeback win at Kentucky — and increasingly won the confidence of his teammates and coaches during an 11-2 season.
Once players returned to Gainesville in late May following a coronavirus quarantine, Trask continued to establish himself as a team leader due to his calm demeanor, grasp of the offense and talent as a passer. The stickto-itiveness Trask showed at Florida further fueled his teammates’ belief in their quarterback.
“I don’t think anything will faze him,” UF All-SEC tight end Kyle Pitts said. “He’s been through adversity and now it’s nothing new. Him just being the leader of this team, everyone looks up to him. I think that gives people more confidence in him, which gives him more confidence knowing that everybody around him is trusting him.
“When he says certain things, people listen.”
Trask needed time — and eventually an opportunity — to find his voice.
The 22-year-old’s history as a backup dating to his sophomore year in high school, the single Football Bowl Subdivision scholarship offer — to UF — and Trask’s stunning emergence as an SEC starter conferred him with folk hero status by the close of the 2019 season.
The oft-recited details of Trask’s rise from obscurity and
lack of opportunities coming out of high school make it no less remarkable to those who witnessed it.
“This is super rare, especially at the quarterback position,” said Mike Farrell, the national recruiting director at Rivals.com. “We’ve seen kids be offered a scholarship before they’ve ever started a game. But for a kid to never start at the quarterback position, it’s pretty much unheard of.
“I can’t think of another example.”
Gators greats, especially quarterbacks, have unexpectedly emerged before.
Kerwin Bell was an eighthstring walk-on in 1983 as a freshman who was eventually forced into a starting role and thrived to open the following season.
When Steve Spurrier became the Gators head coach in 1990, Shane Matthews was fifth among six quarterbacks on the depth chart, “depending on the day,” he joked this week. Matthews left the Gators as a three-time All-SEC performer with more touchdown passes (74) than anyone in league history.
Bell and Matthews, though, did not arrive at UF without anyone noticing their potential during an era when no recruit goes unnoticed.
Other than the Gators, Trask’s only scholarship offers came from Houston Baptist and Lamar, a pair of Football Championship Subdivision schools close to his family’s southeast Texas home.
Matthews can understand how a Power 5 school did not chance one of its 25 scholarships on a quarterback who did not start in high school. Yet given hindsight, he finds it surprising Trask slipped under the radar to everyone but former coach Jim McElwain’s Gators.
“The more I think, it’s remarkable,” Matthews said.
Once Trask arrived in Gainesville, his signing began to make more sense.
Standing 6-foot-5, Trask had stature. He also threw a tight, accurate spiral and made sound decisions.
A lack of experience kept him on the sideline, but when Mullen replaced McElwain after the 2017
season, Trask and Feleipe Franks started from square one with a new staff.
Mullen
Franks.
Franks made dramatic strides during the 2018 season and help UF to a 10-3 record. Day to day, though, some felt the offense ran a little more crisply with Trask on the field.
“I’ll be honest with you, I was at a lot of preseason scrimmages the last couple of seasons and it did look like the offense ran with a lot more rhythm when Kyle Trask was in there,” said former UF receiver Chris Doering, now an analyst for SEC Network. “It looked like he had a better grasp of what he was supposed to be doing in that role. It was one of those things how I saw it, at least from afar, they definitely looked like they were more rhythmic with him at the helm.”
Yet, the 6-foot-6 Franks had a bit more size, more arm strength and a little more speed as a runner.
“A lot of times coaches get enamored with ability more than consistency,” Matthews said.
Matthews, who went on to a 14-year NFL career, said he won over Spurrier with quick decisionmaking and accuracy.
Given their backgrounds, Matthews feels a kinship with Trask.
Unlike Trask, the 50-year-old Matthews would have left UF before Spurrier arrived, if given the chance.
“I wanted to transfer,” Matthews said. “I probably would have transferred if there had been a transfer portal back in those days.
“Kudos out.”
In that respect, Trask is an outlier, dating to his days at Manvel, backing up current Miami quarterback D’Eriq King, and through his career at UF.
“At the high school level, kids do all sorts of things to start,” Rivals.com’s Farrell said. “They transfer schools or they go live with an uncle in another district. They’ll do whatever they can to make sure they’re the starter.
“Trask didn’t do any of stuff.”
In Trask, Doering senses the same self-confidence he channeled to develop from a walk-on out of Gainesville’s P.K. Yonge to the Gators’ all-time touchdown
and
Co. went
to him
for
with
sticking
it
that
receptions leader with 31.
“I always believed I would get a chance,” Doering said. “I believed in myself and took advantage of that opportunity when it presented itself. He certainly did that in Lexington last year.”
Trask ended his breakout season with 25 touchdown passes — the most at the school since Tim Tebow in 2008. The Gators averaged 300 passing yards per game for the first time since 2001, the final season of Spurrier’s Fun n’ Gun offense.
Entering his first season opener as UF’s starter, Trask has much work ahead to continue to draw more parallels with two of the biggest names in Gators history.
To that end, Trask spent the shutdown last spring reviewing his performances from 2019 and set out to address his flaws. Dropping13 pounds, reshaping his body and getting lighter on his feet was a big step.
“The only negative is his feet were kind of heavy … he held the ball too long sometimes,” Matthews said. “But a lot of that is he didn’t have playing experience.”
Yet, Trask did bring a quiet confidence and unflappable nature to an offense that suddenly ran more smoothly than it had in a decade.
“It shouldn’t be as hard as Florida made it look for that 10-year period after Urban Meyer left,” Doering said. “It’s nice to see it flowing a lot better.”
Ebbs and flows, if not stops and starts, are likely to be ahead for Trask and the Gators this season. COVID-19 will loom over everything as the SEC pushes to complete the season.
But Trask says he is prepared for anything and his teammates and coaches are ready to listen — even those just getting to know the Gators quarterback.
“He’s got a nice swagger about him. I like how he moves,” firstyear Florida tight ends coach Tim Brewster said. “His body language on the field is outstanding. Hey, it’s a bad play, so be it. The only play that’s important in football is the next one. Short memories are a great attribute to have for a quarterback.
“I think Kyle Trask is going to be outstanding this season. I’m just glad he’s a Gator.”