Gators can thank UCF’s Shannon for QB Trask
GAINESVILLE — The Florida Gators discovered quarterback Kyle Trask by accident.
They can thank UCF defensive coordinator Randy Shannon, who put his former team on the scent of a talented player toiling in obscurity.
During the spring of 2015, Shannon visited the Houston area to check out four-star safety Derrick Tucker at Manvel High. Along the way, Shannon stumbled upon Trask, the team’s backup QB, and immediately was intrigued.
“The head coach [Kirk Martin] said, ‘Coach, I have this young man that you might need to take a look at,’” recalled Shannon, a UF defensive assistant at the time. “He had a tremendous arm. But the competitiveness in him was the biggest thing that I liked about him. He was getting on the guys about doing all the right things.
“Very smart, was demanding when he had his opportunity.”
Shannon made a mental note.
Upon his return to Gainesville, Shannon alerted coach Jim McElwain and offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier about Trask, a rising senior ranked outside the top 2,000 players in the nation and without a scholarship offer from a Football Bowl Subdivision school.
Shannon found Trask’s anonymity a selling point rather than a red flag.
“The biggest thing that was most important is he was second team and he never wanted to transfer,” Shannon said. “He was always going to stay there, he was always going to compete. A lot of different schools from the area were trying to get him to transfer.
“But Trask was a guy that always was going to compete.”
Trask soon proved he was worth a risk during two trips that summer to Gainesville, including the 2015 Friday Night Lights recruiting showcase.
Trask’s competitiveness would be challenged again when he joined the Gators. But a little more than a year after Trask finally received his opportunity, the redshirt senior leads the SEC with 14 touchdown passes and is the face of an offense ranked in the top-10 nationally.
Trask’s story has been told endlessly by now. Trask’s discovery by the Gators, though, rarely is ascribed to Shannon but rather to Nussmeier or, maybe, McElwain.
The 54-year-old Shannon, a longtime coach and former Miami Hurricanes linebacker, proved this week he remains a team player.
“It’s football,” Shannon said. “Everybody’s going to get credit.”
Mullen’s emotional Sunday
Still smarting the day after the Gators’ last-second loss at Texas A&M, coach Dan Mullen found himself on an emotional rollercoaster during a wild NFL Sunday.
While Mullen and his staff hunkered down in the football offices to find solutions, two of Mullen protégés were experiencing life-changing moments on the field.
Nearly two years after a career-threatening injury, quarterback Alex Smith returned to action in a reserve role during Washington’s 30-10 loss to the Los Angeles Rams. Later in the day, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott suffered a compound ankle fracture and dislocation against the New York
Giants.
Smith’s stunning comeback from his own compound fracture of the lower leg suffered in November of 2018 was relayed to Mullen, who coached Smith at Utah in 2003 and 2004. Smith underwent 17 surgeries due to infection of the injured area and battled sepsis before he was able to begin his arduous comeback.
“All of a sudden I’m in meetings and my phone’s blowing up,” Mullen said Monday. “And finally I pick up my phone after meetings and look that Alex Smith’s back on the field, which, you know, a very emotional deal I know to see him back out there, knowing everything that he’s been through, knowing the fight, the battle that he’s been through.
“A special moment for him, his family, for everybody.”
The good news soon was tempered by word of a gruesome injury to Prescott, whom Mullen developed from a threestar recruit into a star at Mississippi State.
“You see it right away, you know what it is unfortunately, very unfortunately,” Mullen said. “I know we sent him messages and stuff and our prayers are with him out there.”
The fact Mullen, 48, remains close with both quarterbacks made Sunday an even more challenging day following his team’s first loss of 2020.
“Despite everything else we had going on,” Mullen said, “the emotional day of seeing the roller-coaster of both of those two guys, guys who are former players that you care about, you love so much, who you feel for them and their families and everybody to have to go through that.
“It was a pretty crazy day.”