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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Clearly, Feleipe Franks has a leg (and arm) up on his competition to be Florida's starting quarterback heading into the 2017 season, given the events Friday night in the Orange & Blue Debut. 

Playing with the first-team offense, Franks completed eight of 14 passes for 119 yards and a touchdown pass to lead his Orange squad to a 31-0 rout of the Blue before an estimated 48,000 at Spurrier/Florida Field. 

Franks, the 6-foot-6, 219-pound redshirt freshman from Crawfordville, Fla., didn't waste any time showing off his arm strength and touch, lofting a 46-yard completion to sophomore wide receiver Josh Hammond on the game's first series to set up a touchdown and later fired a 16-yard scoring strike to junior wideout Antonio Callaway. 

"He's ahead," Coach Jim McElwain said of Franks afterward. "No doubt about it."



Meanwhile, fellow redshirt freshman Kyle Trask, the 6-4, 238-pound Manuel, Texas, product who entered spring practice in a dead heat with Franks, had a rough outing, but did so playing mostly with second- and third-teamers on his way to going 6-for-16 for 66 yards and an interception. Trask's best series came after he threw an interception for the Blue and immediately was installed as the Orange quarterback. He marched the team 61 yards to a touchdown against the UF backups. 

The Orange led 17-0 at halftime after out-gaining the Blue in total yards 168-13. 

The big Franks-to-Hammond completion set up a 1-yard touchdown run by junior tailback Jordan Scarlett just over five minutes into the game. It set a much more encouraging spring-game tone for Franks compared to a year ago when — just three months out of high school — he threw a trio of interceptions while playing exclusively with reserves. 

"Obviously, that was a big confidence booster, and a big role of playing quarterback is having confidence," Franks said of the early long ball. "It's been a tremendous difference this year [compared to last year]."

This time, though, it was Trask's turn to face the Gators' A-Team defense. After a three-and-out on his first series, Trask was sacked by defensive end Jabari Zuniga for a 9-yard loss and also fumbled, but covered it up himself on the final play of the first quarter. 

On the Orange's ensuing series, Franks marched his offense 74 yards in 13 plays, with a nice 21-yard crossing completion to slotback Brandon Powell and a 15-yarder to Antonio Callaway (with the wideout vaulting a defender) the key plays. The drive, however, stalled at the Blue 4 and Eddy Pineiro was called on to kick a 21-yard field goal to make the score 10-0 in the second period. 
 
Blue tailback Mark Thompson's fumble was recovered by safety Duke Dawson at the 21 and Franks needed just three plays to zip a 16-yard touchdown to a wide-open Callaway in the left side of the end zone.

Franks amassed all his numbers in the first half and did not attempt a pass in the second, while Trask's first-half numbers showed just two completions on eight attempts for 11 yards. 

"He did awesome," sophomore cornerback and Outback Bowl MVP Chauncey Gardner said. "He made the right reads, got the ball to the right guys, drove the ball, converted on third down and kept the offense moving. Didn't see any flaws. He's improved from Day 1, like the whole team has. We're just going to lean on him and keep going." 

On the first drive of the second half, Trask threw a pass into double coverage, intended for Hammond. The ball was tipped into the air and intercepted by linebacker Vosean Joseph. Trask then flipped sides to the Orange team and capitalized on his turnover by marching his new unit 61 yards in seven plays, with Lamical Perine scoring on a 2-yard run with 1:25 to go in the third period to give the Orange a 24-0 lead. 

Trask was 2-for-2 for 35 yards during his lone series with the Orange. 

In the fourth quarter, the Gators and their fans got a look at mobile true freshman quarterback Kadarius Toney, a spring enrollee out of Eight Mile, Ala. Toney completed three of his five passes, including one for a 9-yard touchdown to Tucker Nordman on a tricky scramble play, throwing across his body while headed for the sidelines. The 5-11, 180-pound Toney -- "a running back playing quarterback," Gardner said -- showed some wiggle with the ball and finished as the game's leading rusher with 10 carries for 48 yards. 

"He's a really good football player," McElwain said. "He's a guy who needs to have the ball in his hands."