It's far too early, but Feleipe Franks looks like Florida Gators' next quarterback

GAINESVILLE - If the first glimpse at the Florida Gators' first spring practice is any indication, don't be surprised if Feleipe Franks is the starting quarterback for the Sept. 2 season opener against Michigan.

Franks, a 6-foot-6 redshirt freshman from Crawfordville, took the first-team reps (at least in the portion of practice open to the media). The other top healthy contender, Kyle Trask, worked with the second team. Early enrollee Kadarius Toney took reps, too, although he might switch to another position, once Luke Del Rio returns from a shoulder injury to deepen the quarterback platoon.

To hear players tell it, there's no separation between the top two.

"Great deep ball," receiver Josh Hammond said of Franks, "but I wouldn't separate him from all the other QBs. They're all great quarterbacks, and they're all going to compete for playing time."

"Incredible arms," left tackle Martez Ivey said. "I don't know who has the best one, though."

Coach Jim McElwain, naturally, isn't sharing much, either. Ask him about Franks' room for improvement, and you get an answer like this: "I think probably the biggest thing is structurally he and Kyle get locked in a little bit instead of getting off into their reaction to their number three. Right now they're still zoning in on one too much. We'll keep working on it and I thought we did some good stuff with the (run-pass option) stuff today in the pass game. We'll see how that kind of helps them too."

A question about one player becomes an answer about both.

If they won't separate the two, I will, based on what little I saw in 20 minutes of one practice, in February, with no one in pads: Trask looks the part, but Franks seems like more of a finished product. If he knows the system well enough, I think he'll be UF's next starter.