Will Muschamp didn’t face a quarterback controversy in his first season as Florida Gators coach so much as a quarterback clusterfuck.
With his second year of spring practices now complete, he still doesn’t have a definitive choice under center. But after Saturday’s final scrimmage, he has to at least feel a little better about his options.
Sophomore signal callers Jeff Driskel and Jacoby Brissett didn’t do enough in the crappily named Orange and Blue Debut to stake a claim to the starting job. Both, however, moved the ball efficiently. Equally important, they avoided the kind of bad mistakes that often torment young QBs, as neither threw an interception on the day.
And, of course, neither is John Brantley. The the Gator O struggled all last season to generate big plays in the passing game under Brantley. Both Brissett and Driskel hit multiple deep balls on vertical routes Saturday.
The two stat lines from the game seemingly sum up the choice facing Coach Boom in the fall:
| Comp. | Att. | Yards | YPA | TDs | INTs | |
| Brissett | 9 | 16 | 233 | 14.6 | 2 | 0 |
| Driskel | 12 | 14 | 147 | 10.5 | 1 | 0 |
Brissett, a four-star dual-threat QB out of West Palm Beach, Fla., appears to have a bit more boom-bust potential to his game. He showed more of a propensity Saturday to try to make big plays and push the ball downfield. The flip side is that he has to be the weaker of the two in terms of accuracy.
The precision of Brissett’s counterpart Driskel, the top-ranked pro-style passer in the 2011 recruiting class, was on display as well throughout the scrimmage. While Driskel appears more confident throwing on the run, he lacks Brissett’s pocket presence.
Pundits and Gator fans undoubtedly have their own opinions about who should get the nod between Brissett and Driskel, but there’s really only one that matters. For his part, Muschamp isn’t tipping his hand.
Luckily for him, he has two options that look far better than anything that was on the table 12 months ago.
