K.I.S.S. (Kyle Trask for Heisman)

[DRU2012]

Trask can still win the Heisman with a loss to Alabama as long as his SEC CG statistics support the season-long narrative of overcoming odds, distributing the ball, making good reads, and taking care of the ball. If the Gators lose because of bad defense he can still win the Heisman. If the Gators lose because of bad offense, then the trophy will go to Mac Jones.

He could—But unfortunately for him, he had his worst game last week, and though he damn near came through and did everything to pull it out with that brilliant last-few-second drive to put us into med-long (makeable) fieldgoal position, normally ice-in-his-veins kicker MacPhearson DIDN’T come through this time. Unless Kyle had already put this thing away, or TRASK absolutely, dazzlingly outplays “the other guy” out there Saturday in Atlanta, I’m afraid he comes up just short for the Heisman.
To Kyle’s credit, HE would prefer the WIN Saturday to any personal award...and DEFINITELY would have chosen seeing Gator wins over any personal glory. I certainly believe he is most deserving here—for that and a HOST of situational AND performance reasons! But timing, hype and collegiate politics may be arrayed against him here.

 

[Escambia94]

Right now Kyle has dropped to #3 on some of the Heisman trackers behind DeVonta Smith and Mac Jones.

1. Mac Jones 15 - 3 - 1 (52)
2. DeVonta Smith 5 - 3 - 6 (27)
3. Kyle Trask 1 - 8 - 5 (24)
4. Trevor Lawrence 1 - 4 - 2 (13)
5. Jaret Patterson 0 - 2 - 1 (5)

Vegas odds:

1. Mac Jones -200
2. Kyle Trask +250
3. DeVonta Smith +750
4. Ian Book +1400
5. Trevor Lawrence +1600

BetOnline only has Trask falling to #2 at 5:2 versus Mac Jones's odds at 1:3.

 

[Leakfan12]

Trask had a good game against Bama (and their top three players did as well against the Gators D). Honestly, I hope Heisman votes put multiple Bama players there though in 2005 Reggie Bush won the Heisman with his QB finishing third (before his Heisman was taken away).

 

[DRU2012]

Trask had a good game against Bama (and their top three players did as well against the Gators D). Honestly, I hope Heisman votes put multiple Bama players there though in 2005 Reggie Bush won the Heisman with his QB finishing third (before his Heisman was taken away).

Yes—it would be wonderful, and just—in this case something of a lesser but nonetheless satisfying “consolation” to see Kyle win it—not just for him but for the sake of his TEAMMATES, who I’m CERTAIN would take great pleasure and satisfaction on his behalf, in the long run taking it as a vote for ALL OF THEM, and RIGHTLY so.
The way this season has gone, though, the way “justice” has NOT been served it seems along the way, I find I’m not in the least optimistic that he will get it.
Kyle himself SAYS he’d be “thoroughly honored just to be invited to NYC as one of those CONSIDERED for the award”—As usual he typically, humbly says “the right thing”...and I am fairly sure at least THAT will properly come to pass (anything less would be a travesty). But even though it would certainly be “Right and GOOD” if he were to be given the famous little statuette, it is strange how I am NOT expecting it. Not that kind of year, this year, you feel me?
Hope I’m wrong, but there it is...

 

[DRU2012]

But meanwhile, I tuned over to the Boca Raton Bowl here on Tuesday night, couple/few days before Christmas (an embarrassment, where one of the weakest UCF teams in YEARS is getting blown out at the half: They were down 35-7, kicked a FG just before the break)
...but what struck ME was the news that Kyle Trask is not rated by the “EXPERTS” even in the TOP FIVE of pending draft choices at the QB position!
I don’t even know what to SAY to that!
You don’t wanna include him in the Heisman because he didn’t actually BEST Bama. Well, I find that stupid, weak logic—but purposefully wiping his value, whatever the TRUE “reason” (HATE using that word here), seems unconscionable—to the point of possibly being somehow vindictive—though exactly FOR WHAT??? would be MY question. Whatever it’s actual effect, if any, on what subsequently, in truth comes to pass, ANY “EFFECT” AT ALL amounts to “messing with a young man’s future outlook and earning potential”!
Why would these ignorant, biased FATHEADS go out of their way to DO that??! (Perhaps BECAUSE they are “IGNORANT, BIASED, FATHEADS”??!)

 

[DRU2012]

AND: ONE MORE THING...
It was just announced earlier today that our Football program and members of our current current coaching staff have been under investigation and ongoing punishment for various coaching violations...The isolations are mainly in “isolated, mostly relatively minor recruiting categories”, as are the resulting announced-penalties, for the most part.
Check out the details yourselves online: Mullen’s was aware of them throughout the season it seems, and now is free to comment, explain, apologize...If I’m sounding a bit vague, even circumspect, well read about it yourselves (it sounds like we’ve already WEATHERED close to HALF its consequences—and the rest, though hardly “welcome” or anything to be especially “PROUD of”, on first glance at least do NOT appear to place onerous obstacles or punishment in our way on the path ahead...and if I’m right, we’ll be through ALL OF ‘EM by the starting kick first Saturday of the 2021 Season.
So, seems best to emulate Mullen himself and quietly, humbly take it all in stride.

 

[DRU2012]

But meanwhile, I tuned over to the Boca Raton Bowl here on Tuesday night, couple/few days before Christmas (an embarrassment, where one of the weakest UCF teams in YEARS is getting blown out at the half: They were down 35-7, kicked a FG just before the break)
...but what struck ME was the news that Kyle Trask is not rated by the “EXPERTS” even in the TOP FIVE of pending draft choices at the QB position!
I don’t even know what to SAY to that!
You don’t wanna include him in the Heisman because he didn’t actually BEST Bama. Well, I find that stupid, weak logic—but purposefully wiping his value, whatever the TRUE “reason” (HATE using that word here), seems unconscionable—to the point of possibly being somehow vindictive—though exactly FOR WHAT??? would be MY question. Whatever it’s actual effect, if any, on what subsequently, in truth comes to pass, ANY “EFFECT” AT ALL amounts to “messing with a young man’s future outlook and earning potential”!
Why would these ignorant, biased FATHEADS go out of their way to DO that??! (Perhaps BECAUSE they are “IGNORANT, BIASED, FATHEADS”??!)

Do y’all think their projections are accurate?
It will be interesting to see what in truth HAPPENS, where he actually GOES in the draft...As it is, during several minutes of discussion, complete with detailed statistics and accompanying graphics early in the 2nd qrtr, THE ANNOUNCERS’ “Favorite Five” (with their explicit referral to the opinions and previous comments by their “colleagues at ESPN Football Central”) were all noted and discussed—but Kyle Trask was not even MENTIONED, not ONCE.
From “Heisman favorite” to not EVEN “also ran”? Pretty glaring drop.

 

[Leakfan12]

Also, I found out that Kyle Trask SECOND-TEAM ALL SEC REALLY? He put up better numbers than Mac Jones. The disrespect. I did see that CBS had Trask First-Team All American (at least they got it right). You would think for the ALL-SEC and ALL-American selections would go to the guy with the best numbers, not the guy on the best team (unlike the Heisman at times, again Tim Tebow won it on a three-loss team) at least Pitts got First-team (and probably would have been a finalist if not for that Georgia DB). As for the Draft, OK I can see Lawrence and Fields. He should be at least the third-best QB not behind the NDST guy (who played one game) or that BYU guy though the downside on Trask is he's not athletic enough. He's a pocket passer where most teams want a guy who can scramble though Trask can at times. I have seen Trask on a few mock drafts get drafted in the first round.

 

[DRU2012]

Also, I found out that Kyle Trask SECOND-TEAM ALL SEC REALLY? He put up better numbers than Mac Jones. The disrespect. I did see that CBS had Trask First-Team All American (at least they got it right). You would think for the ALL-SEC and ALL-American selections would go to the guy with the best numbers, not the guy on the best team (unlike the Heisman at times, again Tim Tebow won it on a three-loss team) at least Pitts got First-team (and probably would have been a finalist if not for that Georgia DB). As for the Draft, OK I can see Lawrence and Fields. He should be at least the third-best QB not behind the NDST guy (who played one game) or that BYU guy though the downside on Trask is he's not athletic enough. He's a pocket passer where most teams want a guy who can scramble though Trask can at times. I have seen Trask on a few mock drafts get drafted in the first round.

Totally agree—In fact, YOU are being more “fair and reasonable” than I am apt to be here...OR than they DESERVE, for THAT matter LF!
I don’t get it...on first glance, it appeared that “people who’d recently been giving our QB glowing reviews that only GREW in strength and seeming unanimity throughout the season” just suddenly BAILED on him at the end...but a closer, more detailed and incisive review of matching quotes and ratings to specific individuals at different networks and distinct shows revealed more a variance and split along THOSE LINES:
Apparently, a kind of bandwagon of “me-TOO-ism” seems to be at work here, with certain small-minded, unprofessional and lazily weak-minded little weasels, consciously or NOT, being influenced by or just “going along to GET along” with their colleagues as a kind of mindless “pack” reveling in their dubious fame and ignorance.
I am NOT going to plunge into a long and detailed analysis and “proof” identifying and fully unmasking what seems a “tainted group” of such individuals acting in concert over at “the World Leader”, but I for one am SICK TO DEATH of those smug fools on all those ESPN (and unfortunately related SEC Network) shows, some of them guys I used to “like and follow” as “personalities” for some years, admittedly not noticing their long, slow slide...Too many to name (but I’ll certainly contribute if y’all wanna go DOWN that road)—but would be remiss if I didn’t note the most extreme and egregious example:
One “Paul Finebaum”—a clever guy, who can damn well KISS MY ASS.
Somehow he has by now ensconced himself front and center as a kind of “Dean of Sportscasters and Talkshow Hosts”, when in truth he’s a fraud, an ignorant, arrogant fraud hiding behind his rep and past (supposed) “accomplishments”:
“Famous for BEING famous”, as they say—and even then only at a dubious, narrowly limited level to begin and end with.
IMHO, there is right here and NOW an opening for some truly clever, funny and somewhat daring sportfan actor/broadcaster types to band together, find themselves a public online forum and begin to elbow into this market, DISPLACE the complacent crew and smugly lazy corporate iceburgs whom have wedged themselves into their currently dominant position publicly DEFINING sports news.
Their boring offerings from smirking “Gray Men” are RIPE for JUST such rendering to the trash-heap of sports-“journalistic” (what a JOKE applying that word in this context!) history.

 

[Leakfan12]

I hate to make fun of those personalities because some of them are Gators (Doering, Rutledge, Tebow, Chizik) though I will give you Finebaum because he does look like one of those guys in the Muppets. It should be simple, LOOK AT THE STATS. Trask has better numbers than Jones. Don't get me wrong Mac Jones is a good quarterback and like Trask, he had to wait for his opportunity to start in college and also got the job because of injury. There are similarities between the two and I'm sure both will get drafted in the NFL (Well if Jones wants to leave early) and get drafted by the second day at least (maybe first round for both). Also, if it wasn't for the DB from Georgia, Pitts would have been on the Heisman race (can you imagine two teams with their QB and their top receiver finalist for the Heisman?). Yes, Jones probably has a better chance at the Heisman than Trask because of playoff team vs a three-loss team unless two of his teammates join him then it's going to split the votes (which I hope that happens). Also, doesn't Heisman count toward whose more valuable to their team? That's Trask (though a case could be Pitts as well). Anybody could start for Bama and make the playoffs.

 

[Leakfan12]

I am getting tired of the biases and teams being picked because of prestige. Ohio State shouldn't even be in the playoffs, I rather see Jimbo's boys there. Notre Dame as well though if Clemson beat them the first team as well, A&M would be there. However, would the committee have been trashed if there were two teams each in the ACC and the SEC?

 

[DRU2012]

I hate to make fun of those personalities because some of them are Gators (Doering, Rutledge, Tebow, Chizik) though I will give you Finebaum because he does look like one of those guys in the Muppets. It should be simple, LOOK AT THE STATS. Trask has better numbers than Jones. Don't get me wrong Mac Jones is a good quarterback and like Trask, he had to wait for his opportunity to start in college and also got the job because of injury. There are similarities between the two and I'm sure both will get drafted in the NFL (Well if Jones wants to leave early) and get drafted by the second day at least (maybe first round for both). Also, if it wasn't for the DB from Georgia, Pitts would have been on the Heisman race (can you imagine two teams with their QB and their top receiver finalist for the Heisman?). Yes, Jones probably has a better chance at the Heisman than Trask because of playoff team vs a three-loss team unless two of his teammates join him then it's going to split the votes (which I hope that happens). Also, doesn't Heisman count toward whose more valuable to their team? That's Trask (though a case could be Pitts as well). Anybody could start for Bama and make the playoffs.

Couldn’t agree more with all you say here, brother...And that of course includes your hesitancy to include the Gators among them in all of this:
In Doering’s case at least I recognize his own “hesitancy”—a palpable sense that he is torn, trying to maintain his loyalties AND separate himself from what may well be pressure to “join the squeeze” there at “College Football Final”...Even more so with TT—who still wears his “Gatorness” on his sleeve, but also still harbors ambitions of a long sportscasting career...They’ve all but removed any last crumbs of hope for his pursuing his athletic talents somehow (does he even HAVE a remaining minor league Baseball contract waiting out there, by the way)...The others are steering their way through dangerous waters, mainly alone and with few choices BUT to leave their “former loyalties”, like childish toys, aside: To “grow UP, like everyone else, if you wanna play with the big boys”—the implication of course being that these “REAL MEN” are those “big boys”, and who we are discussing now.
The rest of your arguments make sense, hold water as far as I can see...
Especially that last line about starting for Alabama

 

[Leakfan12]

It's official, Kyle Trask is a Heisman Finalist (and Pitts was 10th) along with Jones, Lawrence, and Smith (Harris finished 5th). I think Trask is going to win or be second depending on the Bama players split the votes. I know three Heisman voters that would vote for Trask.

 

[DRU2012]

( @Leakfan12, : )
...and another thing that has subsequently come to my attention:
Alone apparently among these surrounding and (necessarily, I think—as I say, there is a vacuum that is BEGGING to be filled out there...), growing-in-popularity and following online sites that can and are steamed from and through various sources, so far only “24/7”, a College Football site that focuses on the SEC, has come right out and, as a season-ending look at the season just past and their look ahead at what is pending in our Conference, which they unabashedly view (as of course WE do) as the best by far, top-to-bottom in major college football, I am satisfied (and somewhat mollified) that in rating, ranking, and evaluating overall talent, direction and future fates, at least THEY have boldly placed UF under Dan Mullen as the “Number TWO in the SEC, and college football in general”:
...“the rest among the ‘next best’ not even CLOSE”—maintaining in their final analysis that as for the season just past, “where the LSU loss was disappointing as a possible but definite ‘outlier’, the FACT remains that MULLEN and his offense are a VERY good squad who will likely only get better as he finally puts together a whole TEAM of players who can enact the COMPLETE VERSION of his envisioned offensive plan...has tried and succeeded in furnishing a similar collection of talented athletes on defense, though there neither ALL the pieces perhaps desired by his DC—but where MULLEN adapted and FLOURISHED with what he had so far, Grantham didn’t similarly hold up HIS end of things with the defense.”
A calm, non-hysterical take from an unbiased observer as to what just transpired during the course of 2020–and in the end, perhaps more “generous” than Mr. Grantham deserves?
It was somehow somewhat calming to see in print from a presumably public, unemotional point-of-view such a positive and optimistic assessment of where we are and where we’re going...
I have gotten so used to beginning to read such “lists” and sure enough, my low-expectations coming to an end (and confirmed) so QUICKLY when “Florida Gators” appear what always seems unfairly EARLY to a Gator fan!
So this WAS somewhat a satisfying relief, I admit. It changes nothing—except somehow to smooth some of the long-building frustration and uncertainty at our future after the way our once-promising, building-in-expectation season kind of got away from us at the end. And maybe we AREN’T so far off in our suspicions that maybe the “evaluation” Mullen has promised he’d be making (and presumably acting on) AFTER the season MIGHT well include a change right where WE FANS are more and more focusing OUR own “damning judgments”.
I have posed this question generally before, and I ask it (specifically) now again: Is it time for Grantham to go?
And if it is—who would our Coach be after in his stead?

 

[DRU2012]

One MORE “another thing”:
STUPID ME...
I’m up before dawn on Christmas Day, watching “Gator Breakdown” on YouTube (this will be my only real “alone time” today—Long story, where I have ONLY the “VERY early going” in truth tilting in my favor here with my/“OUR” traditional plans for X-mas, my wife’s BIRTHDAY!)...so believe it or not, somehow I was unaware that Trask is NOT a Senior, but rather still a JUNIOR—with one more year of eligibility left at the college level. He could stay, come BACK for 2021 if he chose to! As “Will” (from “Read and React”) notes, he could, like Tebow in 2009, come BACK—and in so doing subsequently even come to be viewed in retrospect as a “legendary HERO” among Gator alums...just as likely might chase off Emory Jones once and for all as WELL (though as he also notes, the 2021 season is likely to remain “unCOUNTED” among a player’s credited seasons-played afterwards TOO! But let’s face it: Kyle T. MIGHT not even play in the Cotton Bowl game, like Kyle P. , as I believe the latter has already announced for himself—As the Gator Breakdown boys put it “Put a BOW on things as far as where we AND they see and look at, moving forward and analyzing the 2021 SEASON IN PARTICULAR, and “The FUTURE” in GENERAL as we now “Turn the PAGE” and move on—to the latest “getting to be the NEW STANDARD and TRADITION” of not just stopping to talk WHEREVER WE ALL ARE, but additional SINGING THE MORE “Rockin’ !” T.P.-Tune...
...NO WE WON’T. BACK. DOWN.
No WAY—yeah: better, more APT BY FAR. WE CANNOT LOSE THOSE TYPE OF GAMES AT ALL.
PERIOD.
In short:
WTF IS IT??!

 

[Leakfan12]

Well, Trask has his degree. I don't know if he would want to return (Pitts is gone for sure).

 

[DRU2012]

Well, Trask has his degree. I don't know if he would want to return (Pitts is gone for sure).

OK—Yeah, I realized after posting above that I WAS originally right about Trask already having his degree—but MISTAKEN in thinking that his eligibility was used up...
The POINT is that he COULD stay if he wanted and decided to...WOULD he WANT to? I would have assumed (up until the last week or so) that his rating among NFL draft people was never likely to be higher, that it was in his own BEST INTERESTS to go into the draft now...Except that (1) the way it all has become unclear about his draft status here at the end, and (2) his own very righteous way of doing and looking at things, the very steadfast honor and loyalty he feels and shows in everything he does, that GOT KYLE TRASK through all those years on the bench behind other guys and yet somehow eventually leading this Gator Team to team and personal glory is ALSO part of who he is—and why he MIGHT come back after all, JUDT BECAUSE HE THINKS IT MIGHT BE BEST FOR THE TEAM!!!
Of course, it MIGHT cost us Emory Jones TOO—and Dan Mullen might have something to say to him privately about THAT—but those are all perhaps gut-level “secondary” decisions that may or may NOT figure INTO the MOMENT OF DECISION, after all.
Guess we’ll just have to see how it plays out.
But you still haven’t responded to my question—and I’m still asking it:
Should Mullen can Grantham?
And (having a bearing on the answer there) is the follow up, “Who should/MIGHT he go after to replace him?”

 

[DRU2012]

It's official, Kyle Trask is a Heisman Finalist (and Pitts was 10th) along with Jones, Lawrence, and Smith (Harris finished 5th). I think Trask is going to win or be second depending on the Bama players split the votes. I know three Heisman voters that would vote for Trask.

It sure seems like he DESERVES the actual award when you see his list of stats, etc in comparison to the rest of the finalists...But that’s just the problem:
That was already the case BEFORE the finalists were announced. And yet, for the last coupla weeks that was ignored: all his clear talent and achievements were ignored during that same period—the others were lauded and hyped by the usual suspects (and Trask’s Gators lost, at least part of the time looking poorly doing it—Trask was NOT the reason, by any means, but this is one year where it still might cost him, unjust or not!).
I don’t like it, obviously—but as we’ve already discussed here and elsewhere, the writing has been on the wall as this season has wound down.
Once again, I will personally be quite satisfied to see Kyle properly, deservedly rewarded—but at this point, surprised as well.

 

[Leakfan12]

Gators Football on Twitter: "An unbelievable season with multiple records broken. Forever a Gator Legend and now a Heisman Trophy Finalist. @ktrask9 https://t.co/BHvnwM6i5u" / Twitter

 

[Escambia94]

Whether Kyle Trask’s Heisman story looks like Rex Grossman’s or Tim Tebow’s, Danny Wuerffel’s, and Tim Tebow’s, he will forever be mentioned among the other four Gator Greats who were officially named Heisman finalists.

The concept of a Heisman Trophy finalist did not exist until 1982, when the Heisman committee first started publishing a group of finalists as a means to drum up attention to the athletes under consideration. Kyle Trask is the fifth different finalist in Gators history in eight Heisman finalist nominations since 1982, joining Emmitt Smith (1988), Danny Wuerffel (1995 & 1996), Rex Grossman (2001), and Tim Tebow (2007, 2008 & 2009). Kyle Trask is currently a +2500 to +2700 favorite (#4 DraftKings and Sporting News) to join Florida's previous three Heisman winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Wuerffel (1996), and Tebow (2007).

Even without the Heisman, Trask would be remembered as one of the top Gator QBs of all time.