Florida Gators Quarterback Race Narrows with Suspension of Treon Harris

Written by Ryan Wright

Twitter: @HogManInLA

The Florida Gators are off to a nice start under first year head coach Jim McElwain posting a 3-0, 1-0, mark with a win in the SEC. The win in Week 3 on the road against Kentucky was impressive but with each week in the SEC comes another big challenge. In Week 4 Tennessee heads to the Swamp seeking their first conference win of the season.

When Tennessee game plans for Florida this week, instead of having to prepare for two quarterbacks, they will only have to prepare for Will Grier after the announced suspension of Treon Harris on Wednesday.

Harris, a sophomore, and Grier, a redshirt freshman, have been in a back-and-forth battle to tighten up the starting job under center for the rest of the way since the close of spring practices. Harris opened the season as the starter but Grier has taken over the last two games and has slowly started to separate himself from Harris. The announced suspension of Harris for the Tennessee game will go a long way helping Grier take over leadership of the Gators’ team.

McElwain also announced the suspension of starting sophomore cornerback Jalen Tabor. Whatever the duo did McElwain did not go into detail stating, “They made choices, and that’s the way it goes. I’m not angry at them at all. It’s a choice. Each one of us (has) a choice, and they made a choice to do whatever. It hurts because we’ve got a lot of guys that really care about this team, and we’ll have to have some of the guys step up and play.”

Backing up Grier under center is wide receiver Josh Grady, a Vanderbilt transfer. With Tabor out of the starting lineup sophomore Quincy Wilson gets his chance to shine.

Grier’s importance to the team has started to come through completing 68 percent of his passes for 442 yards with four touchdowns against two interceptions. He is also the team’s second leading rusher with 114 yards on 19 carries with two scores.

Harris has played well in his spots completing 70 percent of his passes for 269 yards with two scores and zero picks. Harris has not had as many rushing opportunities as Grier but sports a higher per carry average with 7.4 yards an attempt.

Florida kicks off against Tennessee at 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday.

Photo credit: fansided.com; No. 3 Treon Harris finds running room against Tennessee (2014).