GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- It seems like everyone has an opinion on Feleipe Franks.
“I was so excited to watch Feleipe Franks against Miami and I saw same old Feleipe Franks,” Kirk Herbstreit said during Saturday’s GameDay show. “So much for maturity. So much for showing he’s the CEO of that team and that offense. He showed a lack of that even worse against Miami than he showed all of last year.
“If Florida ever wants to ever get serious about winning the SEC East, their leader and their quarterback needs to show maturity or they’ve got no chance of challenging anybody in the East.”
Thats pretty harsh and slight overreaction.
However, Franks has learned to brush off the outside noise.
"Whether you like me or not, I’m here to win games," the Gators quarterback said on Wednesday. "I’m here to become the best person, the best player I can be. That’s my main focus. What everybody else thinks is really not my main concern."
Franks did in fact lead UF to a win over Miami in the season opener, but the signal caller has also received plenty of backlash for his performance from pundits and fans a like.
In the win against the Canes, Franks threw for 254 yards and two touchdowns, ran for one touchdown, and also recorded two interceptions and a fumble. Florida head coach Dan Mullen was not disappointed in Franks' performance, actually Mullen was pleased with Franks.
"Outside opinions aren't as important as inside opinions," Mullen told reporters in his press conference. "Because not everybody knows what we're supposed to be doing, right? On each play. So it's really easy to judge everybody, 'Oh, well he should have done that on this play.' How do you know what he should do on that play? Right? You didn't game plan it. You weren't in the meetings on the schemes and all that stuff. So that's the overreaction part, but I think he's been OK."
Part of the learning process for Franks, or any college football player for that matter, is learning about shutting out the wrong criticism. According to Mullen, Franks has learned to do that.
"He's grown through a lot of that stuff. But it's always hard. People don't like to be criticized," said Mullen. "If I'm criticizing you or coach [Brian] Johnson's criticizing you, that's, you need to worry about that criticism. That's what really is important, of what we think you need to do better and can fix."
And Franks understands he does need to clean up a few things after the season opener.
"For me personally, there’s always room to improve as a quarterback, leadership-wise, this, that and the other," said Franks. "There’s a bunch of things to improve on. But I think Coach Mullen and the team, I think we’re headed in the right direction. Like I said, we played fairly well but a lot of things we can clean up. I think we’re going to progress and get better. That’s kind of our main focus right now."
I think what gets lost in much of the criticism is the fact that Franks has the full support from not only the staff but also the locker room.
Gators wide receiver Trevon Grimes came to Franks' defense last week and Josh Hammond joined in this week.
"We really don’t pay attention to it," said wide receiver Josh Hammond about the criticism surrounding Franks. "He is our guy. He is our leader. He is very competitive. He is a guy that wants to win at the end of the game, sometimes his emotions rises up, but at the end of the day he is the guy when we need to make a play. He makes those plays when we need him to. It doesn’t matter what anybody else has to say. We’re behind him 100 percent.”
I"’m here to win games. We won and that’s my main focus," said Franks. "Now my main focus is UT-Martin. But year, I think I am doing a better job of blocking that out. That’s not my main focus right now. My main focus is beating UT-Martin."
