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Published Nov 1, 2019
Jake Fromm has seen some success against Todd Grantham
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Jacquie Franciulli  •  1standTenFlorida
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@JacquieFran_

GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- The Florida secondary has had an up and down season so far.

The group has had its fair share of lows, like the LSU loss at Death Valley, while rebounding in South Carolina one week later, only yielding 170 yards in the air and 4.9 YPC.

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Now the group is set for another challenge, a talented quarterback in Jake Fromm.

“He does a great job managing games," said Gators head coach Dan Mullen. "If you watch him he gets them into the right plays. He makes good decisions. He has the ability to not force a ball and maneuver and keep alive in the pocket to extend plays. He also has the ability to kind of, you see him take off and run and he can extend plays with his feet or make plays with his feet.

" He doesn’t force the ball down the field and makes good decisions. He’s an accurate passer. That’s what you want. He does a really good job, to me, of managing their offense and getting them in position to make plays.”

It's true, Fromm has not had the best month.

He turned over the ball a career-high three times in Georgia's loss to South Carolina. In the loss to the Gamecocks, Fromm threw a career-high 51 passes - dropping to 0-5 when he has thrown the ball at least 30 times in a game.

One week later Fromm went 9-of-12 for 35 yards against Kentucky.

"The South Carolina game, we were fighting, did a really good job of coming back and they played really well that game,"said Fromm in his weekly presser. "The Kentucky game, that was an outlier game, it was soaking wet, so that’s just part of it. You know what you’re doing. It just is what it is. For me and us as an offense, we’re ready to go out and go play football.”

“I think we’ve had a really good two or three weeks of practice since the South Carolina game," added the UGA quarterback. "We’re ready to go out and show what we’ve been working on.”

His last two games have not been the best, however, Fromm is a talented quarterback that can execute when Georgia's offense is running on all cylinders.

Florida's defensive coordinator Todd Grantham understands personally the challenge Fromm presents. The Georgia quarterback has completed 26 of 36 passes for 441 yards and five touchdowns the two times he has faced off against a Grantham defense - once when Grantham was at Mississippi State and once at Florida.

"He’s really competitive, and I think that breeds to the team," said Grantham. "He’s a smart guy. When you look at the football IQ of guys, he’s going to be an elite guy, as smart as anyone that we’ll see or that you could play at this level or the next level. And he’s accurate with the ball."

He is very accurate on first down.

Georgia has thrown the ball 45 percent of times on first down, completing 79 percent of those passes for an average of 9.1 yards per throw.

“I think he throws a good fade ball. He’s smart," said Florida cornerback Marco Wilson. "You know he’s been starting since he was young, so he’s used to everything that comes at him. He’s really just a smart player and he’s good at placing the ball, so we have to be ready for that.”

"Fromm to me, he's a patient smart quarterback who doesn't do anything to lose the game, plays within the system," added defensive lineman Jonathan Greenard. "Real confident guy back there he stands tall in the pocket, you look at him, you got an o-line like that, I would too.

"Like I said, he's one of the smartest quarterbacks, honestly one of the best quarterbacks out there, behind [Kyle] Trask, out there right now to do the things in that offense. He can make some plays, we just gotta make sure that we make him feel us and if we get a chance to hit him we gotta get something on him every time to let him know we're here."

Although a lot of talk and emphasis is on Florida stopping D'Andre Swift and the run, Fromm has proven that he is able to attack a Grantham defense. T

his year, however, Grantham is playing with a full deck. Not only in the secondary, with both CJ Henderson and Marco Wilson playing together, but the return of Jon Greenard and Jabari Zuniga.

"We just need to play to our ability and identity," said Grantham."I think that in these kind of games you need to take the approach that I understand there's going to be a lot of excitement and things like that, but it really gets down to execution and doing what you're supposed to do, like you can't give up easy plays, you can't give up easy yards, easy points. You've got to be hard to score on and those kinds of things."