What was the Gators' biggest success in the 2018 football season?

As we battle the football dead-season here at Gators Territory, we're taking a look back at the Florida Gators successful 2018 season's ups-and-downs to see where the team can go in 2019.

This will be a four-part series throughout the rest of this week, which began as four threads on Gators Territory's premium message boards. You can become a premium subscriber here, and make sure to take advantage of our best deal yet.

Our first topic: What was the Gators biggest success in the 2018 football season?

There are plenty of justifiable answers, including the New Years 6 bowl game win over Michigan and dismantling Florida State for recruiting purposes. However, it's hard to not give head coach Dan Mullen significant credit for doing something that Florida has been aiming to do since the Urban Meyer days: Fixing the offense.

Meyer's immediate replacement, defensive-minded head coach Will Muschamp, was let go in 2014 due to a lack of offense that held the team back. The Gators proceeded to hire former Alabama offensive coordinator/QB coach and Colorado State head coach Jim McElwain, with the idea that he could turn the offense into a well-oiled machine.

The irony is, Muschamp's offense ranked higher in points per game in three out of his four seasons as head coach than McElwain's highest-ranking offense at Florida: 23.2 points per game, ranking 100th out of 128 Division 1 teams during his first season in 2015. And, that ranking got worse every year, dipping to 107th in 2016 and 109th in 2017.

The point is, Florida had been desperately searching for a mechanic to fix their offense and return it to former glory.

Enter Dan Mullen. In his first season as head coach, the Gators shot up a whopping 87 spots on the points per game rankings, to 22nd in the FBS averaging 35 points per game.

That drastic of an improvement is extraordinary. It was easy to assume Mullen, who was Meyer's offensive coordinator at Florida a decade ago, would certainly improve an offense that had nowhere to go but up. However, it was expected to be a gradual improvement from such a low ranking: No one saw that much coming so quickly.

In the run game, the Gator averaged 213.2 yards per game, which ranked 27th in Division 1 and below the likes of nine 600+ carry teams. It was the first time since 2009 that the Gators averaged over 200 rushing yards per game, and that rushing output is vital to Mullen's "smashmouth-spread" offense, which is predicated on the run to open zones in the spread passing game.

And of course, there's the quarterback situation. At first, starting QB Feleipe Franks looked lost at points and there were significant questions as to the future of the position under Mullen. Under McElwain in 2017, Franks completed a mere 54.6% of his 229 passes for 1438 yards, nine touchdowns and eight interceptions.

There were certainly flashes of improvement at points, including completing 71% of his passes against Mississippi State and a 284 yard, two touchdown game against Vanderbilt, but with those flashes also came down moments, notably his 40.9 completion percentage against Missouri and 44.4% game against Louisiana State.

Suddenly, a switch flipped against South Carolina, where Franks silenced his doubters with a passing touchdown, two rushing touchdowns, a season-high 71.4 completion percentage, and quite literally, a finger over his lips to shush the crowd that booed him the week prior.

From there, Franks was a different quarterback that earned the respect of Mullen and the team. In the final three weeks of the season against Idaho, Florida State, and 8th ranked Michigan in the Peach Bowl, Franks completed 62.8% of his attempts for 701 yards, seven touchdowns, and no interceptions. He paired these numbers with 141 rushing yards and two rushing scores.

At seasons end, Franks posted the 41st highest passing efficiency stat in the nation at 143.4, despite flashes of inconsistency throughout the first nine games. His final stat line saw an improved completion percentage of 58.4%, 2457 yards on only 93 more attempts than 2017, 24 touchdowns, and six interceptions - two fewer than his 2017 campaign.

The arrow is pointing up for Feleipe Franks as he enters his second season of development under Mullen, which wasn't the expectation around midseason in 2018.

All of these significant improvements across the Florida offense suggest that Florida's biggest success in 2018 is the end of the exciting-offense drought that plagued The Swamp for nearly a decade.