Gators QB Kyle Trask trusted his gut by sticking at Florida, and it paid off

GAINESVILLE, Fla. - Impulsion and instant gratification are both common personality traits among young adults and children in the 21st century. Patience has become more than just a virtue - it feels like it has become a rarity.

Florida Gators quarterback Kyle Trask is not your common young adult. Nor is he your common college quarterback.

A redshirt junior, Trask recently graduated from the University of Florida and is currently working towards his Master's degree in sports management. His dedication to education kept him at Florida and away from pursuing other football opportunities.

A career backup, dating back to his varsity football career at Manvel High School in Texas, Trask has never been the type to quit on a team despite now owning a starting role. His dedication to the program he signed with kept him at Florida and away from pursuing other football opportunities.

"[Florida] is one of the best schools in the country," Trask told the media on Monday morning. "So I figured why leave when I have a top-10 education, friends I love
dearly, [and] a football team that’s very supportive of me?"

Perhaps this level of dedication stems from the support of his mother, who forbade Trask from transferring out of Manvel for athletic purposes. There, he backed up QB D'Eriq King, who now starts for the University of Houston. Regardless of where he learned his patience - in a time where young adults will pack-up-and-leave somewhere that they haven't reached their goals instantly - Trask is an outlier.

"I did not want to leave at all," continued Trask when it became known that head coach Dan Mullen discussed the option of transferring with Trask last January, a normal discussion throughout Mullen's end of the season meetings with his players, individually.

"It was going into my redshirt junior season and he's asking me where my head's at because the [transfer] portal is a big thing. I told him I was 100% a Gator."

Given the (albeit limited) flashes of talent that Trask has shown in his Gators career and the strength of his résumé - playing QB at Florida is quite the honor - he very likely would have had suitors within the portal. In 2017, Trask completed 14-22 passes for 162 yards and a touchdown in place of Franks against South Carolina, when Franks was benched.

However, Trask was unphased by the possibility of starting elsewhere - he remained patient and in pursuit of one day starting for the team that originally gave him a chance.

Now, it appears that Trask's patience has paid off. Following the season-ending ankle dislocation that starting QB Feleipe Franks suffered against Kentucky this past Saturday, Trask entered the game while the Gators were down 11 points.

15 minutes later, the Gators exited the field with an eight-point win under their belt, with Trask helping secure 19 unanswered points on 9/13 for 126 yards passing - as well as himself a long-awaited starting job at quarterback.

"[Our] coaches do a great job of preparing us for these kinds of moments," Trask said of when he relieved the injured Franks. "This is why we come to Florida, to play in big games like this. I was trying to take advantage of my opportunity."

And his coaches appreciate the trust that players like Trask have in their process. Specifically Mullen.

"[Kyle] sees the bigger picture in life," Mullen stated at the podium. "[He] understands he’s being developed really well here as a quarterback and was waiting for it. He loves the team, loves the program, has been working really, really hard and was ready for his opportunity when his number was called... it’s amazing that he had the character and the readiness to go prepare and be ready for that moment, well, all of his actions that led up to being ready to play in that game showed he had that kind of character, with all of the decisions he made leading up to that.”

His character and dedication to Florida football are why Trask is ready to lead Florida forward after the loss of Franks. Whether he will able to sustain the success he had against Kentucky or not has yet to be seen, as his career provides so little sample size, but now is his time to prove that he's ready to step up to the plate.

“I kinda just trusted my gut, this whole process. I did what I felt was the best for me, and felt like all I did was want an opportunity to really show what I could really do.”

And it appears as if trusting his gut has paid off.