Florida Football: It's Time to Name Will Grier the Gators Starting QB

All right—enough is enough.

The writing is on the wall.

Will Grier will be Florida's starting quarterback eventually, even if head coach Jim McElwain won't say it at the midway point in fall camp.

In fact, McElwain is sitting on the fence in the offseason battle between Grier—a redshirt freshman pro-style passer from Davidson, N.C.—and true sophomore dual-threat and part-time starter Treon Harris.

"I like where they’re at, both of them," McElwain said on Tuesday, according to Scott Carter of GatorZone.com. "I feel comfortable with both of them, and we’ll see after this. I haven’t put a deadline [on naming a starter]. I want to see them take ownership."

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Is that pure, unadulterated coach speak?

Absolutely. It's also an indication—albeit unintentional—that Grier has a lead.

Let's go back to SEC media days in July, when McElwain talked about his relationship with offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier and what philosophies the two share.

"I coached against him when he was a player at the University of Idaho and I was at Eastern Washington and watched him obviously shred a lot of defenses along the way by spreading it out and throwing it around the ballpark," McElwain said. "Both of us come from kind of that background."

That background is important, because if the battle is tight at this point, there's little doubt how the dominoes will fall. Grier's arm strength and ability to push it from sideline to sideline plays into the coaching staff's coaching strengths. 

For Grier's development, now's the time to name him the starter.

This isn't a seasoned backup who could ease into the season under an established system and gain chunks of the playbook game by game. This is Florida, a program in which an offensive identity has been more of a myth than reality for the last half-decade.

Florida needs an identity, and it needs to be developed during the latter portion of fall camp so that it can be tested and refined over the first two games of the season. The Gators open with New Mexico State and then a moderately tough East Carolina team that they played in last season's Birmingham Bowl before going on the road to Kentucky for the SEC opener.

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Grier needs as much experience as he can get, and naming him the starter quickly will allow him unquestioned first-team snaps for the remainder of fall camp and a chance to get more of the playbook early in the season.

All quarterback battles aren't created equal.

Alabama and South Carolina have too many bodies competing for the top spot on the depth chart for the staff to make a proper decision midway through fall camp, and Georgia's most experienced contender in its three-man battle—Virginia transfer Greyson Lambert—just got to campus in late July.

Florida is in a different boat.

Grier came into fall camp with a slight edge on Harris anyway, and if he hasn't done anything to lose it through two-and-a-half weeks of fall camp, that should be enough to tell the staff that he's worthy of winning it.

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Recruiting information courtesy of 247Sports. Statistics courtesy of cfbstats.com. Barrett Sallee is the lead SEC college football writer and national college football video analyst for Bleacher Report, as well as a host on Bleacher Report Radio on SiriusXM 83.

Follow Barrett on Twitter: @BarrettSallee.