John Brantley Injury: Florida Gators Need Jacoby Brissett to Step Up vs. Auburn

The Florida Gators would be hard-pressed to leave Jordan-Hare Stadium with a win over No. 24 Auburn, with or without the services of John Brantley.

Now that the senior signal caller is officially out for the second straight week, the task will once again fall to freshman Jacoby Brissett to keep his team close, which, in the long view, is actually a blessing in disguise.

Brantley never quite lived up to the considerable hype he had coming out of high school in Ocala, Florida, though the fault isn't entirely his own. He was a poor fit for Urban Meyer's spread offense—a drop-back, pocket passer scrambling for his life in a Tim Tebow, dual-threat system.

The shift to a pro-style attack under new offensive coordinator Charlie Weis was supposed to turn Brantley into a beast, but the transformation never quite materialized. Brantley had been solid, if wholly unspectacular, before spraining his ankle against Alabama two weeks ago. Prior to the injury, Brantley had completed 64.3 percent of his passes for a respectable 942 yards at 9.2 yards per attempt. Granted, he wasn't exactly a scoring machine (five touchdowns, three interceptions), but he'd done a solid job of stewarding a talented Gators offense through the first third of the season.

That being said, Florida was never likely to contend for the SEC title this year. Will Muschamp's first at the helm in Gainesville, and would've been better suited to spreading opportunities under center between young guns like Brissett, Jeff Driskel and Trey Burton to sort out and solidify the future of the program. Brantley was never going to be that guy, not with this being his final year of eligibility.

And, frankly, the Gators weren't going to beat Alabama, Florida or Auburn, even with Brantley in the backfield. Hence, losing Brantley was, in a way, a good thing for the Gators going forward, as it gave Muschamp and Weis an easy excuse to throw their young passers into the fire to see what exactly they had to work with in the years to come.

Granted, they probably would've preferred to have given more of the snaps to Driskel, the highly-touted freshman who also sprained his ankle against the Crimson Tide, though Brissett was bound to get in the mix at some point.

How Brissett fares in front of a hostile crowd at Auburn will go a long way toward determining his role in The Swamp from here on out. Driskel is healthy enough to play, but Brissett will get the starting nod after holding the fort, however tenuously, during last week's loss in Baton Rouge. The challenge for Brissett will be two fold, as he'll have to contend with the Tigers' defense as well as the specter of Driskel supplanting him if he falters.

That's a lot to ask of a freshman with one start to his credit, especially on the road, but that's the situation the Gators find themselves in—one that may seem dire now, especially once the score is settled on Saturday night, but that will ultimately benefit the program in the long run.