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Florida commit Feleipe Franks on Jacob Eason's official visit: "Not good"

Florida's playing with fire when it comes to high-profile quarterbacks.

Student Sports

When the news broke Monday night of Florida scheduling an official visit for Georgia commit Jacob Eason, a top-10 prospect in the 2016 class, the first reaction was shock at the Gators' ability to get Eason to check them out so soon after the turmoil in Athens that has led to Eason looking around.

The second reaction was a question: "What will Feleipe Franks think of this?" And the answer to that question, uncovered by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Chris Kirscher, is pretty succinct.

Franks, a 4-star QB from Wakulla High School (Crawfordville, Fla.), told SEC Country what he thought of Eason visiting Florida.

"Not good," Franks said.

...

When asked if Franks is having second thoughts with his commitment to Florida, he chose to not answer the question.

"I don’t have any other comments on that," he said.

Franks would have right to be miffed, especially given that Eason is widely seen as a more college-ready prospect than the more projectable Franks, and the barely 24 hours that passed between his own commitment to Florida and the news of Eason visiting spreading like wildfire.

But it would seem so unlikely as to be unbelievable that Florida would not have considered the possibility of an adverse reaction from Franks in the wake of a report of immediately courting another high-profile passer — and given that Franks and Maryland commit Dwayne Haskins, Jr. visited Gainesville last Saturday for the Florida State game, and that Texas QB Kyle Trask has been part of Florida's class since the summer, it strains credulity to think that Franks isn't aware that the Gators have their sights set on a number of signal-callers.

So this sounds like sour grapes, or buyer's remorse, or a player flinching at the thought of competiton, rather than a player being mad about a promise broken.

LSU is undoubtedly still in pursuit of Franks, too, with Les Miles reportedly set to visit him in-home on Tuesday. And while the Tigers may be the Gators' biggest competition for him, it's also possible that Franks could continue looking around beyond that as a response to Florida's actions.

But Florida — which still hasn't sent out either a #ChompChomp tweet to acknowledge Franks committing or a graphic touting his intention to enroll early — might be looking around due to Franks's actions, too. And one important difference between Franks and Florida is that, thanks to NCAA rules, Franks can say things out loud about that, while the Gators cannot.