GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- GatorBait.net provides five thoughts and observations from Florida's narrow 19-17 loss to Texas A&M, its second heart-breaker in as many weeks.

____________

Once again, Florida is hamstrung at quarterback

The Tim Tebow era feels in the distant, distant pass. And man, has Florida had some truly awful quarterback play since.

Feleipe Franks started the year on a pretty nice note, with an efficient albeit limited outing against Michigan, followed by a game-winning play against Tennessee that had fans salivating at the prospects of what a developed Franks could look like down the road.

Fast forward a month and just about all the air has been let out of the tires for those riding the Franks bus.

Saturday's edition might have been the worst yet, as Franks routinely missed open receivers, maddeningly took multiple sacks when he could have thrown the ball away and generally looked completely clueless for most of the evening.

There's no denying his physical talent, but with each passing week that monumental upside that seemed to be there is cut in half again and again as fans realize Franks has some seriously glaring holes in his game.

There are some things you either get or you don't get as a quarterback, and Franks' play lately is trending toward the latter.

He even seemed frustrated afterward when asked about one particularly egregious miss, where he checked down for a minimal gain on third and long, missing a wide open Brandon Powell down the field.

Franks basically said he can't see the whole field, clearly ticked off a bit. That's true, but right now he's not seeing just about any of the field.

We don't want to pile onto Franks, because he's a redshirt freshman playing on an offense where he's far from the only issue for coaches that don't seem to put him in nearly as many advantageous spots as they could.

So we'll let this point drop and roll into the next one.

____________

The Gators are headed toward Quarterback No. 4 in Year 4

If Franks doesn't seem like the long-term answer for Florida at quarterback, and many, many fans now feel that way, it means the Gators will be starting yet another quarterback to open Year 4 of the Jim McElwain era.

And nobody's quite sure who that is.

True freshman Matt Corral? (Assuming he can be convinced to play in an offense that looks like this week after week and his verbal commitment sticks)

That's a really, really bad position to be in. For a coach whose calling card is offense and reportedly training and fine-tuning quarterbacks, to not have an obvious answer on the roster through his first three years is a huge red flag.

Point blank: Florida has an issue either finding or developing a quarterback, maybe both. Worse, the decision to take graduate transfers each of the last two years feels like awful patchwork, particularly given the fact that despite Franks' struggles the Gators still didn't opt to go to Malik Zaire. The fact that Will Grier is lighting it up as one of the nation's top passers at West Virginia doesn't help.

There's no way to spin this one. The axe has to fall somewhere, whether it's on Jim McElwain or offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier.

And to build off that...

____________

It's not just a talent development issue for the coaches

Florida's in-game management has been suspect for weeks, but it was inexcusably bad to end the first half in a close game. The final margin ended up underscoring that sequence.

The Gators had the ball with six seconds left in the half and one timeout at the Texas A&M 46-yard line.

From there it would have been a 63-yard field goal for Eddy Pineiro, who reportedly hit an 81-yarder (without a defense) in spring practice.

OK, so not kicking from 63 is at least understandable. The Gators got the ball first out of the locker room to open the second half, and a long kick might require a low trajectory, which could bring a block and possible return into play.

But with six seconds and a timeout left, Florida at least had time to run a quick play and call an immediate timeout. Or even throw to the end zone if it didn't feel comfortable with the time on the clock.

Instead, Franks tossed about a 20-yard pass down the right sideline incomplete, eating up all six seconds and ending the half.

It was McElwain's explanation after the game that made the lack of picking one of the above options even more infuriating, though. He didn't even realize the team had a timeout.

The Gators had earlier tried to call one when the offense had 12 men in the huddle. They didn't get the timeout in time. It's possible McElwain didn't realize the timeout wasn't charged.

However, even so, the stadium scoreboards showed one timeout remaining. The fans booing seemed to realize he had one available. For someone in the organization not to point that out is mind-boggling.

In any case, for a coach who has had clock management issues the last few weeks, that was the most egregious case yet. Ooof.

Florida went to the break without the points, promptly went three-and-out to open the second half and Texas A&M marched right down to tie the game at 10-10, completely flipping the momentum.

____________

Florida is reverting to the mean under Jim McElwain

Pick whatever stats you want, the Gators are starting to catch the breaks the wrong way, ending McElwain's magical run of improbable 63-yard winners against Tennessee and come-from-behind victories against the likes of iffy Kentucky and LSU (2016) teams.

Much was made of Jim McElwain's 9-1 record in games decided by one score two weeks ago (most failed to take into account most of the lowly competition those one-score games were against). That record is now 9-3 after back-to-back defeats against middling to fair SEC squads.

Worse, as Florida's offense has largely failed to make progress, the defense is also showing signs of cracking. That said, credit where credit is due, the defense played lights out tonight.

But the margin for error overall has shrunk across the board.

No stat speaks more to the offense remaining a massive issue than McElwain now being 5-11 at Florida in games that the opponent scores more than 14 points in. Six of those games have come this year. Essentially, if Florida's defense doesn't hold its opponent to two scores, chances of a loss become exponentially higher.

Defensive end CeCe Jefferson said after the game he thinks the defense does enough in every game to win. Not always true, particularly this year, but certainly it did enough tonight.

Yet again, the offense let the team down. Offensive head coach. Year 3. Has to be better. Just has to.

____________

Apathy is setting in and that's a scary place to be

Las Vegas came pretty close to nailing the spread on this one, having Texas A&M as a three-point dog.

Most around Gainesville thought that line was ludicrous. If you polled any sampling of fans outside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Saturday before the game, few would have predicted a win. Of the Florida beat writers we were able to find pregame score predictions from, not one picked the Gators. Many picked a Texas A&M blowout.

The overall sentiment in the fanbase is one of resignation at this point. Fans are already looking ahead at buyouts, possible new coaching candidates and athletics director Scott Strickin's mindset.

It's hard to blame them.

The one thing the fans who remain in McElwain's corner point to is his current recruiting classes for 2018 and 2019. Currently those classes rank eighth and first nationally, respectively.

We've been doing this a while. If there's one thing we can say with almost near certainty, it's that given the trajectory of the program right now and the apathy in the fanbase, those classes won't hold.

It shouldn't be a factor in any decisions Stricklin may be pondering over the next 18 months.

Florida will be among the easiest programs in the country to negatively recruit against come crunch time ahead of the December signing period and national signing day in February. It's the same issue Will Muschamp ran up against following 2013.

When your flaws and warts are on display each week, it's easy for opposing coaches to turn recruits off on your product. And then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of talent deterioration leading to deterioration on the field.

It's a vicious cycle.

Barring a huge turnaround -- and given that Georgia looks fantastic and is next up after the bye and, well, this staff has given very little reason for any hope of a turnaround -- this thing might already be circling the drain for McElwain and company.

Some staff changes might buy time, and certainly no one will envy Stricklin's choices moving forward.

But it's probably time for Stricklin to borrow that extra timeout from the first half and start figuring out what he wants to do before that nearly inevitable slide accelerates.

---------------

For more news on Florida sports and recruiting, follow GatorBait247 on Twitter or sign up for our FREE daily Gators newsletter!

Contact Thomas Goldkamp by 247Sports' personal messaging system or on Twitter at @ThomasGoldkamp.