Graham Mertz on being named Florida's starting QB: 'It's an honor and a blessing'

After transferring in from Wisconsin, Graham Mertz had to fight to be named the starting quarterback at Florida. That’s exactly what he did and head coach Billy Napier named him the starter during Fall Camp.

Now, Mertz has shared his response to being name Florida’s starting quarterback by Napier.

“It’s an honor and a blessing,” Graham Mertz said. “I’m going to treat it as such. You have to walk with that every day.”

He played 34 games during his career with Wisconsin and transferred to Florida with two more seasons of eligibility after redshirting in 2019 and playing in 2020. In that time, Mertz completed 59.5 percent of his passes while averaging 7.0 yards per attempt. He also threw 38 touchdowns to 26 interceptions on his career.

While at Florida, Graham Mertz found himself in a quarterback competition with Jack Miller. It was Miller who took over for Anthony Richardson in the bowl loss to Oregon State.

One of the things that impressed Billy Napier about Graham Mertz was his ability to learn the system. As he explained after naming Napier the starter, it played a key role in the decision.

“I think the big thing I’ve been impressed with is just his ability to come in and learn the system, translate what he knows and apply that to our system,” Napier said.

“And then just, you know, relentless in approach. Probably’s worked as hard as any player on our team. Probably as hard as a lot of players that I’ve been around in terms of the unseen hours. Those are what I’m talking about specifically, and the self-discipline, to have a system, a process, a routine, to work, to connect with players, ask very intelligent questions, and is anticipating problems.”

This is an important season for the Florida program, which finished 6-7 last season and faces a difficult schedule. Still, there is hope that the former four-star recruit is going to be able to revive his career in Gainesville.

Why Graham Mertz was named the starting QB

According to Nick de la Torre of Gators Online, there were three key reasons why Graham Mertz was named Florida’s starting quarterback. He explained that football IQ, leadership, and experience were all vital to Mertz winning the job.

“He does everything that’s expected that his teammates would do. He’s going to do all the little things that people don’t want to do,” Andy Sims — Graham’s high school coach told Gators Online. “I think a lot of times in sports you have different leadership styles. You have the guy that’s going to yell and scream and challenge his teammates. Graham is just a little bit more old-school. He’s going to lead by example.”