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Cocktail Party loss and DJ Lagway’s injury are the latest heartbreak for Florida
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For nearly a half of football at the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party on Saturday, Florida was in control against No. 2 Georgia.
Florida’s vastly improved defense was limiting Georgia’s run game and producing turnovers as the Dawgs were forced to try to move the football with the passing game.
Florida was playing the more-talented Bulldogs to a draw on the line of scrimmage.
And yes, Florida had the better quarterback by a country mile.
Georgia fans flooded the zone on Twitter on Saturday night, eager to belittle DL Lagway’s stat line, which read 2-6 for 47 yards and a touchdown. Did they watch the same football game the rest of us did?
Lagway may have completed just 2 of his first 6 passes (there was 1 drop). He may have only produced 19 yards on 4 runs.
But if you don’t think the Gators had the star quarterback in Saturday’s 102nd edition of Georgia and Florida, there’s some oceanfront property in Arizona I’ve been dying to get off my hands.
On the one hand, senior Carson Beck was rattled by Florida’s pressure and confused by Florida’s mix of man and zone coverage, tossing 2 first half interceptions. (He finished with 3, pushing his season total to 11 — more than any QB in the Kirby Smart era.)
Meanwhile, the true freshman Lagway had the Gators in rhythm, leading the Cocktail Party by a touchdown, and in position to go score on a 3rd consecutive possession when, in the blink of an eye, he was lost to a non-contact injury to his hamstring late in the second quarter.
The Lagway injury was the second time Florida lost one of the better quarterbacks in the SEC to a non-contact injury in less than a month.
Graham Mertz, who opened the year as Florida’s starting quarterback and led the nation in completion percentage while ranking 8th nationally in passing success rate, was lost to an ACL injury suffered without contact against rival Tennessee last month.
When Florida lost Mertz on Oct. 12, the Gators led No. 8 Tennessee by 10 points, controlling the football game with stout defense and Mertz’s efficient, move-the-sticks, protect the football brand of offense.
When the Gators lost Lagway on Saturday, they lost the guy who has been the best downfield thrower in college football in 2024 — at least according to the data.
Lagway’s 13th explosive passing play of 30 yards or more this season came early in the second quarter, when he threw this strike to Aidan Mizell to stake the Gators to the lead following a Carson Beck interception. Lagway has completed those 13 explosives on just 20 attempts, an absurd 65% downfield success rate that is the best rate in college football this season for players with a minimum of 10 such deep throws.
Not to get too corny about it, but let’s borrow from the great Larry Munson, shall we?
MY GAWD. A FRESHMAN!!
https://twitter.com/gatorsszn/status/1852812326803525886
Lagway’s touchdowns strike was the latest evidence of his ability to consistently change games with explosive, accurate, downfield throws, a talent that puts him in rarefied company among college quarterbacks.
It was also the type of throw that allows a freshman quarterback to build confidence, slowly finding his way into a comfort zone in one of the biggest rivalry games in college football.
Florida scored on a sustained field goal drive — derailed only by a no-call on a pass interference — on its next possession.
Florida got the ball back, in an offensive rhythm and with a chance to grab more, when Lagway’s hamstring popped.
According to Billy Napier, it’s a “soft tissue” injury and a “significant one,” the scale of which won’t be fully known until an MRI on Sunday.
The injury felt more than “significant” for Florida.
It was game-changing and it felt potentially program changing.
Florida had been playing its best football since 2020 over the last month, riding an improved defense and the big playmaking of Lagway to a brief win streak and coming within a few boneheaded Napier decisions and the Mertz injury from upending SEC contender Tennessee on the road at a checkerboard Neyland.
On Saturday, Florida was outplaying Georgia behind a better quarterback and at least a stalemate on both lines of scrimmage, where Kirby Smart’s Georgia behemoth tends to feast.
Without Lagway, the Gators sputtered.
Like most football teams, Florida’s third-string quarterback Aidan Warner was limited, a walk-on transfer from an Ivy League school who just started taking QB 2 reps 3 weeks ago.
Does Napier deserve some blame for not having a blue-chip prospect waiting in the wings at third string? He certainly does — and any sober assessment of Napier’s future at Florida must include a deep look at Florida’s recruiting situation, which appears dire heading into the final meaty days of recruiting season and 2025.
But third-string quarterbacks, no matter how many stars sit beside their names, are third-string quarterbacks, and while Warner played bravely, Florida’s offense was pedestrian and predictable with the Ivy Leaguer under center. Warner completed just 7-of-22 passes for 66 yards, averaging only 3 yards per attempt. He also looked confused in RPO situations, making the wrong read on multiple plays and getting stuffed due to a lack of speed on others.
Florida’s defense competed for nearly 4 quarters, keeping the Gators in the game despite the loss of Lagway and a defense that was without its top corner, Jason Marshall Jr., and another corner, Devin Moore, who was injured after intercepting Beck in the first quarter.
But as Florida tired, Georgia’s superior depth established itself, and given 2 short fields in the 4th quarter, Georgia put the game to bed.
Georgia and their fans won’t shed any tears for the Gators. The win was Georgia’s 4th straight in this rivalry, their longest streak since 1979-1983, and they stayed on the EverBank Stadium grass well after the final whistle celebrating that feat. The victory also means Georgia remains very much in the race for the SEC Championship and a top 4 seed in the College Football Playoff.
But if Florida fans feel snakebit and cheated a bit on Saturday night, they have every right to do so and take that up with the Lord on Sunday morning.
When will Florida football get a break again?
For the first time since Kyle Pitts and Kyle Trask, Florida had the best offensive playmakers on the field in a game against Georgia.
For the first time since 2019, Florida was playing (gulps) “c0mplementary football” with Mertz and then Lagway under center and an improving young defense playing with a pulse.
For the first time in a long tine, a November finish of Georgia, at Texas, LSU, Ole Miss and FSU didn’t feel overwhelming. Instead, it felt like it might be fun to see what Lagway and the young Gators could do.
All that hope and joy snuffed out in one non-contact play,
Now, a grim November awaits, and a program that might have turned the corner Saturday is left to wonder when, if ever, they’ll finally get their big break.
Neil Blackmon covers Florida football and the SEC for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.
