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It’s been rough few years in Gainesville, but of all the prevailing narratives around Florida’s descent into mediocrity, the least convincing is the notion that the lineup is suddenly running low on blue-chip talent.
It would be one thing if this was a 10-win outfit struggling to get over the hump against Georgia. Three consecutive losing records are not so easily explained away.
Ten of Florida’s 14 losses under Billy Napier have come against opponents rated below the Gators according to 247Sports’ Team Talent Composite, and the 2024 roster is among the small handful that qualified for the Blue-Chip Ratio, as usual. Not for nothing, the incoming recruiting class is the most touted in Gainesville since the pandemic, headlined by crown-jewel quarterback DJ Lagway.
There are many reasons I picked the Gators to finish 12th in the SEC, and the window for chalking up the malaise to “Dan Mullen’s recruiting” is just about closed.
Gators at a Glance …
2023 Recap: 5-7 (3-5 SEC)
Best Player: WR Eugene Wilson III
Best Pro Prospect: CB Jason Marshall Jr.
Best Addition: WR Elijhah Badger (Arizona State)
Best Names: TE Keon Zipperer … K Trey Smack
Most Grizzled: QB Graham Mertz (6th year; 43 career starts at UF and Wisconsin)
Emerging Dude: Junior CB Devin Moore
Biggest strength: D-line depth. There’s no individual star, but the Gators have 8 defensive linemen with starting experience at the FBS level; a couple of rising dudes in sophomores TJ Searcy and Kelby Collins; and a 5-star freshman, LJ McCray. They also added the reigning Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year, DT Joey Slackman from Penn, and a 4-star JUCO product, Brien Taylor Jr. Out of roughly 14 candidates vying for playing time there have to be a half-dozen who can collectively be counted on to raise some hell … right?
Nagging concern: The defense was a tinderbox under first-year coordinator Austin Armstrong, who is still nominally in charge. Armstrong was a surprise hire to begin with given his age (31) and relatively thin résumé, and his first year on the headset did not dispel the doubts. Florida allowed an abysmal 7.42 yards per play against SEC opponents, worst in the nation in conference play. (For some context, the next-worse defense by that measure was Vanderbilt at 7.02 yards per play.) Napier resisted calls to fire Armstrong, but did bring in a veteran, journeyman Ron Roberts, under the title of “executive head coach” to effectively serve as co-coordinator. Roberts had a short stint as Napier’s DC at Louisiana in 2018-19, and spent the 2023 season at Auburn. Whoever winds up actually calling the shots, there’s nowhere to go but up.
Looming question: Can Graham Mertz hold off DJ Lagway? Mertz was better than he was usually given credit for in 2023, and has the veteran’s knack for avoiding the bad play: His 0.8% interception rate was the best in the SEC and 5th-best nationally. Big plays, on the other hand, were too few and far between; Mertz ranked last in the conference in average depth of target, per Pro Football Focus, and lost the resident deep threat, first-round draft pick Ricky Pearsall. There’s no competition for now, but if the season descends into lost-cause territory against a nightmare schedule the pressure to turn get the Lagway era underway is only going to mount.
The schedule: A bona fide gauntlet. If the “watered-down talent” narrative is wearing thin, the “brutal schedule” narrative is irrefutable. Florida opens with Miami, closes with Florida State, and in between faces 6 more SEC teams ranked in the preseason AP poll. The closing stretch against Georgia, Texas, LSU, Ole Miss and FSU on consecutive Saturdays is as grueling a November as has ever been conceived. The Gators went out on a 5-game losing streak to end 2023 and will be hard-pressed to avoid that fate again.
RELATED: Predicting every Florida game in 2024
The upshot
The first 2 years of Napier’s tenure were a slog and nothing suggests Year 3 is going to be any different. Forget a winning record: This year is strictly about staying competitive enough for long enough to survive to see Year 4.
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Matt Hinton, author of 'Monday Down South' and our resident QB guru, has previously written for Dr. Saturday, CBS and Grantland.
