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O’Gara: Yes, a DJ Lagway-led stunner of Georgia would be the type of thing that would save Billy Napier’s job

Connor O'Gara

By Connor O'Gara

Published:

The way I see it, Billy Napier is short-stacked at the poker table.

For those of you who don’t know what that means or need more context clues, that means Napier has the fewest chips left of anybody at the table, and to avoid an imminent exit, he’ll probably need to go all-in and double up at some point. Sure, he can grind out a few winning hands and slowly claw his way back, but at some point, he’ll need to rake in a significant pot if he wants to do more than hold on.

Too much poker lingo? Let me simplify.

Napier probably won’t get fired simply for losing to No. 2 Georgia as a 3-score underdog. But DJ Lagway stunning Georgia, AKA the team that most recently pummeled then-No. 1 Texas in Austin, would save Napier’s job and give him a Year 4 in Gainesville. No other individual game on Florida’s remaining schedule/gauntlet, which features 3 top-8 teams in the next 3 weeks, has that kind of power.

Time will tell if Lagway is Napier’s ace in the hole. What we know is that Lagway is the card that Napier is forced to play following the season-ending injury to Graham Mertz. Lagway’s 3rd-and-18 throw at the Tennessee game was inspiring. Several throws in the Kentucky game were jaw-dropping. The stuff in between? Room for improvement.

In poker games with some sort of community board to play off, when some has — wait for it — “the nuts,” it means simply that they have the best possible hand and it can’t be beaten. The only way to lose when you have “the nuts” is to fold. We don’t know yet that Lagway is “the nuts” for Napier’s coaching hand. Despite the 2-0 record as a starter, even the most diehard Florida fan wouldn’t say that Lagway can’t be beaten just because he performed well against FCS Samford and Kentucky.

If Jalon Walker and Daylen Everette show up like they did in Austin, Georgia might just have “the nuts” on Saturday in Jacksonville. Nobody is beating that defense when it plays like that, especially not a true freshman quarterback with 1 career start vs. FBS competition.

At the same time, we’ve already seen Lagway make throws that can’t be beaten/defended.

How many of those plays does Florida need Saturday? Several, especially if Lagway can’t lead 10-play, 75-yard drives. Mertz probably had a better chance of doing that in a given week, but against the Georgia defense? Splash plays are a must. UGA allowed 8 passing plays of 30 yards in 7 games this year (No. 54 in FBS), 1 of which happened against Texas.

By night’s end of that top-5 showdown, Georgia reminded the world why it hasn’t lost to a non-Alabama team in 4 years. That last non-Alabama team to beat Kirby Smart was, of course, 2020 Florida. How many passing plays of 30 yards did Florida record that day in Jacksonville, you ask? Five … all in the first half. If Lagway somehow repeats that blueprint 4 years later, he’ll have the entire college football world singing Beyoncé by halftime.

“This ain’t Texas … ain’t no hold ’em.”

You can debate if the hand that Napier was dealt in the post-Dan Mullen era was a winning one. We know how quickly things changed for both programs a year removed from that 2020 matchup. In 2021, UGA was on a warpath to its first national title in 41 years while Mullen was on a downward spiral toward unemployment because he didn’t have enough talent on his post-2020 roster. Georgia made a QB in his first career start, Anthony Richardson, look like … a QB in his first career start.

If we’re getting constant reminders on Saturday that this is Lagway’s first start away from The Swamp, Napier will be working with a losing hand that he can’t bluff his way out of. If it’s evident that the Lagway-led offense is several levels away from clicking on all cylinders, that won’t be a selling point for Napier’s future. Again, it won’t get him fired on Sunday, but it won’t say to Florida’s decision-makers, “invest more time and resources into what we’re doing.”

That’s what Napier is trying to do in this final month of the season ahead of what appears to be a properly billed historically daunting slate (minus Florida State). He’s not competing for an SEC title or a spot in the 12-team Playoff. All Napier is trying to do is show that the Lagway version of Florida needs another year. He’s all in now.

Ah, let me back up. That’s the second time I’ve used that “all-in” poker phrase without any context.

In poker, it means pushing all your chips to … ya know what? I think you’ve got it.

In football, it means letting a true freshman quarterback rip it against the most dominant force in college football. Some wondered if Napier would get to this point in 2024 or if he’d get fired before Lagway ever got a chance to become the starter. Unfortunate circumstances led to that. Now, that’s irrelevant.

All that matters for Napier is that he has a chip and a chair.

Connor O'Gara

Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.

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