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Start DJ Lagway vs. Samford, Gators: You need the distraction (and production)
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Florida continues its season opening 3-game homestand Saturday night when Samford visits The Swamp.
The Gators enter the contest riding a 6-game losing streak and desperate for at least one fun, “ordinary” Saturday in The Swamp.
Miami’s Category 5 demolition of Florida last Saturday already hurled Florida into crisis mode.
Florida’s first home opening loss since 1989 was so utterly demoralizing it immediately put Billy Napier’s future as the head coach in grave danger. Athletic Director Scott Stricklin is in the pressure cooker too, given Napier’s 11-15 record at Florida and the Miami debacle came just days removed from Stricklin’s Friday assurances to ESPN that he expected Napier to be the head coach for many years to come.
Having already failed with Dan Mullen, Stricklin could ill afford his second chosen head coach to suffer a season-opening home loss to an in-state rival that was embarrassing by any objective metric but felt even worse given Napier’s 7-14 record against power conference opponents entering the game. The fact that Miami is — or was — a similarly situated program, in Year 3 under a head coach tasked with returning a long-suffering program with a championship pedigree back to the mountaintop — makes the magnitude of the defeat all the more striking.
Is it already too late for Napier to save his job? If it is not, the yeoman’s work better start Saturday, against a Samford team that dropped 50 in its last visit to The Swamp but lost narrowly in the final Florida win of the Mullen era.
The Gators are facing the prospect of playing Samford without quarterback Graham Mertz, who is in concussion protocol after being slammed to the turf by a ferocious Miami pass rush in the third quarter on Saturday.
While Napier was non-committal on who would start Saturday, Mertz’s injury could be a blessing in disguise for the Gators.
Florida fans need a distraction and Napier needs a positive to cling to moving forward. Freshman quarterback DJ Lagway, the Gatorade National Player of the Year and High School Heisman winner in 2023, could provide all of the above by making his first start.
Lagway is taking first team reps in practice this week with Mertz in protocol, and Napier expressed confidence in the 19-year-old Monday.
“I think we would play a brand of football that reflects his experience and his strengths,” Napier told the media. “I’ve got a ton of confidence in DJ. We’ve had him since January. He’s a completely different person and player than he was when he first arrived. He’s got a really good knowledge of our system.”
Lagway may have a really good knowledge of Napier’s system, but it’s the first part of Napier’s comments on the prized 5-star freshman that’s most intriguing. Florida having a “brand” on offense, after all, would feel like something new.
The Gators moved the ball effectively on Lagway’s entrance into the fray against Miami.
Yes, the big Texan looked like a freshman at times, tossing an interception under pressure and misreading a RPO on his first possession that likely cost the Gators at least a first down. But Lagway showed flashes of the player he’ll one day be, leading Florida’s only touchdown drive of the second half on a 58-yard march that included 2 big-time throws into tight windows and a beautiful 16-yard red-zone scramble to set up first and goal at the Hurricanes’ 5-yard line.
https://twitter.com/gatorsszn/status/1830639542723842151
Lagway made the Florida offense look different — even when he didn’t complete passes. Take his first throw, when he quickly processed pressure, rolled away from it, and threw against his body toward Chimere Dike, who was the only Florida receiver with a step on a defender who could have potentially made a first down on 3rd-and-12.
DJ Lagway 1st career pass pic.twitter.com/vBEQNbMEFf
— NMD Grant (@NMDgrant) August 31, 2024
The freshman didn’t complete the pass, but on an afternoon when Florida’s offensive line crumbled consistently in pass block situations, Lagway’s ability to buy time and stress defenses with his legs was a refreshing change.
Don’t get me wrong: Mertz is a fine quarterback, one of the best returning players in the SEC under center. But it’s clear, after only 1 game, that Florida’s offensive line is not improved from the group that allowed the 13th-most pressures in the SEC just a season ago. Mertz, who graded out as one of PFF’s best quarterbacks under pressure in 2023, could be more effective if Lagway can develop into a player Napier trusts with an ever-expanding package as the season wears on. At a minimum, Lagway’s development could give the Gators a wrinkle offensively that opposing coordinators have to fixate on, and after Saturday’s debacle against the Hurricanes, any wrinkle would be a good wrinkle.
The Gators’ players know Lagway is different, too.
“Everything he does is calm, cool, poised,” running back Montrell Johnson Jr. said Monday. “He’s impressive out there, just his command and his communication. He makes me proud.”
That’s why even if Mertz heals up before Saturday, Lagway should get the opportunity to start against Samford, giving Mertz an extra week of post-concussion rest in the process.
Florida’s difficult schedule won’t change, and Samford is the lone opportunity to get Lagway comfortable against an overmatched opponent.
Lagway can make the Gators better this season, and this is a prime opportunity for Napier to maximize the return on the program’s most significant NIL investment.
The X’s and O’s and economics might not even be the biggest reasons Florida needs to cut Lagway loose on Saturday night.
Florida’s fan base is hungry for hope and starved for joy.
They also aren’t ignorant or aloof. They know Lagway would be wanted everywhere if he decided to enter the portal. All bets are off if Napier is dismissed. Playing time for Lagway in Gainesville doesn’t guarantee he’ll return in 2025, but every snap he takes in The Swamp endearing himself to Florida’s passionate fans sure can’t hurt.
When Lagway signed with the Gators last December, I wrote that it was the biggest recruiting victory for Florida since Tim Tebow.
At a program that hasn’t won a title since Tebow’s departure, it’s time Saturday to give Lagway the opportunity to prove that.
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.
