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Lagway Shines against Samford

We all wondered whether 5-star QB prodigy D.J. Lagway was ready to step into a leadership role on this Gators team. I wrote about it on Friday and thought he still had areas to grow, but that he looked like he could be a good QB this year.

Then Lagway stepped into the role on Saturday against Samford and exceeded all expectations in the Gators 45-7 victory.

The raw numbers are impressive, but the thing that struck me was how open all of Florida’s receivers seemed. Because the hash marks are so much further apart in college than the NFL, there are always going to be ways to get guys open in the college game that just isn’t possible in the pros. That means it’s the job of the QB to find them.

That’s the main takeaway that I take from this one. If Lagway had been chucking the ball up and just letting his more talented teammates go up and get it, that would be one thing. But I’m going to highlight in the next section some of the reads that Lagway made that make me think he may be even more advanced than I thought heading into this game.

Now, it is only Samford. When the lights go on in an SEC game, the defensive line pressure is different. The cornerbacks can hang with your receivers way better in one-on-one coverage. And the windows get tighter, even if they’re still there.

But you have to be able to light up Samford if we expect you to light up Texas A&M, Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia. This is the first step for D.J. Lagway into becoming the star that his recruiting profile and status as 2023 Gatorade High School Player of the Year suggests he can be.

And oh, what a glorious step it was.

The Numbers

Lagway went 18 for 25 for 456 yards, 3 TDs and 0 INTs. That’s an average of 18.2 yards per throw, which is just spectacular. Even if we subtract the big pop pass for Wilson which is essentially a reverse, we’re left with a guy who averaged over 15 yards per throw.

Not only did Lagway avoid INTs, he also didn’t have many negative plays at all – a rarity for a Billy Napier QB at Florida. Samford didn’t have any sacks. I don’t remember any batted balls. And they only had two passes defended, indicating Lagway didn’t throw into traffic much at all.

But it’s Samford, right? How much can we really glean from a game against a cupcake? Well, I thought it would be interesting to normalize our expectations based on what other recent Gators QBs have done in similar games.

Florida has played 12 games against FCS opponents since 2011 (the start of the Muschamp era). Those games have had QBs with names like Brantley, Brissett, Morhinweg, Driskel, Franks, Trask, Jones, Richardson, Mertz and now Lagway. Here are a few stats in those games.

• The average QB rating is 210.8 (Lagway was at 264.8)
• The average Yards Above Replacement (YAR, my stat that takes into account passing and throwing effectiveness) is 3.60 (Lagway was at 8.85)
• The average completion percentage is 74.1% (Lagway was at 72%)
• The average yards per attempt is 11.4 (Lagway was at 18.2)

Only two players have had higher QB ratings than Lagway (Driskel against Eastern Kentucky in 2014 and Richardson in 2022 against Eastern Washington). Driskel threw 11 passes in his game wile Richardson threw only 10 in his. Only Richardson has had a higher YAR (18.7!) than Lagway, which was also in that Eastern Washington game.

There have been plenty of good performances in these games. That should be expected, as these are true cupcake games. But Lagway’s performance stands above all other QBs who have been Gators except for a guy who was drafted fourth overall in the 2023 draft.

This was special, and don’t let anyone “but, Samford” you about it.

The Film

So why was it special? Well, it started early. ESPN gave us a look at the All-22 film on Lagway’s first explosive play as a Gator, and it points to an attitude that showed up on film in high school (note: I diagramed Lagway doing this exact same thing on a flood route from his high school highlights in our 2024 Gators Preseason Magazine).

This is a Billy Napier staple: the flood route on a bootleg after a fake to the running back. Samford’s deep safety jumps to the outside, taking the bait on the fake. That opens up the one-on-one shot deep.

But I paused the video at the point where Lagway made the decision to let the ball go. Does the receiver look open? Because if he’s not, there’s a receiver coming wide open on an intermediate route for a big gain as well. But Lagway never gets to that point of his progression, as he anticipates that WR Elijhah Badger is going to go right by the cornerback.

Yes, Lagway makes a beautiful deep throw. But it’s the willingness to make the deep throw and eschew the wide open receiver over the middle that matters to me. This shows supreme confidence in his ability to understand who’s going to come open.

This is an even more encouraging example. Samford’s field safety comes up at the snap and the boundary safety (the one to the bottom of the screen) drops back. As Lagway drops back, he looks over at Mizell, who’s running a double-move. But I think Lagway was looking that way thinking it would draw the safety towards the middle of the field, opening up a deep shot to Chimere Dike (#17) who is running a go route from the slot.

But the safety stays put. You can see Lagway look in that direction before he’s flushed from the pocket, but decide that the shot isn’t open. He then scrambles up in the pocket, and you can almost see him processing that since the safety didn’t bite, now that means Mizell is in one-on-one on the outside.

I paused the video when he makes the revelation and I ask you the same question I posed above: Is Mizell open? It takes an absolutely perfect pass to get the touchdown, but Lagway is capable of making that throw. But even more, having the awareness and then the cajones to let it rip is really impressive.

Is Lagway a finished, perfected product? Not at all, and there are two throws I want to highlight from the first drive of the second half to illustrate areas where he needs to work.

Lagway pre-decided he was going to Tre Wilson on this one no matter what. The Gators clearly had emphasized getting the ball to Wilson at halftime, and Lagway was going to feed his star.

The problem is that Lagway lets go of the ball just a tick early, before TE Hayden Hansen can break off his route over the middle. Hansen comes wide open because Samford’s boundary safety is dropping deep and the field safety – who is guarding Hansen – drops into the throwing lane to Wilson.

Color analyst Steve Addazio called this pass “ill advised”, which is a nice way of saying that Lagway threw into double-coverage. But in this case, it was his anticipation of the throw that allowed the defender to drop into position to defend it.

Do I think Lagway pre-determined where he was going with the ball? Yes, I do. But he also put it in a position where only Wilson would be able to get it and was targeting Florida’s biggest star, so this isn’t that out of bounds.

Interestingly, it’s a touchdown pass that points out where this may become a problem. Two plays after forcing the ball to Wilson, Lagway did it again to Tank Hawkins for a touchdown.

The Gators keep tight end Hayden Hansen in to block. That means there are four Samford defensive backs to cover three receivers. Florida is running a square-in (Dike, #17), a go-route (Wilson, #3) and what amounts to a deep post (Hawkins, #10).

As he drops back Lagway is staring right at the boundary safety. He sees him take a step forward and knows that’s enough for Hawkins to get by and so lets the ball fly. Hawkins is open by five yards when the ball arrives and everyone celebrates.

The issue is that Wilson was just as open, but against one defender. Dike was wide open on the square-in. This works against Samford and in high school. Georgia has guys who can run with Hawkins. At that point, you have to throw it to the right guy.

Takeaway

The last two examples probably seem like nitpicking, and in some ways that’s true. But I actually look at that as a positive because it means that Lagway still has room to improve and grow from a performance that amazingly exceeded all expectations.

In 2018, I was in the stadium when Florida got waxed by Missouri, Feleipe Franks was just awful, and Kyle Trask came in and played well. It was against Missouri backups and the game was well in-hand by then, but Florida’s offense felt different with Trask under center. Trask broke his foot during practice that week and Franks led the Gators to a 4-game winning streak to end the year, but I never forgot that feeling.

I had that feeling again last week when Lagway came in after Mertz suffered a concussion and I felt it again against Samford. There’s an extra pep in every receiver’s step when they know they aren’t running deep routes as decoys but may actually be targeted. And there’s additional room for running backs to navigate when the safeties are worried that they’re about to be embarrassed deep.

After the game when asked about Lagway taking over the starting job, Napier responded, “Our intentions are the same. We intend to play him every week. We intended to do that last week as well.”

Hopefully this is just coach-speak. Because when I was texting with colleague Nick Knudsen after the game, he said the following:

“Enough of this ‘Graham’s team’ garbage. He doesn’t get that title. Great guy, easy to root for, but we’ve gone 5-7 when he’s started.”

Is some of that on Florida’s defense? Absolutely. The Gators have allowed an average of 37.9 points in those losses. But given what we saw against Miami, that isn’t likely to change anytime soon. That means Florida has to maximize everything they can get out of their offense every time it hits the field.

That means deep shots. That means explosive plays. That means running an offense out there that puts fear into the opposition.

Can Lagway command an offense that generates that fear this early in his career? I don’t think any of us can say anything other than he didn’t prove that he can’t against Samford. Now answer the same question for Mertz…..that’s why you go with Lagway.

Before the season, I asked the question of how many games Napier needed to win to hold onto his job. The answer was 7-5 as a bare minimum but 9-4 to really believe he could win a championship at Florida. The reason is what I always talk about; that the job of a college football coach is to either sell wins or sell hope.

Given what we saw against Miami and last year combined with the schedule, Mertz isn’t getting this team to 7-5. Lagway may not either.  But I still have hope that he may be able to.

And so if Napier needs to sell wins and hope, Lagway’s the only way to close that sale.

Parking and Christmas Vacation

I woke up on Saturday to this tweet from my favorite tailgate:

FYI Gators!!! Museum Road has been ropped off on both sides, the University is no longer allowing ppl to hop the curve to park on the grass. This University is actively trying to push this fan base away!

— 🐊Harmonic Woods TailGators🐊 (@HarmonicWoodsTG) September 7, 2024

These guys were at the Miami game and didn’t have any issues. Sometime between last week and this week, somebody at UF thought it would be great to disrupt the parking habits of folks who have been showing up to support the program for the last 15 years without telling them about the change until their arrival and on a week when – let’s be honest – only the die-hards are really showing up to tailgate.

This has nothing to do with Billy Napier, but it does have to do with the fan experience. College football is unique in that many of us have a direct connection to the team that we root for. That connection means we’re willing to take a lot of abuse, as evidenced by the fact that nearly 90,000 people showed up to watch the Gators take on Samford.

I’m appreciative that after the uproar, Florida did the right thing and took down the restrictions on parking. But it reminds me of the scene in Christmas Vacation when Clark’s brother-in-law Dan Mullen brings Clark’s boss to his house because he stiffed the employees of their Christmas bonus.

The boss rescinds his decision to cut the bonuses, but only after he’s shamed into doing the right thing. That doesn’t make him a good person. It makes him someone who didn’t have the backbone to tell his employees of his decision because he didn’t think he’d have to face them directly after making it.

I understand that college is a business. I, and my parents, were charged for my degree. UF doesn’t technically owe me anything. Clark’s boss didn’t technically owe Clark anything either, but the guy was stalking his mailbox waiting for that bonus check when he could have at least changed tactics had his company had the courtesy to let him know. Instead, he had to wait until his brother-in-law gave him an opportunity to make his boss stand in the paint and justify his decision.

When you can be shamed into changing a decision, that means you shouldn’t have been making that decision in the first place. Or at the very least, you should have had the courtesy of telling the people you knew would be upset about your plans directly.

So whoever made that decision should come have a beer at the Harmonic Woods Tailgate next week and let them know why he or she made that decision and why it was changed.

Otherwise, Clark’s description of said person is pretty accurate.