Florida, Napier look to keep momentum vs. Ole Miss

In 2022, Billy Napier opened up his Florida tenure with a thrilling 29-26 victory over Utah. Florida and Anthony Richardson faceplanted a week later against Kentucky.

Later that season, the Gators were headed in the right direction at 6-4 after a dominating win over Spencer Rattler and South Carolina. Florida then lost to Vanderbilt (!), Florida State and got embarrassed by Oregon State in a bowl game.

In 2023, Florida dominated Tennessee in The Swamp 29-16. They then put in a lackluster effort against Charlotte (22-7) and were again embarrassed by Kentucky.

They then got to 5-2 with a thrilling, last-minute, 41-39 victory that was supposed to propel the team to bigger and better things. The Gators then lost five straight to end the season.

With that history, perhaps you can forgive me for wanting to see Billy Napier and Co. prove that their win over LSU was not just a flash in the pan. I’ve spoken at length this year about Billy Napier in terms of deposits and withdrawals with the Florida fanbase. The Miami and A&M games were huge withdrawals. The LSU game – with the corresponding play of D.J. Lagway – was a huge deposit.

But LSU is just a solid team. Ole Miss is an elite one, which means the Rebels could eviscerate any excitement from last week’s game…..or, the Gators could prove that with D.J. Lagway at QB, they’re ready to help Napier make an enormous deposit heading into 2025.

The Stats

Why do I say Ole Miss is an elite team? It’s because of this.

The above chart shows expected win percentage based on point differential plotted against EPA differential. We can see that it is a linear relationship and that Ole Miss is the best team that Florida has faced all season. In fact, the chart says that Ole Miss has actually been a little bit unlucky.

There’s only one way to end up 8-2 with a point differential of 28 points: close losses. Indeed, Ole Miss’ two losses have come by three points each, 20-17 to Kentucky and 29-26 to LSU. They’ve blown out everyone else, including an 18-point win over Georgia two weeks ago.

Florida is really right where we’d expect on this chart. The Gators are better than Mississippi State, a little bit worse than Central Florida (though the Golden Knights have a significantly worse schedule) and then are way worse than Miami, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas and Texas A&M (all five losses).

Perhaps you’d look at this and expect the LSU and Kentucky games to be toss-ups based on these rankings, and you’d be right. But remember that Florida had Lagway at QB in both of those games and that their EPA differential had he been chucking deep shots all season long would be much better.

So that’s really the question: How far up that line does Lagway take Florida?

The Quarterbacks

To answer that question, we have to ask whether Florida has an advantage at the QB position?

In Lagway’s other starts where he’s been able to finish the game, here’s his QB rating and Yards Above Replacement (YAR) compared to the opponent. (note: YAR is my proprietary stat that takes a QB’s running and passing into account. 0.0 is average, negative is bad, 1.0 is Jake Fromm-ey and 2.0 is Heisman-worthy).

That is a major advantage at the position that Florida has had in all three victories (and really good play by Lagway). Of course, that is also facing Quincy Crittendon, Brock Vandagriff and Garrett Nussmeier.

Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart is a completely different story.

Dart has a QB rating of 188.6, which is an elite number and indicative that he is the best player at the position the Gators have faced all season (Cam Ward is at 174.0). His YAR for the season is 3.10, a reflection not only of his 11.4 yards per attempt (holy hell) but also that he’s a positive on the ground (3.6 yards per rush on 85 carries).

Ole Miss’ rush offense is relatively pedestrian, ranked 62nd against FBS opponents in yard per rush. But the Rebels have the second ranked pass offense, coming in at a 10.9 yards per attempt clip. That’s directly because of Dart.

I picked Florida last week against LSU strictly because I knew that Lagway was a huge upgrade compared to Nussmeier. Normally Lagway gives Florida a huge advantage on deep passes, but here’s the QB rating for Dart and Lagway (with Nussmeier thrown in to show the difference) at various throw distances.

Lagway still outperforms Dart on deep passes. The guy is just an assassin when he decides to go downfield. But this chart also shows why Florida is still inconsistent with him in there. That gaping 86.1 QB rating on throws in the 11-20 yard range is where him being a true freshman really becomes obvious.

Not so for Dart, who is slightly less (though not much) effective than Lagway on deep shots, but is destroying opposing defenses in the 11-20 yard range as well. Those are the throws that turn into big plays because of hitting a receiver in stride and allowing him to run. Lagway doesn’t have that in his quiver yet. Dart does.

Defense

Here’s where Ole Miss really differentiates itself.

The Rebels have the fifth ranked defense in yards per play allowed vs. FBS opponents and the number one run defense. They should be able to make Florida one-dimensional.

And given Lagway’s tender hamstring, that’s going to be an issue because Ole Miss leads the country in sacks per game (4.6). That stat isn’t luck. If we look at the advanced stats, the Rebels havoc rate (plays where the defense gets a TFL, pass deflection, or turnover) is 25.4 percent. So more than one in four plays against this defense turn into something bad for the offense.

For comparison, Georgia’s havoc rate is 16.7 percent and Florida’s is 16.3. Texas is a really good defense and its havoc rate is 19.9 percent. When it comes to creating chaos around the QB, Ole Miss is in a class of its own.

The Gators, on the other hand, have been Jekyl and Hyde on defense.

After their first bye week, the Gators defense allowed only 4.4, 4.5 and 4.5 yards per play against Central Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky. But then they surrendered 6.2 and 8.8 yards per play against Georgia and Texas. That number was back to 4.2 against LSU last week.

Combine that with poor performances against Miami (7.7), Texas A&M (6.8) and Mississippi State (5.3) and you have a defense that ranks 73rd overall in yards per play allowed vs. FBS opponents and 88th in yards per pass attempt allowed.

The Gators defense isn’t going to just be able to play as well as they did against LSU or even Tennessee to hang in there. It will have to be better.

Prediction

Florida has had a really tough three game stretch.

The game against Georgia was emotional because of the loss but also the loss of Lagway. The team showed up flat against Texas and with Aidan Warner at QB, never really had a shot. The game last week against LSU was great, but it also was emotional.

Conversely, Ole Miss is coming into this game off of a bye week. You might have been able to predict a letdown for them after the big win over Georgia had it happened last week, but with two weeks to refocus, I suspect the Rebels not being ready isn’t something Florida can count on.

In our preseason magazine, I had an entire section on how Ron Roberts had learned from Dave Aranda at Baylor to be less aggressive than he was in previous stops. That carried over to Auburn last year and that bend-but-don’t-break approach was taken to the extreme last week against LSU.

But the results have been mixed. Against QBs who struggle to throw deep, it works great. But against QBs who can throw those passes, it hasn’t worked at all. For all the progress we’ve seen on defense over the last month and a half, Florida still ranks 125th in the country with 58 explosive (20-plus yard) plays allowed. Ole Miss has 76 on offense, good for second in the country (they’re ranked first in 30-plus and 40-plus yard plays).

So what we have is a team finishing up a tough, emotional stretch against a fresh team that by all statistical measures is better. Ole Miss probably has the advantage at QB, but I think it’s a relatively small one (which is amazing to write considering where Florida was at the position just two weeks ago). But we also have an Ole Miss defense that makes QBs move and a QB in Lagway who is going to have limited mobility.

Florida, Napier look to keep momentum vs. Ole Miss