Five Thoughts from the Florida Gators’ loss to No. 5 Florida State
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Five Thoughts from the Florida Gators‘ 24-15 loss to the No. 5 Florida State Seminoles.
Discipline
The margin of error for the Florida Gators is razor-thin. We knew that would be the case heading into the season. Florida — putting it bluntly — wouldn’t have the more talented team when they took the field most weekends. Their offense wasn’t going to be explosive. Their defense was going to be young. The Gators would need to play their best to compete.
They couldn’t beat themselves. Too many times this season, that’s exactly what they did.
The Gators were penalized eight times for 90 yards in the season finale. Half of those penalties came in the fourth quarter as the Gators clung to a 15-14 lead.
That included a defensive player getting ejected for spitting at a Seminole early in the game. Senior cornerback Jaydon Hill was ejected later in the game for targeting. What compounded the error was that Florida State quarterback Tate Rodemaker was sliding well short of the yard to gain on third down. Hill launched himself and smoked a player who was giving himself up short of the first down marker.
Florida State was awarded 15-yards.
The Noles scored four plays later to extend their lead to 24-15, essentially icing the game.
Florida averaged 6.58 penalties a game, not the worst in the SEC but far more than a team with little room for error could overcome on a weekly basis. 51 of Florida’s 79 penalties came in their losses.
It’s not a coincidence.
The bottom line
Speaking with a national reporter on Saturday night, they expressed shock at the situation Florida is in. Billy Napier is 11-14 as the head coach of the Florida Gators. The reporter asked me how that was possible. How is a coach who has THAT record going to continue to be allowed to coach?
So I asked Napier, what progress does he see that we on the outside don’t. The Gators lost more games in his second season than they did in his first.
43 days before the Florida State game his team was 5-2. How, just six weeks later is the season over? From the outside, it looks like a mess and that’s only if you have the stomach to continue looking at it.
“I think it’s important that we all understand that we’ll have a good nucleus of players coming back that have significant experience next year whereas evaluating the roster going into this year. I think that’s important. Look at the teams across the country that are having success. They have veteran football teams. They have a number of players that have been in the program for a number of years,” Napier said.
“We need to do that. We need to retain players. And we need to continue to add quality players. Then we have to get better in house at teaching, developing all parts of what we do. So that’s what we’re going to do. We already have players in that locker room that are talking about getting to work. So I think that’s an indication of a group that’s much like they’ve competed, to be quite honest. I think they’ll take that attitude and approach into the off-season.”
Middle 8
Conventional wisdom will point to the final possessions of a football game as the most critical. There is an argument for a different time, the middle eight. The middle eight is exactly what it sounds like. The term outlines the section of a football game that occurs in the last 4 minutes of the first half (or second quarter), and the first 4 minutes of the second half (or third quarter).
Games, particularly in college where momentum is a real thing that can sway a game in one direction or the other, the middle eight is huge.
Saturday night, Florida was clinging to a 12-point lead despite a missed field goal. The defense, which had been stout, allowed a five-plus minute touchdown drive, which narrowed the score to 12-7. Montrell Johnson gave the offense a chance with a 52-yard rush into FSU territory but the Gators missed another field goal and went into the half up 12-7 with FSU getting the ball to start the second half. FSU drove 75 yards in just six plays to take a 14-12 lead. The Gators would with a long drive that ended in a go-ahead field goal but they lost the middle-eight and any momentum that they had built during those crucial eight minutes.
OpponentPoint outcome (+/-)@ Utah -10McNeese+14Tennessee+10 Charlotte-4@ KentuckyPushVanderbilt+7@ South CarolinaPushGeorgia-3Arkansas-3@ LSU+7@ Missouri -3Florida State-11
Three-consecutive losing seasons
Florida’s loss to Florida State cemented a losing campaign in 2023. That makes three straight losing seasons in Gainesville. You have to go back to just after the Second World War (1945, 1946,1947) to find the last time the Gators suffered three straight losing seasons.
The future
Making my way out of the South endzone meeting room, I passed Derek and DJ Lagway. The father and son were sitting in the same chairs they had just watched Florida’s loss. Lagway’s high school career ended on Friday night in San Antonio and he watched Florida’s season end on Saturday. The two waved to me, I congratulated Lagway on his season and wished them well. The quarterback plans to enroll at the University of Florida this winter.
I don’t like to hype recruits, but I think DJ Lagway is a franchise quarterback. He is a talent that can bring a championship to Gainesville. Some freshmen need time and don’t make an immediate impact. If Graham Mertz returns to Florida he’ll be the starting quarterback. It will provide a buffer for Lagway and allow him time to develop and get accustomed to the college game. Mertz is a veteran who understands that situation. He would be a great mentor for Lagway as a freshman.
Lagway is the type of player who can save a coach.
Billy Napier needs to save himself this offseason and make necessary changes to his staff and organization or Lagway won’t get the chance to save the coach he’s committed to.
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