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Tre Wilson’s a star, Lagway flashes and other takeaways from the 2024 spring game

Spring camp is a time for lies, lies and more lies. As such, the spring game gives us a glimpse into what might be true and what has just been coach speak. It isn’t perfect, but I do believe there are things we can determine just by watching this game that will project into the season. Here’s what I think those are from the 2024 edition.

Tre Wilson is a star

This one probably isn’t news to any Gators fan. After all, Wilson had 61 catches in 2023 and made the All-SEC Freshman team. But Wilson only averaged 8.8 yards per catch in 2023 with a long of 30 yards for the entire season.

We saw one reason for that as Wilson got a couple of pop-passes in the backfield in this one. But we also saw a 60-yard strike immediately preceded by this play.

Florida’s corner (Teddy Foster, #4) is dropping into a zone so the separation Wilson gets isn’t really on Foster. But the safety in the middle (Trikweze Bridges, #7) is too close to linebacker Derek Wingo’s (#15) zone and leaves a sliver of space behind. Wilson immediately hits that crease and leaves Bridges in the dust, turning what might have been a 10-yard gain into a 20-yard gain.

The bomb for the touchdown will get the publicity, but this is the kind of route that makes Wilson so difficult to defend. His acceleration in tight spaces means defenses have to respect that short throws might turn into explosives, which then opens up the opportunities for the deep shot that we saw on the very next play.

Florida’s other WRs…..work in progress

Who would you say jumped out to you at the wide receiver position other than Wilson? The next name on the list would probably be former walk-on Taylor Spierto.

Walk-ons do become major contributors (after all, the game was being called by Chris Doering, perhaps Florida’s most famous walk-on). But Doering had guys like Reidel Anthony, Ike Hilliard and Jacquez Green to take attention away from him in 1995 when he caught 70 balls. That isn’t to diminish what Doering was able to do, but it does point out that Danny Wuerffel had places to go with the ball when Doering wasn’t able to beat his man.

And so it goes with this unit. We saw some flashes from Kahleil Jackson, Aiden Mizell and Spierto, but two guys need to turn into threats if Florida’s offense is going to improve much from last year. Perhaps the biggest flash was this one from Marcus Burke:

On this play Florida QB D.J. Lagway throws to the right guy but isn’t very accurate with his throw. Burke does a wonderful job of staying on his feet while snatching the ball with his hands. This drive ended in a touchdown for Lagway’s side but probably doesn’t turn into anything without this catch here, as there were only 37 seconds left in the half when the ball hit his hands. These are the kinds of plays that are critical to sustaining drives and getting touchdowns instead of field goals.

That’s important because field goals aren’t going to win a lot of games against the 2024 schedule.

The offensive line is much better in 2024

Last year’s opener against Utah was rough for the Gators offensive line. The Gators surrendered five sacks and this one jumped out at me as far as offensive line play is concerned.

On this play Utah rushes five. The defensive end (Jonah Elliss, #83) and the linebacker (Karene Reid, #21) run a stunt, with Reid crossing to the outside and Elliss crossing to the inside. Right guard Richie Leonard (#67) sticks with Reid while left tackle Austin Barber (#58) switches onto Reid. That leaves two offensive linemen on Reid and none on Elliss. Center Jake Slaughter (#66) tries to get over but it’s too late, and Mertz is a dead duck.

That’s why this play – a throw into traffic that turned into a relatively benign incompletion – got me so excited.

I’ve highlighted the stunt to the strong side of the formation, but the Florida defensive line actually runs stunts on both sides with the defensive tackles cutting inside of the defensive ends and forcing the offensive linemen to switch assignments. Florida OL does this perfectly on both sides and Mertz has a clean pocket to make his throw.

Florida’s offensive line wasn’t prepared to pass off stunts by the time fall camp started last season and they’re already passing them off to each other at the end of spring practice. I get that it isn’t on the road in a hostile environment. I also get that these are defenders that they go against every day in practice and a scheme that they are familiar with. But Mertz got hit on this very action last year almost immediately and was able to stand strong in the pocket this time. Considering offensive line is about continuity, communication and working as a unit, I’d say this should have Gator fans encouraged.

Mertz is Mertz

I have been slow to get on the Graham Mertz bandwagon, mainly because while I agree that he should be lauded for the way he played in 2023, I think the underlying stats suggest he was okay, not great. To be great, he’s going to need to be much better in 2024 and big jumps two years in a row are really rare.

And Florida needs another jump from Mertz. His 2023 season was far better than any he had at Wisconsin, but he still wasn’t a QB who you were going to rely on to drive an elite offense. Pro Football Focus had his overall 2023 ranking at 75.8, which is pretty good and certainly above average. But consider the PFF QB rankings for LSU (94.7), Georgia (91.5), Ole Miss (91.2), Alabama (88.7) and Texas A&M (85.3) and Florida’s QB play very quickly looks pedestrian compared to the SEC elite.

You can do that with a whole host of stats that go beyond completion percentage and interception avoidance, areas where Mertz excelled. For instance, Florida’s success rate on passing downs tied for eighth in the SEC at 31 percent. The SEC average is 32 percent. That wouldn’t be a huge issue if Florida were hitting explosive plays, but because Mertz’s average depth of target (ADOT) was dead last in the SEC last year, Florida didn’t hit a ton of explosives in the passing game.

All of that is a preamble to say that Mertz is a good player if surrounded by the right supporting staff. Mertz could have won 10 or 11 games if surrounded by Michigan’s roster last year, but that isn’t what Florida has. The play above where I highlighted the offensive line picking up the stunt is a great example of what I’m talking about.

Quarterback at the highest level is about understanding mismatches. You will have a math advantage somewhere on every play, and the very best QBs are able to exploit that. But if we look right before Mertz delivers the throw to Kahleil Jackson (#22), what we see is three Florida defenders around two Florida receivers. That leaves three receivers and four defenders on the other side, but that safety drops deep immediately at the snap making it essentially 3-on-3 underneath.

Mertz throws the ball to Jackson, who was clearly his first read. I just don’t get why he didn’t come off that read sooner given what the defense was doing. This wasn’t disguised pre-snap. It’s exactly what you would expect from the defensive alignment.

In a vacuum, I don’t hate this throw. There is space in the zone to potentially fit the ball in. But given Florida’s difficulties going downfield, defenders start to squeeze. Asa Turner (#20) is able to deflect this pass, but one step faster and this is a pick-six.

Is this nitpicky? You could argue that it is, and certainly it is only one throw in a game where Mertz threw 27 times. But Mertz is being asked to take a leap this year to compete with the Beck’s and Dart’s of the conference and this throw is one that gives me pause about whether that leap can become a reality.

Defensive Unknowns

I haven’t spent much time on the defense for a reason. That reason is that I believe seeing progress on the defensive side of the ball is much more difficult in this sort of setting. Without knowing exactly what the defense was trying to do and without all of the starters on the same units executing the scheme, I don’t think a lot of this is going to transfer to the opener against Miami.

To drive that point home, the final score of the 2023 game was 10-7 and that defense definitely didn’t show up much last season. Additionally, who thinks Teddy Foster is going to be lining up across from Tre Wilson or Trikweze Bridges is a starting safety when the lights go on in August?

If I were to raise any sort of concern, it would be the explosive plays that reared their ugly head in the first half. That includes the 60-yard throw to Wilson, but also included other chunk plays where Florida had receivers running free. The good news is that the chunk plays were not because of missed tackles like we saw so often last year. But of course the flip side to that is chunk plays without missed tackles means that guys were open.

But that’s sort-of what I mean about not being able to determine a whole lot about the defense in a spring game. Without any threat of pressure (QB might need to move, but he’s not getting hit) and with relatively vanilla post-snap reads, the QBs should be finding wide-open guys. In fact, if I were evaluating the QBs on a throw-by-throw basis, that’s where I’d start: how often did they throw to a guy who was open because of the scheme?

So we can nitpick that “this guy got beat” or “this gap wasn’t filled correctly” but the reality is that we aren’t going to have any idea whether that sort of thing will translate until the opener. The explosives are what killed DC Austin Armstrong last year, and they are what will sink his partnership with Ron Roberts this year if things don’t work out.

I’m just not sure this spring game gets us any closer to understanding where they are in that process.

Lagway Shines?

I saw a lot of headlines that described Lagway’s play as “shining” or a “bright spot”. I agree that we can see the potential that he certainly brings to the position, but there are still definitely areas for growth. We already saw the accuracy issue on the throw to Burke, but that wasn’t an isolated incident.

On this play, the pre-snap read indicates that the middle of the field will be open. That’s exactly what happens but Lagway has to step up in the pocket because the backside defensive end is able to get a little bit of pressure. Lagway does step up with his eyes downfield (good) but he hitches before letting the ball go (bad). That hitch delays the throw just enough that it has to be absolutely perfect to hit his receiver over the corner and under the safety. Lagway airmails the throw, but that’s probably a good thing at this point, because a throw near his receiver either gets the receiver hit or turns into an INT.

Letting that ball go on-time is going to come naturally as Lagway gains experience. What doesn’t come naturally is this, which looks like a small gain but to me, was actually the most impressive play I saw Lagway make in the game.

The boundary corner (bottom of the screen) is way off the wide receiver. The receiver runs a hitch and Lagway is going to take the easy throw on this second-and-9 play. But as he drops back, he identifies that the defensive end has dropped right into the path of the throw. With the other defensive end closing in, Lagway immediately takes off for a short gain.

Why do I get so excited about this? You often hear former players talking about the game “slowing down” for QBs as they get more experience. The classic way to tell that things are still too fast is that QBs who see a look pre-snap follow through executing the play based on that look rather than adjusting as things change on the fly. The defensive end dropping was a wrinkle thrown at Lagway, he identified it, and adjusted. That bodes really, really well for his future.

The same is true about this play, in which Lagway makes a perfect read but the play is unsuccessful because of inaccuracy.

The pre-snap read (circle) indicates that Florida is going to be in some sort of middle-of-the-field closed configuration. You don’t want to throw over the middle when you see that. But at the snap, the other safety (arrow) drops deep, Lagway identifies this and throws directly into the open space vacated by the dropping safety to Marcus Burke. The read is perfect, but the throw is executed poorly and so ends up an incompletion.

Takeaway

There’s a lot to like as takeaways from Florida’s spring game.

The offensive line looks much improved, a critical factor for Mertz as he tries to take a leap in 2024. The running back room looks to be strong, even with the departure of Trevor Etienne to Georgia. Linebacker Grayson “Pup” Howard was all over the field and looks to be an upgrade over last year’s linebackers. And Tre Wilson is a bona fide star who should make the All-SEC team and maybe an All-American team in 2024 if he can stay healthy.

But the most important showing was that of D.J. Lagway. Over the past two seasons, Florida fans have waited for Lagway’s arrival while wading through 14 losses. While his debut in the spring game indicates there is plenty to work on, the critical things you look for in a QB (i.e. is he making the right reads) is already there. His high school stats and film indicate that the inaccuracies we saw in this game are likely more attributable to nerves and inexperience than they are to fundamental flaws in his game.

There are two ways to build equity with your fan base: winning and recruiting. Billy Napier has struggled on both fronts in his first two seasons at Florida, with relatively lackluster recruiting efforts and the obvious on-field issues. But Lagway’s performance in this one is a giant deposit in the bank for a coach who needed to get out of the red.

Note that I didn’t show one completion or a gain longer than three yards in the plays above, and those are the plays that got me excited. He certainly had some “wow” throws as well, but that isn’t where I think the focus needs the be. The question isn’t whether he can hit a streaking wide receiver on a crosser. The question is whether he’ll get the ball to the crosser when it’s the right read for the play call and defensive response. In my opinion, Lagway’s response to that question in this game was a resounding yes.

Florida hasn’t had a QB who could get me to answer yes to that question since 2020. That offense was one of the best in the country with a QB who finished fourth in the Heisman voting. Perhaps more importantly, that’s a QB who led Florida to a 14-5 record in SEC play in 2019 and 2020.

Recruiting is about building hope within and outside the program. Already we’re hearing reports of 5-star receivers in the 2025 class who are commenting on seeing themselves playing with Lagway. There’s still a lot of work to do, and lots of players have done well in spring games and ended up having lackluster careers. But Lagway didn’t do anything to dissuade me form thinking he can be a special player.

Now it’s up to Napier to take advantage.