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Desperate Gators look to right ship vs. LSU

Will Miles

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I’ve been waiting for this game all offseason.

Of course, I thought when it happened, we’d be seeing the 2-0 Florida Gators heading into Baton Rouge to face the 2-0 LSU Tigers for the first big-time SEC matchup of the year. But after a loss to USF last week for the Gators, any margin for error has gone away for Billy Napier and this is about as close to a must-win as he’s ever going to have.

Fortunately for Napier, this game is going to hinge on the very thing that it was going to before the season started: QB play.

Nussmeier the first rounder?

It may seem weird for me to say “fortunately” given the play of sophomore D.J. Lagway thus far for the Gators. Lagway has been one of the worst QBs in the SEC through two games and was really bad against USF. To paraphrase what I wrote in my recap of the loss to the Bulls: Lagway’s magic was his ability to create big plays, and thus far in 2025, that ability has been absent.

But that ability has been absent in Baton Rouge as well. LSU currently ranks 104th in the country with six explosive plays (20-plus yards). That is a big reason why they’ve averaged 20 points per game thus far against Clemson and Louisiana Tech.

Just as with Florida, LSU has struggled at the QB position. It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier. My contention has been that he is pretty close to an average QB and with a good defense is completely serviceable as a starter. But that contention also includes that if you’re leaning on Nussmeier to carry you, you’re going to have problems over the course of a season.

But this season, Nussmeier has thus far been a below average QB, and it doesn’t really matter what stat we look at.

If we want to look at efficiency, we can look at QB rating, which relies heavily on completion percentage, TD:INT ratio, and yards per attempt. Nussmeier sits at 124.0, well below his rating of 142.7 last season and well below the SEC average (157.7) and ranked 15th in the conference out of 16 qualified QBs.

If we want to look at reliability, we can look at PFF rating, which tries to take into account whether the QB did his job on each and every play. This is where Nussmeier grades out the best with an overall PFF rating of 74.9, but that is still below the SEC average (77.7) and places him 10th in the conference.

And if we want to look at explosivity, we can look Yards Above Replacement (YAR), my stat that leans heavily into yards per attempt and yards per rushing attempt (i.e. sack avoidance). By that statistic, Nussmeier rates at -2.16 (remember, 0 is average, 1.0 is a borderline star, and -1.0 is awful), which is well below the SEC average (0.62) and ranks 15th in the conference.

Lagway not much better

This would all give me great confidence that the Gators were going to go into Baton Rouge and pull out a convincing win if I didn’t have to also look at the same numbers for D.J. Lagway.

By QB rating (efficiency), Lagway ranks 10th in the conference at 152.8 (below the SEC average but above the national average). By PFF rating (reliability), Lagway ranks 11th in the conference, with a strikingly similar rating to Nussmeier (74.3 for Lags vs. 74.9 for Nuss).

But the thing that concerns me the most about Lagway is his YAR rating. There he ranks 14th in the SEC at -1.06. That’s still waaaaay better than Nussmeier has been, but it’s play that would necessitate a conversation about benching if we thought Florida had anybody better behind him.

But here’s the thing. We have evidence that Lagway can put up a stinker and maintain the confidence to go out and play better. After playing poorly in the second half against Tennessee last year (QB rating 109.0, 5.8 yards per attempt), Lagway absolutely torched Kentucky (QB rating of 191.1, 18.5 yards per attempt) and then was the difference in wins over LSU and Ole Miss.

The reality is that we’ve known for years that Florida was going to have to rely on Lagway to carry them at times once he took over. He couldn’t do it against USF and the Gators ended up dropping the game. I’ll admit I didn’t expect him to be this up-and-down in 2025 given what we saw last year, but the reality is that as Lagway goes, so go the Gators.

The Implications

Lagway has certainly been inconsistent, but the thing that has frustrated me about the conversation this offseason is that you could say the exact same thing about Nussmeier. The issue there though is that his highs have not been nearly as high as Lagway, but his lows have been just as low.

Nussmeier has thrown more than 14 passes in 20 games in his career. In 10 of those, his QB rating has been below 135 (CFB average is usually around 142-143 every year). He had a five-game stretch last season with QB ratings of 110.2 (Ole Miss), 125.2 (@ Arkansas), 119.2 (@ Texas A&M), 110.4 (Alabama), and 110.9 (@ Florida). LSU went 2-3 during that stretch.

He then followed that up with excellent performances against Vanderbilt (160.0), Oklahoma (178.0) and Baylor (171.2), not coincidentally three LSU victories. But he’s started 2025 looking more like that guy in the middle of 2024, with QB ratings of 133.7 against Clemson and 115.1 against Louisiana Tech.

Compare that to Lagway, who has nine career games with more than 14 throws. In those, he has had a QB rating of less than 135 just three times and has performances with QB ratings of 264.8 (Samford), 194.3 (LIU) and 174.8 (Ole Miss). And because I used 14 throws as the cutoff, this allows me to include his start against Kentucky (QB rating of 191.1).

I think the highs and lows can be demonstrated best with this graph.

This shows the Yards Above Replacement (YAR) values for each game for each QB where they threw more than 14 passes, sorted from best to worst. If we classify negative YAR as hurting your team, 0-0.5 as essentially managing the game, 0.5-1.5 as contributing significantly to winning, and 1.5+ as being a key part of winning, here’s the breakdown.

Nussmeier:

Lagway:

The chances of a stinker are high with Lagway, perhaps even higher than with Nussmeier. But the chances of Lagway being a contributor or key reason the Gators win is higher than Nussmeier.

But the biggest thing I take from this is sample size. Because Lagway has played poorly in his first two games this season, his negative percentage has doubled. Nussmeier has played equally as poorly, and his negative percentage has only gone up 7 percent. In other words, Nussmeier has a track record of this type of play that Lagway did not until recently. Which means if I was going to predict who is going to come out of the funk, I think Lagway makes sense.

Takeaway

I know you’re going to say that I’m ignoring the defenses here, and to some degree that’s true. But I doubt LIU and USF are going to be defensive juggernauts by seasons end when we look back. And I think we’ll say the same thing about Clemson after they looked pedestrian against Troy.

Florida’s defense was much maligned coming into the LSU game in The Swamp last year and then was able to limit LSU’s explosives effectively in that game and hold the Tigers to 16 points despite facing 93 plays. What has LSU shown this year to suggest they would be able to take advantage of the Gators defense any differently than last season?

On the other side, LSU’s defense sits at 15th in the country allowing 3.7 yards per play after finishing 80th last year (5.7 yards per play), so the Tigers have definitely improved. That, along with the road environment, are the things that could tilt this one LSU’s way.

D.J. Lagway has an average depth of target (ADOT) of 7.51 this season thus far, which is almost exactly where Graham Mertz was last year (7.57). Contrast that to Lagway’s ADOT of 11.72 last year and you understand why Florida is missing explosives (and understand why the fanbase is understandably frustrated with Napier the OC).

I think this one is probably a rock fight, with both teams struggling to put points on the board. That does raise the risk that Billy Napier may need to find his team an edge either by going for it on fourth down or (gulp) properly managing the clock.

But the SEC (and college football) is a QB league. And if you ask me who is more likely to break out with a good performance, I think the answer is clearly Lagway.

Florida (+7.5) wins, 19-13.

Picks this year (1-1, 1-1 ATS)

William’s Positivity Corner

Like many, I was both appalled and also disturbingly captivated by the assassination of Turning Point founder and CEO Charlie Kirk.

Many disagreed with Kirk. Many adored him. But it’s hard to argue that this video of him and his daughter isn’t gut-wrenching for anyone who’s ever gotten a hug from an innocent little kid, especially their own.

So why is this in my positivity corner? It’s because in every tweet, post, video, or tribute that I’ve seen, each one has mentioned that Charlie was a man committed to his faith in Jesus Christ. As a professing Christian, that means I believe that Charlie is currently in a place that I long to be some day.

In my church, we’re going through a series called “Who do you think you are?” based on Ephesians 1:3-8. Here’s what it says:

“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to this dear Son.”

I’ve bolded one particular portion of this verse that’s hit me during these sermons that I’m going to cling to in times of great anger, sorrow, and grief. It has certainly helped as I’ve watched that particular video.

Because the world is dysfunctional. The choice we have isn’t to rectify the dysfunction, as much as I’d like that to be an option. Instead, the option is to decide to be a part of something bigger, God’s family. That’s why they call it the Gospel (i.e. good news).

RIP Charlie Kirk. May your legacy be your love for the Lord first, may your memory always be a blessing to your family and friends, and may you get to hug that little girl again.

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