Lagway has nightmare in Death Valley

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All offseason, I looked to D.J. Lagway’s stats from last year and projected that he was going to take a next step forward.

Instead, he has taken a gigantic step back, exemplified by a five interception performance against LSU. And in a game where Garrett Nussmeier wasn’t very good either, Lagway was so bad that LSU was able to win fairly comfortably by 10 points.

Florida now is averaging 13 points per game against FBS opponents, and more alarmingly, is averaging 5.1 yards per play. That would have ranked 95th last year, and is indicative of the struggles the team is having on that side of the ball.

And for a program that for the last two years of the Mullen era and the first two-and-a-half years of the Napier era could not stop anybody on defense, the script has flipped and the Gators look good on D but anemic on the other side.

The result is the same though, as Florida is 1-2 for the second year in a row, Napier is living on borrowed time for the second year in a row, and the only thing that’s different is that the hope that D.J. Lagway brought to fans is on life support.

Ugh.

The Five Interceptions

When a quarterback throws five interceptions, there’s nowhere else to look than the player. D.J. Lagway was terrible in this game, and I suspect he’d be the first to take responsibility. But I do think situations make a difference, and here were the conditions where Lagway threw his interceptions.

• INT 1: 3rd-and-10, holding penalty and a screen on 2nd-and-12 right before
• INT 2: 3rd-and-7, 3-yard pass to Hansen just before with 23 seconds left, Florida 40-yard line
• INT 3: 3rd-and-18, holding penalty and a screen on 2nd-and-20 to Tre Wilson
• INT 4: 3rd-and-9, Incomplete to Sturdivant (deep shot), screen to Baugh for 1 yard
• INT 5: 1st-and-10, First down run for Baugh just prior

The last interception was terrible; just a throw in traffic with no coherent plan attached with letting it go. It was just desperation, but of course Florida was pretty desperate by that point and the game was pretty much over.

But look at the other four interceptions. All of them came on third-and-long. All of them came after short passes on second down to try to get the offense into a “manageable” third-down situation. Two of them came after holding penalties that put the Gators behind the sticks.

Still, Lagway can’t make these throws, especially since LSU wasn’t doing anything different post-snap than they were showing prior to the snap. Here’s a couple of examples.

On Lagway’s first interception, LSU shows two high safeties and they are playing off of Florida’s receivers. This means that there are four defenders to guard the two receivers (Sturdivant and Hansen) to the boundary and three defenders to guard two receivers (Mizell and Brown) to the field side. They then drop the middle linebacker back into the middle of the field.

The result is that there is very limited space downfield. This is a middle-of-the-field open coverage so maybe he could have hit Brown down the seam. But you can see that Baugh is wide open in the flat because LSU is dropping so many defenders.

This is a play where maybe Baugh breaks a tackle and gets the first down. But given where Florida was at, even a 5-yard gain gives them an opportunity for a long field goal.

This is the “drop-8” coverage that Lagway struggled against last year, so perhaps he’s still working out the kinks? Well, then don’t look at this next play.

This is a middle-of-the-field closed coverage, as Lagway can see with the deep safety (circled) right in the middle of the field. The other circle shows that Lagway has man coverage on the outside, as the corner is up playing close to the receiver.

When I pause the clip about halfway through, let me ask you: who should Lagway throw the ball to? The answer is probably easier if we ask, who should Lagway not throw the ball to? And that’s the guy crossing over the middle right into the safety who hasn’t moved from his spot in the middle of the field.

However, this is where the Napier criticism should get a little bit noisy. There’s one more receiver out wide to the left out of the video who runs a lazy curl route against press coverage and is completely blanketed as well. That means there is not one single receiver who is attacking that middle safety. Because he’s not threatened from anywhere, he can sit in centerfield and break on Lagway’s throw.

Scared Money

In last week’s USF recap, I highlighted how Florida decided to go for a first down on second-and-3 instead of taking a shot for a touchdown and how they reduced their odds of success even though they got the first down.

Well against LSU, they did the same thing again.

On the opening drive, Florida has second-and-1 after a 9-yard pass to Vernell Brown to open the series. They then proceeded to hand the ball to Jadan Baugh for a 2-yard gain and a first down.  Napier did the same thing coming out for the second half down 13-10 facing a second-and-1 after a 9-yard pass to Hayden Hansen to open the drive.

LSU has eight defenders in the box. Florida has what it should want, which is its three receivers able to get a running start against LSU’s defensive backs. The Gators decide instead to run a read option, with an outlet to throw receiver Tre Wilson a screen on the outside.

The Gators get the first down on this play. But this was an opportunity for a big play. LSU expected Florida to run the ball. Yes, Harold Perkins (#7) dropped out of the box. And yes, LSU’s slot corner bailed to cover deep right at the snap. But I’m a little confused about how getting the QB drilled for a 2-yard gain – even for a first down – advances what Florida is trying to do.

This is an offense struggling to make big plays. Yet in situations where they had opportunities to take a shot (and then convert the first down on third-and-1 on the next play if you miss), they chose not to. They had four opportunities in this game where they had one yard to gain. They got the first down each time with a run call.

And also gave up an opportunity to make a big play.

Baugh in Witness Protection

Jadan Baugh caught seven passes, but he only had 10 carries on the game.

In all, Florida running backs had 18 total carries for 60 yards (3.3 yards per rush) but Baugh contributed the bulk of the value there, averaging 4.6 yards per rush on his carries.

It’s easy to look at Lagway’s 49 passes and think that’s out of whack, but the excuse most would use is that Florida was behind and had to throw at the end to try to catch up (somewhat fair). Except at halftime, Lagway had 24 pass attempts and the running backs only had 10 carries. This despite the game being within one score the entire time.

Lagway has clearly been struggling this year. The five interceptions were an exclamation point, but he struggled against LIU and USF as well. And irrespective of the interceptions, if I’d have told you that Florida’s running backs were going to have 18 carries for 60 yards, you would have told me that Florida lost this game handily.

So how is it that Napier didn’t attempt to get a run outside the tackles really at any point in the game? I saw one toss sweep. I think I saw one stretch play. Other than that, it was the QB/RB mesh with everything running right into the teeth of the LSU defense.

Is the lack of running because of the offensive line? Well, that line was supposed to be the strength of this team. So were the running backs. But Napier hasn’t given any of these guys an ability to build a rhythm or tire out the opposing defense by the fourth quarter. It was egregious last week after Baugh started the game with 51 yards (on 5 carries) against USF and only had 10 carries at the half. And this week, Baugh only had 6 carries in the first half.

And yes, you can tell me that he caught three passes for 50 yards and so they used him effectively in that way and you would be right. But throwing Baugh a screen pass doesn’t set up the play action pass…..you know, the thing that Lagway used extensively last year to torch opposing defenses.

Takeaway

After the loss to LSU, things are worse for the Gators than just being 1-2. They’re downright boring to watch on offense.

For a team with playoff aspirations – and a coach talking in preseason press conferences about practicing like a champion – performing at a semi-competent level on the offensive side of the ball would be a major upgrade. I would say that the Gators are playing like Vanderbilt, but the Commodores would beat the brakes off of this Gators team right now.

The worst part is that Billy Napier has no answers.

Lagway has significantly regressed. Napier is coaching scared and doesn’t want him to take risks, which ironically, exposes him to interceptions as he tries to decipher underneath throws. Napier is either unwilling to change course and put the ball in his running backs’ hands, or is unable to change course because his offensive line is bad.

Bill Parcells famously said, “you are what your record says you are.” Well, Florida is 1-2 for the second year in a row, Billy Napier is now 20-21 in his career at Florida, and the Gators are staring down the barrel of a schedule that was hard with excellent QB play, but is damn-near impossible with what they’re getting at the position right now.

D.J. Lagway had a nightmare performance against LSU. But the nightmare of 2025 may just be beginning for Gators fans.

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