Florida dominates Texas, also escapes with 29-21 victory

Embed from Getty Images

Well, Billy Napier fooled all of us again.

After spending the first third of the season sputtering on offense and getting off to a 1-3 start, a lot of Gators fans (including myself) thought this was going to be a going away party for Napier in The Swamp against a top-10 Texas team.

Instead, Florida showed heart, took it to Texas in the first half, and then hung on for dear life down the stretch for a 29-21 win that has Florida fans looking at this one very differently depending on whether they are a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty kind of person.

I’ve believed all season that it would take 4 losses to keep an SEC team out of the playoff but we saw last year that even 3-loss SEC squads have to stack up impressive wins. Florida has the ability to do so with its schedule, and certainly started the Jenga Tower of impressive wins that will be needed with a big one over the Longhorns on Saturday afternoon.

The Hidden Plays – Offense

Until some of the clock shenanigans at the end of the game, the story for most folks in this one was probably Dallas Wilson. After all, in his first collegiate start, the 5-star phenom caught 6 balls for 111 yards and 2 TDs, including a really impressive and physical 55-yard TD catch to put the Gators ahead 29-14.

But it’s the two plays before that TD pass that I want to zero in on.

This is the first play, a third-and-3 after Lagway had made a poor throw while pressured on first down and then Baugh had ripped off a seven-yard run on second down. Watch the video where I’ve paused it…you tell me where the hole is? Baugh absolutely manufactured a first down on this run with a jump cut to find just a sliver of space to push through.

And then there’s the next play.

Again, I ask you to look at where I’ve paused the video. How many yards would you expect Baugh to gain? Three? Four?

Well, Baugh shows great patience, putting his hand in the back of center Jake Slaughter (#66) and patiently waiting for the Texas defender to lose outside leverage. At that point, he cuts to the outside and is met about four yards short of the first down. Yet, he’s able to push five Longhorn defenders three more yards to set up the second-and-1 throw to Wilson.

Now look at Texas’ defense on the Wilson throw.

Texas has its corner up on Wilson in coverage, indicating man-to-man. They also have the safety to that side (circled) creeping up to the line of scrimmage, both because it is second-and-1 and because Baugh has been so hard to bring down. The other safety (also circled) is to the field side providing deep coverage towards the middle of the field, but takes a step towards his right at the snap as Lagway takes a quick glance that direction before turning back to Wilson.

The book on Lagway has been heavy doses of zone coverage. You can do that when you opponent either can’t run the ball or doesn’t show a commitment to run the ball. Florida did both in this game from the jump. Baugh had 8 rushes for 39 yards on the opening touchdown drive, including a slick cut to the outside for the TD. But he also ended the game with 27 carries (a career high) for 107 yards (also a career high).

That 4.0 yards per carry average isn’t fantastic. But this is the first time all season that Florida has shown a commitment to run the ball to help out D.J. Lagway, and there’s a reason Lagway looked way more comfortable than he has the last couple of times out.

Lagway vs. Manning

What many of us thought might be a fight for the Heisman was more of a fight for survival in this one.

Lagway was terrific. His QB rating of 180.8 was elite, as was his Yards Above Replacement (YAR) value of 2.93. Manning was average by QB rating (140.3) and good-but-not-great via YAR (0.82). He was absolutely terrible in the first half though (YAR = -1.91) as Florida built its lead, and then he turned the ball over twice in the second-half to offset some of the explosive plays that he was able to hit.

We finally saw the return of the deep shot in this game. There was obviously the 55 yard pass to Wilson, but there was also a 23-yard pass to J. Michael Sturdivant that split right between three defenders in a zone. There was a 20-yard pass to Hayden Hansen that was perfectly placed and would have had Florida rolling had Hansen not fumbled the ball. And then there was this….

Texas has seven guys in the box (again, related to Florida’s commitment to the running game). They try to trick Lagway by showing a cover-2 shell (safeties evenly spaced apart) prior to the snap. But when Tony Livingston (#86) comes across in motion, the Longhorn’s field-side safety creeps up.

Lagway recognizes that this means he has man coverage. He looks to his left to J. Michael Sturdivant (#9) and lingers there for quite a while. But what this does is moves the other safety (#4) way over to that side. That leaves the open for Vernell Brown, III and Lagway puts it up there for him to go get deep down the field.

There is still lots for Lagway to improve on. And it also looked like he reaggravated his calf injury in the first half, which may be a problem as the season progresses. But Florida won this game because Lagway was significantly better than the opposing QB, the first time we’ve been able to say that in 2025.

Clock Mismanagement

There was lots of consternation about Billy Napier taking a timeout rather than a 10-second runoff late in the fourth quarter. Napier actually made the right call here, but the rule is a dumb combination of rules that makes that so.

First, when a player’s helmet comes off, he must leave the game for the next down (unless his team calls timeout) and the game clock stops. The opposing team (in this case, Texas) then has the option to decline the 10-second runoff. Texas did decline, the clock stopped because the helmet came off, so calling the timeout to get Barber back in the game was the correct move.

But that doesn’t completely take Napier off the hook for his clock management and here’s why. Florida received the ball with 3:14 left in the fourth quarter and Texas having zero timeouts. They then opened up the drive with a 9-yard pass to Tony Livingston to set up a second-and-1.

With 2:41 left, Texas then intentionally jumped offsides. The announcers completely botched their analysis on this move as they didn’t realize that Texas did it on purpose to give Florida new set of downs. Just as Texas would eventually decline the 10-second runoff, Napier should have declined the offsides penalty.

Here’s the logic:

• With 2:41 left, if you run on second-and-1 and get the first down, that takes the clock down to the 2-minute timeout with a fresh set of downs.
• If you get stuffed, that’s perhaps even a better result as you are at 2-minutes with the ability to salt the game away with a first down.
• Instead, Florida took the first down, snapped the ball and ran Baugh on first-and-10 for 6-yards with 2:14 left.

So what Florida got was second-and-4 coming out of the 2-minute timeout rather than first-and-10 coming out of the 2-minute timeout. Even with the Barber helmet fiasco, Florida could have run another 40 seconds off the clock. But….at first-and-10 with a 40-second play clock, they could have just kneeled and eliminated the Barber play entirely.

Is there risk to declining the offsides penalty? Absolutely. You might false start or hold on the next play. That would push you back and prevent you from getting the key first down. But if you tell me that I have to convert a second-and-1 to win a game, or that I have to convert a first-and-10 to win a game, I’m choosing the second-and-1.

Takeaway

This was about as Billy Napier-ey a game as you’re going to get. With his back against the wall and a fanbase fed up with his underachieving team, he got the team psyched to come out and beat a top-10 opponent.

Give the guy some credit, he knows how to motivate his team when his back is against the wall.

Yet, Texas still had a puncher’s chance coming into the fourth quarter because despite outgaining the Longhorns 415-213 through three quarters, Florida led by just 15 points.

Part of that was due to settling for a field goal on the second drive of the game after looking unstoppable for one-and-a-half drives. Part of that was because they went into a shell after a false-start penalty deep in Texas territory after the 60-yard pass to Vernell Brown, III in the third quarter.

Those kind of things continued in the fourth quarter, as the Gators went ultra-conservative on a third-and-3 at the Texas 41 on their opening drive of the fourth quarter after Manning’s first interception. Then they seemed to throw caution to the wind and opened it up for Lagway to make a poor decision on an interception, giving Texas the ball right back after a Manning pick with 6:43 left.

Florida gained 7.0 yards per play to Texas’ 5.9. Coming into this week, Michigan had averaged 7.0 yards per play against FBS opponents, and the Wolverines were scoring 32.8 points per game. That’s only four more points than the Gators, but when you consider Florida tacked on two points with a safety on a blocked punt, that’s nearly a touchdown less than we should expect given Florida’s performance.

This game felt like complete Florida domination throughout, but Gators fans were left to sweat with less than a minute left as Texas made a last-ditch effort to tie the game. Don’t get me wrong: I’m thrilled Florida got the victory and doubly thrilled that Lagway looked close to the elite player we saw last season.

But there were still underlying themes in this game that have happened continually in the Billy Napier era. Some of those are good: the team clearly is still bought-in to playing for the guy. But some of them are concerning, specifically clock management and misplaced aggression/timidness among them.

We all knew Florida needed to go on a run to do anything worthwhile this season. Coming out of the bye, they’re now 1-0 and looked like a way better team than we saw in the first third of the season. Hopefully that continues.

This was a great first step, but consider me wary of thinking – or even hoping – that there are seven more to come. I’m not ready to let Billy hurt me again.