The Florida Gators escaped with a 23-21 victory over Mississippi State in what seems likely to be Billy Napier’s swan song. And though I’m sure it drove Gators fans crazy (because it drove this one crazy), you really do have to appreciate how perfect a send-off for Napier this one was.
It checked every single box on the Billy Napier bingo card.
- Fall behind 7-0 after giving up a huge explosive on the opening drive of the game.
- Have two drops in the endzone on the Gators opening drive, forcing them to settle for a field goal.
- Run a QB draw on third-and-7 for three yards to settle for a FG, only to have delay of game and illegal hands to the face penalties push the field goal back to a 54-yard attempt.
- Have a slow-moving drive at the end of the half end in calamity near mid-field (this time, a D.J. Lagway interception).
- Score a TD to go up 19-7 but kick the extra point after having 12-men on the field for the 2-point conversion attempt.
- Take a sack on third-and-1 with 1:38 left in the game to give Mississippi State another chance.
- Let Mississippi State drive into field goal range and somehow escape after a 300-plus pound defensive lineman intercepted a pass on a simulated pressure.
And perhaps the most Billy Napier-ey stat of all: Average 6.6 yards per play (equivalent of a top-15 offense), yet only score 23 points.
All I could do was laugh at the end of this one. I laughed because only Napier could find a way to have a team that was just clearly better than Mississippi State need to escape in such a ridiculous way. Only Napier could find a way to cost his team a point with a illegal substitution penalty on a point-after attempt. And only Napier could make me feel happy for him that he got a win on the way out (hopefully), but also happy that this is the end.
It really was a perfect afternoon in The Swamp.
Florida’s Defense
The Gators defense had some new faces on the field, especially in the secondary.
Alfonzo Allen, Jr. had 15 total tackles after starting the season on the practice squad. True freshmen Lagonza Hayward and Ben Hanks added 11 tackles as well. That caused problems, especially at the end of the game, when Florida needed a stop. But they got the stop doing something that Ron Roberts does relatively sparingly: the simulated pressure.
Florida is showing a zone shell here with its corners off the line of scrimmage. Mississippi State runs its receiver right into the hole underneath the safeties and Bulldog QB Blake Shapen expects his receiver to be open in that hole.
But Roberts has defensive linemen Michai Boireau (#93) and Brendan Bett (#90) drop into those holes. Boireau is listed at 349 pounds. Bett is listed at 308. That’s not something I expected, and apparently wasn’t something that Shapen expected either.
Boireau managed to not just get his hands on the ball, but managed to hold onto it as well, sealing the game for the Gators.
Yet again in this game, Florida’s defense outperformed its underlying metrics. The Gators came into the game ranked 78th in the country allowing 5.6 yards per play against FBS opponents. Then Florida gave up 5.9 yards per play against Mississippi State, so are going to sink even further in those ratings.
We would expect teams with that sort of rating to give up around 28 points per game, but Florida is surrendering 23.1. That’s one of the reasons why Florida’s defense wasn’t able to get off the field against USF, A&M, and had to escape against Mississippi State.
But the defense made just enough plays in this one to get the victory, and sealing it came on a ballsy play call by Roberts.
Offense
Florida looked like they were going to pull away multiple times.
There was the long Baugh touchdown run that came back because of a hold. There was the interception by Lagway directly after hitting a 50-yard bomb to Vernell Brown, III. And there was the interception going into the half.
This is the story with Lagway against these sorts of coverages. Mississippi State is showing that they’re going to drop into a zone and they do just that, rushing three men with a spy, then dropping eight into coverage.
Florida runs a spacing concept, which in this particular video by former NFL QB J.T. O’Sullivan is described as “a slant a three checkdowns”. The other thing O’Sullivan notes is that this play requires a three step drop and getting the ball out quickly.
And that’s where Lagway fails here. He reads that the slant is covered to his left and then comes to Vernell Brown, III (#8) and sees him running towards a linebacker. He then takes a step up in the pocket prior to coming to his third read (J. Michael Sturdivant, #9). That step up is what does him in, as Sturdivant has already hit his depth and turned around, allowing the Mississippi State defensive back (#3, Brylan Lanier) to drive on the route before Lagway even lets it go.
You can blame this on a lot of different things.
Billy Napier loves running spacing concepts at this down, distance, and location on the field. It’s actually the right call against this sort of zone, but the Bulldogs jumped the slant, which then forced Lagway into reading across the field, not one of his strengths.
But I actually blame this on the play calls before the interception. Florida took over at its own 25-yard line with 1:29 left. They then ran the ball for 2 yards and completed an 8-yard pass to Hayden Hansen to get a first down (and ran 39 seconds off the clock). That left precious little time to move the ball down the field, forcing Lagway to make a quick read where the defense knew what was coming.
Billy Napier
And that’s really the takeaway in this one, and the past four seasons.
A coach’s on-field job is to put his players in the best situation possible to succeed, and Billy Napier failed to do that in this game just as he has in his Florida tenure, and it nearly cost the Gators the game against Mississippi State.
Way too many times, I’ve had to go back and rewatch games where Florida either should have run away with a victory but didn’t because of Napier (this year against Mississippi State and Texas) or where Florida has had a chance to win but didn’t in large part because of Napier. Florida fans – and perhaps most importantly, Florida’s boosters – are tired of seeing that movie every Saturday.
Napier has struggled at times in the PR department in his tenure, but anyone who knows the guy personally will tell you that he is a genuine person who they hope succeeds. But I often talk about how a head coach’s job in college football is to deliver wins or to deliver hope that wins are on the horizon. Given a 3-4 record (22-23 overall), Napier hasn’t won enough and this win was a glaring example of why there’s little hope for significant wins on the horizon.
That’s why this is a perfect ending for Napier and for Gators fans. Anybody who had any lingering doubts about letting Napier go had to be convinced that he’s an active hindrance to winning after this one. Yet Napier – a good guy – gets to end with a victory and hugs from the guys who clearly love him and play hard for him.
It’s time for a reset in Gainesville. Here’s hoping that it comes on Sunday.
