Spring check-ins: Gator bait
Are Billy Napier's Florida Gators ready to be a winning team yet? Or is the schedule still prohibitive?
Billy Napier was in a tough spot last year. There were calls to remove him as he wasn’t the right guy to get Florida to another level and he had a team that was poised to be better than expected…but with a schedule that went as follows:
Miami
Samford
Texas A&M
at Mississippi State
UCF
at Tennessee
Kentucky
Georgia
at Texas
LSU
Ole Miss
Florida State
That ended up being not as bad as it initially looked, but Florida took losses in three of the first six games and were hardly Gator-rolling most of their opponents.
Then Napier played his big card.
He went to 5-star freshman DJ Lagway, who flashed immediate potential and made the prospect of firing Napier and buying him out seem a lot less enticing than putting that same donor money to work improving the roster. Why risk alienating the phenom young quarterback and blowing through millions removing the coach? Why not instead see what the coach can do with the young talent and use some of the buyout money to buy more talent?
You could see in recruiting how Lagway’s 1,915 passing yards at 10.0 ypa with 12 touchdowns and nine interceptions started to rally the NIL forces in Gainesville. After the season, in which Florida went 8-5, Napier signed the 10th ranked class by On3 which included 15 players ranked 90.00 or higher.
Now Lagway is a sophomore and the established starter. Can Florida make a leap or are they still a few steps away from serious national convention? Is the Gator bait their schedule or the trap of thinking this team could make the playoffs?