Florida Football Friday Final: DJ Lagway takes over, Graham Mertz stays engaged, Montrell Johnson seeks to play

Last week’s loss to the Tennessee Volunteers was disastrous on numerous fronts for the Florida Gators. Not only did Florida drop a winnable road game against a top-10 team — mostly due to coaching mismanagement — it lost redshirt senior quarterback Graham Mertz for the season and appeared to lose senior running back Montrell Johnson Jr. indefinitely.

The ensuing few days brought surprisingly positive news for the Gators. While the “L” was not wiped off its record, Johnson’s injury was determined to be not as serious as initially believed, and the tone around the program was not as detracted as most would have expected given the circumstances.

Sources close to the team told Only Gators this week that Florida players were motivated and energized to get back to work with one noting the offense under freshman QB DJ Lagway operated markedly better than it did ahead of the Samford game, the last time Lagway started a contest in place of Mertz.

That change is obviously the news of the week. Lagway has put together a respectable first-year effort to this point completing 65.3% of his passes for 765 yards with five touchdowns and four interceptions. He has not been as mobile as some would have perhaps expected from the dual-threat signal caller, but he’s also dealt with difficult situational football given a surprising number of his drives have begun with the Gators backed up near their end zone.

Napier this week expressed his continuously growing confidence in Lagway, particularly now that he is “the man” behind center for the remainder of the 2024 season.

“There is some excitement in terms of DJ and what he’s been able to accomplish thus far,” Napier said Monday. “I think he’ll be much more prepared having started a game but also having played in each game this season. … We’ll be a little bit further ahead than we maybe would’ve been if we were just playing one player [the last few games]. DJ has this innate ability to rise to the occasion and step up in big moments. I’m confident he’ll do that in this situation.”

He later added: “Guy is a rookie, and it’s his show. He’s going to work extremely hard. He’s been preparing as if he was one play away from being the guy the whole [season]. That’s been the message and the mentality since the very beginning. So, the work that he’s done since Day 1, I think, will all pay off.”

Napier said Lagway is operating “on a different planet” compared to how he was playing both when he joined the program this spring and when fall practice began. The first-year starter is continuously improving his anticipation and decision making, which all comes with better understanding Florida’s offensive concepts and preparing for what opposing defenses will throw at him.

Assisting Lagway to this end is Mertz, who stated definitively this week that he will remain completely engaged with the Gators despite being knocked out with a torn ACL. (Mertz, by the way, actually injured his knee two plays before the touchdown pass against Tennessee that ended up being the last play of his UF career.) Mertz has been involved in every part of the preparation for game day, and he will be on the sidelines wearing a headset Saturday in The Swamp.

“Anybody that knows Graham Mertz wouldn’t expect anything else. He’s as loyal as they come,” Napier explained. “… He and I were having conversations just to see the evolution of him as a leader, his voice on our team. He kind of found that coming to Florida, gained the respect of his teammates and this staff with how he competed last year and then just the way he worked this offseason. … It’s a shame that he’s injured, but he’s going to make somebody a good quarterback in the NFL. He’s going to play for a long time.”

Napier pointed to the close relationship between Mertz and Lagway as a significant factor in the latter’s rookie-year success. Lagway has been a sponge following in Mertz’s footsteps when it comes to film study, self-discipline and the routine of preparing for game day. And to his credit, Mertz was open from the beginning to the concept of mentoring Lagway, which he also did during his week-long absence fro the field due to a concussion suffered against Miami.

“We’re in a lot better place than maybe we would have been if Graham didn’t get injured earlier in the year,” Napier said. “… The challenge is for every part of our team to kind of raise their level of play, knowing that we’re going to be playing with a rookie quarterback. Obviously [Lagway has] showed that he’s very capable, very talented. Like I’ve said many times, he’s going to continue to get better. With the more reps he takes, the better he’ll get.”

Next man up

With Mertz out for the season and Lagway in the starting role, Florida’s quarterback depth is once again being tested. No team in the nation has faced as much adversity as the Gators have at that position over the last three seasons, and the result this offseason was Napier bringing in two other signal callers aside from Lagway to fill out the depth chart.

Redshirt junior Clay Millen (Colorado State via Nevada) and redshirt freshman Aidan Warner (Yale) transferred into the program and have largely split scout team reps. Yet it was the less-experienced Warner, who spent the offseason recovering from a knee injury, ultimately edging his way into the third-now-second-string job behind Lagway; he took all reps with the second team this past week.

“I’ve been very impressed with Aidan,” said Napier, who noted that the second-year player has developed and progressed quite a bit over the last two months. “Aiden’s a big guy … and has arm talent. Very productive high school player, obviously spent a year at Yale. We identified a really good player there.”

Whether Warner sees much of the field this season might depend on how Napier uses Lagway, whose athleticism is attractive in adding an element of quarterback mobility to the offense. Napier admitted this week that UF needs to be judicious in how many keeper plays are called for Lagway — such as how Anthony Richardson was managed two years ago — but he also acknowledged that his signal caller will need to approach those situations with intelligence in order to preserve his body and the team’s depth at the position.

Not (out) for long

It sure appeared as if Johnson had suffered a season-ending injury against Tennessee — especially given there was never an inkling of him returning to the game last Saturday night. Instead, he was actually listed as “questionable” on the Gators’ injury report each of the last two days with a legitimate chance he returns to the field this week. That would be welcome for Florida given sophomore Treyaun Webb, Johnson’s backup, is also on the injury report with a “questionable” designation.

Redshirt junior Ja’Kobi Jackson and freshman Jadan Baugh will surely factor into Saturday’s game plan either way, but they could be featured heavily if one or both of Johnson and Webb miss the contest.

“You just need quality players and quality depth there because of the workload and obviously the brand of football that we play,” Napier said of the running back position.

In defense of the defense

Even without referencing statistics, it is crystal clear that Florida has played a better brand of defensive football over the last two weeks than it had over any prior period of Napier’s tenure. While the head coach won’t admit — for some unknown reason — “head coach of the defense” Ron Roberts took over play calling duties at the beginning of the season. Even that did not result in a substantial change, but adjustments and improvements to practice over the first off week have played a role in the Gators’ overall improvement.

“Ultimately, we’ve improved the practice environment. The practice habits have improved,” Napier said. “… We’ve seen both players and staff take accountability, and the practice habits have improved. … We played good for a couple weeks and [we’ve] got to see if we can sustain this. And I’m hopeful we can.”

Strong defensive play will be integral if Florida aims to play respectable football over the remainder of the season. Napier remains firmly on the hot seat, though there is no doubt that the Gators have upped their level of play across the last two games. He said this week that the team should be even further improved this week regardless of the outcome against the Volunteers.

“It’s on both ends. If you find a way to win that game, then you’re sitting there coaching the mental part of, ‘Hey, it’s time to move forward to the next opponent,’” he explained. “At this level, these jobs, [coaching is] the ability to be consistent, handle the praise, handle the criticism. You have to learn independent of the outcome, and then, you have to also work independent of the outcome.”

Notes & quotes

‌Napier on whether his role as play caller is affecting his in-game management: “Even if I weren’t calling the plays, if a guy is misaligned and we were about to get a penalty, we’re going to call a timeout. If anything, you’re probably a little more tuned into it to be quite honest. So, no, I don’t think this takes away from that part of the job.”

Napier on the difficulty of playing Kentucky, against which he is 0-2: “Kentucky has a good football team. Regardless of the record, when you turn on the tape, you see a team that has height, length and speed — and certainly has an identity in all three parts of their team and can create a ton of issues for you. Strong defensive unit that has a bunch of veteran players. An offensive unit that has improved every week. And special teams, they’ve got dynamic returners that can cause some headaches. Coach [Mark] Stoops does a really good job. Have a ton of respect for him as a coach in terms of what he’s accomplished and the consistency in which they’ve played. Kentucky is much better than their record says, and this will be a big challenge.”

Napier on game-changing plays made by senior wide receiver Chimere Dike as a punt returner: “He’s smart, he’s aware, he’s got good football intelligence, he’s very mature, and he makes good decisions. The punt returner, No. 1 off the top of the list is ball security — get the ball back to the offense. With the variations of punts that you get these days, that guy’s got to be a really good decision maker and communicator. … Chim has done a nice job in that area, and then also, he’s a dynamic player. He’s got real football speed, and he’s showed the ability to make good decisions.”

Napier on the improved play of senior defensive lineman Cam Jackson: “He’s trending up. It’s a big year for Cam. He came back for a reason. He’s trying to obviously make an impact on our team and help our team have success but he’s also trying to increase his value. He has a different level of self-discipline. … He’s leaner and his practice habits have improved. Coach [Gerald] Chatman has done a good job with him. He’s using his length, and ultimately, his football intelligence is increasing. He needs to continue to head in that direction for our team but also for himself.”