No Lagway meant no chance for Florida football

November 3, 2024 Vaseline blog 0

No Lagway meant no chance for Florida football

JACKSONVILLE — The early diagnosis for DJ Lagway is a “soft tissue” injury. Whatever it is, things are about to get really hard for the Florida football team.

The Gators lost to Georgia Saturday, although by now you know the real story. Lagway damaged his left hamstring in the second quarter and was scootered off the field.

Florida’s hopes of winning went with him, and not just on Saturday. The Gators will likely face Texas, LSU and Ole Miss with their third-string quarterback.

That would be Aidan Warner, a walk-on from Yale. He was elevated to second string when Graham Mertz tore an ACL.

That’s just one of the injuries that have descended upon the Gators. At this point, you wonder if someone has a Billy Napier voodoo doll and is gleefully sticking pins in it.

Why Saturday’s game was a before-and-after story for Florida football

Until Lagway went down, Napier was coaching his finest game at UF. This wasn’t UCF or Kentucky across the field. It was Georgia.

Beat the Dawgs, and the Fire Billy bandwagon would fall apart. That scenario was based largely on Lagway being the program savior he’d been cracked up to be.

He looked the part when he threw a 43-yard TD to Aidan Mizell to give Florida a 7-3 lead. Even more shocking to UGA fans was how Florida’s offensive line was controlling Georgia’s defense.

Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.

Add to that, UF’s defense was going mano-a-mano with the Bulldogs. It looked nothing like the ragtag unit it was at the start of the season.

“The objective today was to come here and to put fanatical effort on the field,” Napier said. “We wanted to ramp up the intensity.”

They did. The Gators had a 10-3 lead. They’d just sacked Carson Beck to force a punt.

The orange-and-blue half of EverBank Stadium was rocking. Then it happened.

What the mood shift says about Florida football’s hopes

Lagway tucked the ball under his arm and ran around the left side. He cut up the field and stumbled to the ground.

It looked so routine, so No-Big-Deal.

But Lagway didn’t get up. He grabbed the back of his left leg and didn’t get up.

Everything went quiet. The injury cart was called for. UF’s entire team went out to show support for Lagway.

It was a Very Big Deal.

Big enough that even former FSU quarterback Jordan Travis, who’s still recovering from a knee injury suffered last year, posted his condolences on X.

“Prayers for Lagway man,” Travis wrote.

At least Lagway’s injury wasn’t nearly as large as the one Travis suffered. If it’s a torn hamstring, it also won’t take as long to recover.

But from the funereal mood after the game, nobody thinks Lagway will be back this year. And he’s not the only one.

Florida’s football injuries are mounting

Cornerback Devin Moore was on crutches with a knee injury. UF lost its other starting cornerback, Jason Marshall, two weeks ago.

Starting tailback Montrell Johnson is still out with a knee injury. Mertz is a goner. There are others.

Is Voodoo Doll Billy snakebit?

“I don’t believe in that,” he said. “(There have) always been injuries in this game. Every team in the country has injuries. One thing I can say is we built a roster that has some competitive depth, and that’s proven to be beneficial.”

Not beneficial enough. The Gators might not have beaten Georgia with Lagway. They had no chance with Warner, who completed seven of 22 passes for 66 yards.

Florida did manage a TD drive that made it 20-20 with 7:29 left in the game. But Georgia responded with a quick TD, then Warner threw an interception to set up a short UGA score.

The 34-20 final score hardly told Saturday’s story.

Florida was far more competitive against the Bulldogs than it’s been in recent years. The Gators are playing like they want Napier to keep his job. They showed a lot of resilience coming back to tie the game in the fourth quarter.

Given what lies ahead, they’re going to need it.

David Whitley is The Gainesville Sun’s sports columnist. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X @DavidEWhitley