Photo via Florida Gators
The Blue team defeated the Orange team, 19-17, in the annual Florida Gators spring game on Saturday on a game-winning kick from Trey Smack. There were plenty of things to like, a few things to not like, and a lot more things to look forward to this fall.
What stood out along the way?
DJ Lagway is legit
Let’s get the obvious spring game caveats out of the way immediately. Lagway was in a non-contact jersey, meaning opposing players could not level him or even touch him beyond a simple tap on the arm or shoulder. And spring games are meant to showcase the quarterbacks’ strengths by design.
That said: DJ Lagway also proved why the Florida Gators (and other schools) wanted him so badly to begin with. Lagway misfired on a couple of balls early, but quickly shook that off and had a great final three quarters of the game. The freshman finished with 173 passing yards, including a pair of touchdown passes, and displayed nice touch throughout the afternoon.
Most impressive was the fact that Lagway connected on five separate passes of more than 20 yards, demonstrating his ability to hit the big play consistently. Among those: a 22-yard touchdown strike to Aidan Mizell on a post route, and a 37-yard bomb to Marcus Burke down the sideline. His running ability is going to have to wait until the fall to truly gauge it, but suffice to say he lived up to his five-star billing in the glorified scrimmage on Saturday.
Jadan Baugh steps into the Florida Gators offense nicely
Get your Trevor Etienne groans out of the way, y’all. I know, I know, he was truly special with the ball in his hands, but also couldn’t hold up in pass pro. This is not meant to compare Etienne to Jadan Baugh in any way.
But what I will say is Jadan Baugh looked like a perfectly respectable RB2 for an SEC team. He broke loose on a couple of big runs– a 25-yard run in the first quarter and a 14-yard run in the third quarter– and he wasn’t tackled for a single negative play all game. He finished with 12 carries for 77 yards, and also did a nice job picking up the blitz on one of Lagway’s deep throws.
This is Montrell Johnson’s running back room, and I don’t think Baugh will be siphoning carries away from him. But we did get a glimpse of why Alabama wanted Baugh so badly, and it’s easy to believe that Baugh will contribute to this offense right away as a freshman.
Special teams continue to be an adventure
I think pretty much every Gator fan has said his or her piece on the Gators’ special teams issues the past two seasons. The hope was that nothing would go horribly wrong in that department on Saturday, and I could just mention that fact in passing as a quick mini-win and move on to bigger takeaways.
But I can’t, because there was the Florida special teams unit lining up with only ten players for an extra point block attempt. If Florida’s special teams hadn’t directly cost the team games– like against Vanderbilt in 2022 with Jason Marshall’s ill-advised failed attempt to field a punt in his own end zone, or against Arkansas with a team-wide substitution infraction, or against Utah with two guys wearing the same jersey number– it would probably be worth a quick eye roll or even a chuckle. Because those things did happen, there’s nothing funny about these kinds of things continuing to happen.
There was also an instance of the Blue team lining up for kickoff– with ten men. Again. To be completely fair, special teams coach Chris Couch was absolutely irate at this, screaming like a madman at the eleventh player to get on the field. I was able to hear the phrase, “f*cking unacceptable!” come out of his mouth– which it is. And to the unit’s credit, Couch did detect this in time, so the kickoff did occur with all eleven men on the field. But it’s the rate at which these kinds of things have happened in Napier’s tenure that has to have fans worried.
Additionally, FAU transfer Hunter Smith struggled in the kicking game, missing three field goals and mishitting a punt. That’s a bit more forgivable since Florida has Jeremy Crawshaw locked into the punting duties and Trey Smack penned into the kicking role, but that performance does not leave too many Gator fans with a lot of confidence should either of those guys go down.
Eugene “Tre” Wilson is the Florida Gators WR1
It’s clear now that the “passing of the torch” moment from Ricky Pearsall to Tre Wilson was not just a nice bit of content for social media. There was meaning behind it. Wilson really is the Gators’ top receiver now.
Wilson did a lot of things right on Saturday. His routes looked very crisp and clean, and he marked up the stat sheet all day to provide results to match that great game tape. He finished the day with eight catches for 128 yards and a touchdown.
One drive was all him– literally. On the first play, he broke free for a 20-yard gain, courtesy of a dart from Graham Mertz (who himself had a very nice day). On the second play, he slammed his foot into the ground, whipped Trekweze Bridges’ head around, and took off straight down the jetway in the middle of the field. Mertz saw his separation and lofted a rainbow over the Gator head logo at midfield, which Wilson caught in stride and beat both Bridges and Sharif Denson (who overall had a nice game) for a 60-yard touchdown.
No injuries!
Easily the biggest victory of the day for the Florida Gators was the fact that nobody was seriously hurt. Cam Jackson had a stinger on his elbow early in the game, but that was it. There were no long-lasting injuries suffered in this game. And that’s huge, because you don’t have to look too far back to see how various Florida Gators seasons were derailed before they even started due to injuries in the spring game.
