Trevor Etienne is gone. And the Florida program is officially in shambles… for now. (Photo credit: Matt Stamey, AP)
Florida Gators fans’ worst nightmares have come to pass.
Star running back Trevor Etienne- one of Billy Napier’s first recruits at Florida- has announced his plans to enter the transfer portal. The Jennings, LA native racked up over 700 yards as both a true freshman and a sophomore, and figured to be a key piece to what Napier hoped to be a much-improved 2024 season. Instead, he figures to be one of the most highly sought after prospects in the transfer portal this cycle.
As we reported several days ago, the reason for Etienne’s departure is simple: he wants to win. He does not believe Florida can offer that, and it’s hard to objectively blame him. The Gators went 6-6 in his freshman season, and somehow got even worse and regressed to 5-7 this past season.
The main reason Etienne’s numbers aren’t higher than they are is because Billy Napier simply didn’t give him enough touches. Montrell Johnson carried the ball 152 times to Etienne’s 131 this season, and while Johnson is certainly a respectable ball carrier, he simply doesn’t come equipped with the agility or home run ability that Etienne does.
There’s no sugarcoating this. There’s no point in attempting to phrase the next thought process in a type of way to try to soften the blow, because that’s called intellectual dishonesty. To be very blunt, this is an absolutely catastrophic loss for Florida, the type of offseason loss that could ultimately spell doom for Billy Napier and one day soon be looked back on as the coup de grace on his Florida tenure.
Losing Etienne isn’t game over for Napier- not by itself- but it places another enormous quantity of weight on his shoulders to hit the jackpot in the transfer portal on the offensive line. Part of what made Etienne so special was that he could sometimes mask the offensive line’s deficiencies by breaking tackles and beating the whole defense to the edge. Those abilities are gone now, at least to the extent Etienne could provide, and now Napier is tasked with flipping the entire offensive line over in the span of this one offseason.
With the departure of Kingsley Eguakun and Austin Barber being the only returning lineman who can really be trusted, Napier needs to build an o-line that can give Johnson and Treyaun Webb room to run through and protect Mertz.
Napier could also make up for this loss by flipping Jerrick Gibson back over to the Gators. A local Gainesville kid who transferred to IMG, Gibson actually committed to the Gators two and a half years ago before Texas swooped in and took him away. Taking him back gives Florida a similar, albeit not identical, type of explosive runner who can hit the home run on any play.
But those are the kinds of things that Napier has to do to atone for this devastating loss, and if he doesn’t, his bottom line next year- he’s got to go 7-5- becomes that much harder to achieve.
In any case, best of luck to Trevor Etienne as he concludes his college career at a program that’s better equipped to win than the Florida Gators are right now.
