Florida Football Friday Final: Gators open murderer’s row stretch looking to upset Georgia

Image Credit: UAA

The most difficult schedule in the nation has proven to be tougher than expected through the first seven weeks of the season for the Florida Gators, and it will only prove to be more arduous over the latter half. That stretch begins Saturday as Florida faces the No. 2 Georgia Bulldogs in the latest edition of the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida.

Continuing a three-year trend, the Gators enter Saturday’s game as substantial underdogs (14.5 points, to be exact). The Dawgs have won the last three meetings by an average of 24.0 points, and they presently sit second in the SEC at 4-1 in league play behind only Texas A&M, which is 5-0 having already defeated Florida 33-20 back on Sept. 14.

Both teams meet coming off bye weeks. UF demolished Kentucky, 48-20, two weeks ago, while UGA pulled off a surprisingly dominant win over now-No. 6 Texas, 30-15. (The Gators play the Longhorns next week for the first time since 1940.)

To this point, all three of Florida’s losses have come to teams currently ranked among the top 10 nationally. Four of its final five games will be contested against top-20 opponents creating slim margins for head coach Billy Napier as he seeks to hold onto his job for a fourth season.

While Napier appeared to be as good as gone after Week 3, the Gators have won three of their last four games and nearly upset now-No. 7 Tennessee on its home turf. The first open week proved to completely rejuvenate the team, and Napier hopes Florida will respond the same way after being given a second chance to accentuate positives and overcome mistakes made during the first half of the campaign.

“Our kids have bought into the concept that practice is the most important thing that we do. The attitude and the urgency and the focus, we have to be very deliberate about how we practice,” he explained Monday. “… It’s a repetition-based game. It’s development. It’s the quality rep from the start to the finish that matters. We’ve bought into that concept.”

Napier said unity and togetherness are more important than most realize when it comes to building a successful team, and it’s an area in which the Gators have thrived during their two of weeks. He also believes the byes fit nicely into Florida’s schedule despite both coming in a five-week window whereas other teams have their breaks more spread out.

 “These are all going to be 15-round fights,” Napier said of UF’s upcoming schedule, “really good coaches, really good personnel.”

Specifically regarding Georgia, it’s clear Florida is not overlooking the talent of its greatest rival. While the Gators actually have a chance to earn a College Football Playoff spot should they win out — given they only have three high-quality losses — anything other than a playoff berth would be a failure for the Dawgs.

“The entirety of the team obviously makes this thing a challenge,” Napier said of UGA. “For our team, it’s important that we zoom in on the parts of our process that can grow and improve. Each individual player has to continue to focus on getting better.

“One of the reasons we’ve been able to improve is we emphasized those parts of our team. We need to continue to play with really good effort. We need to continue to take great pride in how we compete. … We’ve challenged our team to be very consistent. … This will require our best.”

Will progress pay off?

Napier stressed before the season that, in many ways, this is the best version of Florida he has coached through three years. That certainly did not come to pass when the campaign began, but the ferocity displayed on the field — particularly on defense — reached another level coming out of the first off week.

Seeing no signs of that slowing down given another stretch without an opponent for whom to prepare, Napier reiterated that the Gators are better off than they have been previously — this despite losing numerous key personnel only halfway through the season.

“Mindset has shifted a little bit. The makeup of our team, I think we’re in a lot better place in that regard,” he explained. “Look, it’s a production business. We got to do it on the grass. We played better the last few weeks, a little bit more like we anticipated playing as a team, certain parts of our team in particular. I have a respect for the attitude and the effort of the group, the resiliency of the group. That’s the term [resiliency] I would say that’s impressed me the most. …

“There is a noticeable difference in the effort, the intensity and the execution of the football. More importantly, there is a moral character that allows them deal with the criticism and the noise and to stay loyal, stick together, be solution oriented, not splinter, point fingers. … That takes some character to do, especially in today’s era. I’m hopeful that will pay off.”

Florida will be facing a Georgia team in the ninth year of making progress under head coach Kirby Smart, who now has two national championships to his name. The Dawgs roster is deeper. Their talent is more experienced. And they once again have all the momentum.

Where the Gators have struggled most in this series is up front on both sides of the ball. Smart build Georgia from the inside out, a method that Florida has struggled to emulate under Napier due to underrecruiting on offense and both transfers and injury on defense.

“[Defensive line coach Gerald] Chapman has done a good job, and certainly, some of these guys that got significant experience for the first time last year, they’ve improved. But much like I’ve said before, in this league, if you want to be a consistent team, you want to be a contender, you got to be good on the line of scrimmage and on the edges,” Napier said. “… You have to have an identity there that allows for them to be productive. We’ve made progress in that area, and we need to continue to do that to be productive.”

The question is whether UF can turn the tide on Saturday, and if it’s going to do so, that will come with starting fast. The Gators are 4-1 when scoring first this season, 12-6 when doing so under Napier.

“Starting fast, in general, in the game of football, is really important,” the coach explained. “It’s a contributing factor from an analytics standpoint. If you took a deep dive into that, you would see starting fast is very important.”

‘Et[ienne] tu, Trevor?’

The transfer portal has drastically affected college football since it was instituted a few years ago, so Florida facing a former player Saturday is hardly a uncommon occurrence. The fact that it will be junior running back Trevor Etienne, who directly left UF as a turncoat transferring to UGA despite thriving with the Gators, has left fans salty. Napier does not feel the same way — at least not publicly — but Etienne was a one-time massive recruiting win for Florida’s coach, Etienne is actually averaging fewer yards per touch with Georgia, though he is seeing more snaps and has as many touchdowns through seven games (seven) as he did on average each of his first two years with the Gators.

“It’s become the norm of college football. It’s already happened a handful of times this year that we played against players on the other side that were on our team in the past. … It wasn’t the first and won’t be the last, unfortunately,” Napier said.

He added: “It’s gotten to a point where you just move on to the next one. I think we’ve done what we needed to do to be productive at running back. … That position, for us, is at the centerpiece of our offense, and I couldn’t be more proud of the guys that we have there. And coach [Jabbar] Juluke, in particular, has done a nice job. But we identify players; we fit them into our blueprint there for that position and they produce, they have success.”

Senior Montrell Johnson Jr. leads the rushing attack for Florida as he has the last two years, though he enters Saturday’s game questionable having missed the prior contest against Kentucky. In his stead two weeks ago, freshman Jadan Baugh exploded with five touchdowns, and junior Ja’Kobi Jackson has also flashed while sophomore Treyaun Webb remains out with an injury as well.

“Jadan will get better. You can see he’s getting comfortable,” Napier said. “… He’s improved in his pass protection. He and Ja’Kobi both need to continue to grow in that area. Played well with the ball [against Kentucky]. And he’s a big guy; he’s slippery. Obviously, he has showed to be very productive. So, we’re hopeful he continues in that direction.”

Go, DJ

Should the Gators upset the Dawgs, it will be on the back of freshman quarterback DJ Lagway. The first-year backup turned starter has impressed in spurts with his big-time arm and confident approach leading to explosive plays rarely seen under redshirt senior Graham Mertz (out for the season with a torn ACL), but he remains an inexperienced passer who will now be faced with arguably the nation’s best defense — or at least the nation’s best defensive coaches.

Napier this week explained how Lagway’s skillset and mental makeup has allowed Florida to open its playbook a bit more. He remains confident of what he will put together on the field Saturday.

“In a perfect world, we would have a guy that’s a capable runner, a guy that is a factor in the read elements, and then also obviously the ability to push it down the field. DJ, we were very fortunate to find him early in the process and have been blessed with the opportunity to coach the guy,” he said. “More importantly is just the makeup of the kid just from a character perspective: the humility and the work ethic. And Graham being around has been huge. That will be a big factor going forward for DJ the rest of the year.”

In terms of preparing Lagway for the toughest test of his young career, Napier said Florida spent the last week doing “quite a bit” of situational work along with a “pretty exhaustive remedial session” to ensure Lagway is as prepared as possible for what might come in the game.

“He has no trouble processing. It’s just a matter of time, repetition. And there is no substitute for living it; living the success but also with the consequences of making a bad decision,” Napier explained.

Getting defensive

While Napier’s play calling struggles and inefficient offensive production have been most maddening for fans through his first two-plus seasons at Florida, the atrocious defensive performances are what have actually impacted the Gators in the win-loss column. It appeared as if it was more of the same at the start of this season, but coming off the first bye week, even against easier competition, it seems as if UF is actually turning a corner.

Florida has allowed just 18.7 points per game over its last three contests after giving up an average of 27.3 points in its first four. That nearly 10-point swing, if the Gators are able to keep up their defensive momentum, could put them in a lot more games over the latter half of the campaign.

Napier addressed the improvements at length this week:

“Ultimately, you get what you emphasize. The big challenge is, ‘Hey look, guys, if we want takeaways to show up on game day, then we have to put takeaway behavior on film.’ We have to do it in a practice setting. There should not be a play in practice where we don’t put takeaway behavior on tape. … Obviously, a lot of the turnovers have to do with the quarterback, so the rush and the coverage are working better together. We’re covering them better, and certainly we’ve been able to rush and affect the passer a little bit better. We’re still trying to create more fumbles. We want to continue to work on punching it out, ripping it out, uppercutting the ball out. Got to keep attacking in the ball. We got to continue to work on affecting the quarterback.”

“We’re just playing better fundamental football, better block destruction. We’re aligned correctly. We’ve got good eye-discipline. We’re on the same page. We’re tackling better. We’re playing with our leverage and coverage better — all the things that good defensive teams do. We’ve gotten better on third down, and certainly, we’ve done a good job at times of forcing more field goals in the red area. You got to limit explosives, create takeaways, get red-zone stops, and in general, you have to be a good tackling team. If you really took a good deep dive into it, we’ve done all those things better.”

Notes & quotes

Napier on redshirt senior defensive back Asa Turner, a transfer and starter who was expected to play a major role but has not seen the field since Week 1: “Injuries are challenging, man. It’s one of the more challenging things for the players. … Asa has been a very steady player and person-leader. He’s provided some veteran work ethic, how to communicate, go about your business. He’s done a nice job in that regard. And even when he’s been absent, there are some things he’s done to help the squad as a whole. He’s another player that’s on a long list of ‘hopeful to get him back.’”

Napier on the offensive line stepping up of late: “We settled into a lineup there. The competition has helped, and then, ultimately, I think they’ve just gotten the experience and improved. Some of them were relatively green to this league, this level. The practice environment has helped.”

Napier on senior wide receiver Elijhah Badger stepping up: “Badger is an easy guy to like. If I’m playing quarterback, I would try to connect with him, too. … His game has really taken another step. The detail in his route running has improved. Receiver is a skill game. The release part of the game, the top of the route separation, the hand selection, and then obviously the coverage, there is a football IQ element there. … He’s a very durable, consistent player, so he’s got some play strength.”