After the 45-7 victory over Samford Billy Napier has a decision to make. He can bet everything on a five-star QB. DJ Lagwayor he can return to the status quo and Graham Mertz if he is acquitted.
Based on Napier’s comments after Saturday’s win and again on Monday, he appears to have no intention of benching Mertz any time soon.
The most common retort against starting Lagway after his performance Saturday is, “Yeah, but that was against Samford.” There’s a grain of truth in that, but the reality is that Florida has rarely seen such a high level of vertical passing over the last year as it did on Saturday.
Air yards are measured by taking the total number of passing yards but subtracting the yards after the catch. It tracks how far a pass was down the field when it was physically caught. It’s meant to filter out plays like the 85-yard jet sweep. Tre Wilson scored on Saturday, which counted as an 85-yard pass for Lagway.
Against this background, last year we McNeese State, UNC-CharlotteAnd Vanderbilt that Florida had 77, 150 and 28 air yards respectively.
Last Saturday, Florida had 221 air yards.
Translation: The game against Samford was not the only reason Florida went in a direction that took them outside of the USC game (in which they scored 41 points).
But while we as fans may be convinced who we want as a starter against Texas A&MNapier is not so convinced.
After Saturday’s game, Napier said: “I think our intentions are the same. We want to play him every week. I think that was our intention last week. I think we had 20 or so plays at halftime last week. So we struggled to find a rhythm. But he brings a different element to our team. There’s no doubt he’ll be part of everyone’s plans going forward.”
On Monday, Napier repeated similar tones Texas A&M: “Both guys will make it harder for us to defend. We intend to use them both.”
“Intent to play” and starting the game are two different things, and it should be noted that Napier did not explicitly say who the starter would be for Texas A&M.
But if we read between the lines, Napier has every intention of letting Mertz play from the start if he is cleared. And while Napier claims there is a plan to bring Lagway into the game, the only reason he is against Miami was because Mertz was injured.
When Lagway runs a simple Napier offensive, things get bumpy. Most people had dreamed of Tim Tebow –like pre-season packages for Lagway, and perhaps Napier still has an ace up its sleeve.
He needs to make the right quarterback choice this Saturday, because if he doesn’t, Napier may not be able to make many more decisions with the Gators.
