It was there for the taking. All Billy Napier had to do was keep it simple and make smart play calls to pull off the upset and take maybe a little pressure off of himself. The defense (and an overrated Nico Iamaleava) had given Florida multiple opportunities to build a big early lead and get a much-needed rivalry win. But Napier is gonna Napier, and along with an unfortunate knee injury to Graham Mertz that has ended his season, he literally fumbled away the opportunity and showed – again – why he’s incapable of being a successful SEC head coach. And so the drumbeat for his firing remains deafening while a seemingly tone-deaf UAA and AD allow the program to continue to be torn down.
The Gator defense played perhaps it’s best game of Napier’s tenure, repeatedly getting off the field early, actually getting into the backfield to disrupt both run and pass plays on occasion, and make Iamaleava look bad in the process. Jason Marshall had another excellent game in coverage. The DEs set the edge and applied pressure on the QB, getting 3 sacks and 8 TFL. The interior D-line held up for the most part, not allowing the multiple long runs up the middle that plagued this defense all season. The LBs, especially Pup Howard, tackled pretty well in open space. Even when the Gator offense started to collapse in the second half after Mertz left the game, they repeatedly stood up and gave the offense another opportunity to score. This is what can happen when you win on first and second down, and actually force the opponent into must-pass situations.
The Florida offense looked functional and efficient with Mertz at the helm the entire first half. They rolled up over 200 yards with a good mix of run vs. pass. Mertz especially knows how to incorporate the TEs into the passing game, and hurt Tennessee with it. The running game was having some success off tackle and outside. However……Napier’s situational playcalling was horrendous. Watching the Gators march into the Volunteer red zone 4 times in the first half, only to come away with a 3-0 halftime lead. was inexcusable. Getting stuffed on the first 3rd-and-1 that led to a short FG and early lead was bad enough. But Rural Meyer was just getting warmed up. Then came the stops on both 3rd- and 4th-and-1, the latter on an ill-advised sweep play that was poorly blocked. Then, to really add insult to injury, the failed 1st-and-goal play from the 1-yard line – a QB sneak by Mertz that he fumbled – instead of letting Montrell Johnson finish a drive where he was running successfully. Even subbing in DJ Lagway to make The Vols honor his running ability would have helped. You can’t make this sh*t up, even when playing a board game like Strat-O-Matic. Mertz finally led a TD drive in the 3rd quarter and capped it off with a nice touch pass to Arlis Boardingham, but he had already sustained a torn ACL a few plays earlier on a scramble for a first down, and had gutted it out until then. Then, even with Napier’s terrible calls leading to a 3rd-and-17 with 39 seconds left in regulation, Lagway climbed up into the pocket and threw a laser to Chimere Dike on a slant route for the possible tying or winning TD. That’s when Napier showed everyone – again – his lack of aggression and killer instinct, settling for the tying extra point. Finally, the offensive series in overtime was truly offensive. A telegraphed run play on first down, a telegraphed screen play on second down that was horribly executed and lost 5 yards, and finally a telegraphed third down draw play that everyone knew would be called, setting up a long FG attempt that Trey Smack missed wide right. Absolutely brutal.
Special Teams were ‘Gamechangers’ once again – for the wrong reasons. Dike’s excellent punt returns were not enough to offset a 12 men on the field penalty that erased a successful FG at the end of the first half, a few short punts from Jeremy Crawshaw, and then Smack’s missed FG attempt in overtime. I guess someone must have sabotaged Napier’s 11-spot Twister mat he incorporated for the ‘Gamechangers”, to try and prevent that idiocy from happening again. That allowed Tennessee to go into their OT possession knowing they only needed to not go backwards or turn the ball over in order to at a minimum have an easy FG attempt for the win. At that point you could almost see the shoulders of the defense finally collapse, as Tennessee easily scored in 4 quick plays to steal the win. Another rivalry game – another loss. It’s all part of the “plan”.
Florida now limps back to The Swamp for it’s Homecoming date with Kentucky. The Mildcats were talking proud coming into this season, but have been put back into their rightful place as middle-of-the-pack fodder. Sadly, that’s right where the Gators are now, along with South Carolina and UK – traditional mediocre programs going nowhere. Kentucky is coming off a home loss to Vanderbilt, who right now is playing better than any of those 3 programs. Mark Stoops briefly considered taking the Texas A&M job he was offered in the offseason, and foolishly returned to Lexington, which angered what football fan base they have and had to impact the team’s motivation somewhat.
Kentucky’s offense is still predicated on it’s running game, despite adding what they thought would be a big upgrade at QB in Georgia transfer Brock Vandagriff. The Mildcats are 114th in the country in scoring, and the passing game has struggled to gain any consistency or explosiveness. In fact, Vandagriff has been forced to run the ball much more than they hoped, and has taken a lot of punishment in doing so while being second on the team in carries behind Demie Sumo, who is by far their leading rusher. Dane Key is their favored WR, and Marshall again gets the chance to shut down another good WR while adding to his fast-improving NFL Draft resume. Despite all of their offensive problems, you can bet that Stoops will still try to hammer away at a soft Gator interior run defense as long as possible, to shorten the game and make it another ugly, low-scoring affair that favors his team. And Napier is the perfect person to try it against, as he’s most comfortable playing his “complementary football”, with slow, time-consuming drives that often lead to little or no points.
The Mildcats are relying heavily on their defense, which is 9th in the country in points allowed per game and has stood up repeatedly when forced into bad situations by their offense. Sounds depressingly familiar, and if only Florida could say the same of it’s own defense since the start of 2022. UK has shut down every team they have played to date, which bodes ill for a true freshman QB being coached up by Napier. Yards and explosive plays will be tough to come by, and Lagway is going to have to play a safer game than he would like to. He’ll also have to protect himself more than usual, as he’s now the starter the remainder of the season. That takes away a lot of the running dimension he would normally bring to the game, and now he’ll have to improve his reading of coverages and accuracy even quicker. This all will unfortunately fall right into Napier’s wheelhouse of conservatism so I’m expecting little creativity or scheme changes even with a much more athletic QB with a stronger arm.
So, instead of coming home off of an inspiring rivalry win and with some real momentum and 3 straight victories, Napier again gives Gator Nation another gut punch or, more accurately, another kick in the groin, and shows again why he’s in over his head and literally stealing money from the University of Florida. There is zero chance he will change or improve, and the inevitable lingers on as we have to watch him remain on the sidelines for now. Another bye week awaits after this game, and again that would be a good time to fire him, but the UAA and AD are gonna ride or die with Basement Billy, it seems. I’m picking Florida to win only because this is a home game. As much as I’d love for Lagway to rack up big numbers in an exciting win and give hope for the future, I’ve seen too much in the past 31 games to expect it. A loss wouldn’t surprise me, but would still be another bitter pill to swallow for Gator Nation.
Pre-game sitrep: DEFCON 1
Post-game sitrep: DEFCON 1 (win or loss)
Prediction:
Florida 23
Kentucky 20