The Florida Gators will take the field after a week off looking to start another midseason turnaround like they had a year ago. Here are the major keys to the game as they host the No. 9 Texas Longhorns.
It’s in the Swamp
Consider this something that is necessary, but not sufficient. Billy Napier is 4-11 in true road games as Florida’s head coach, and all four wins came against teams that finished the season with a losing record: 2022 Texas A&M (5-7), 2023 South Carolina (5-7), 2024 Mississippi State (2-10), and ’24 Florida State (2-10). Both of his losses in Neyland were close, to be fair, but they were still losses.
The “not sufficient” part is because Napier hasn’t been flawless at home either. Losses to 2022 Vanderbilt (5-7), 2023 Arkansas (4-8), and to South Florida earlier this year all happened in Gainesville. But so did the 2024 blowout win over Kentucky and the late-season victories against LSU and Ole Miss that stabilized and eventually, if temporarily, improved his standing in the gig.
If Napier’s going to get a signature win this year, it sure looks like it’s going to have to be at home.
Health looking up
UF will be missing some key players who’ve been out for some time, like LJ McCray and Treyaun Webb, as well as guys who’ve played anywhere from a little to a lot this year like Caleb Banks, Aaron Gates, Dijon Johnson, and Ja’Kobi Jackson. It’s not a completely full-strength team.
However, those guys who are out are the only names on midweek injury report. No one else is on there in the doubtful, questionable, or probable categories. Which means, there’s a very high likelihood that we’ll get to see freshman phenom Dallas Wilson for the first time. That’s welcome news.
The injury report is especially good news for the defensive front, except for Banks being out of course, since George Gumbs and Michai Boireau missed the Miami game and Brendon Bett went out looking pretty hurt in the second half. The defense ran out of gas late and gave up a couple of scores to the Hurricanes after the offense put the burden on them a few too many times, but more big bodies up front can help the unit hold out for longer.
Plus, Florida’s not in the situation it was last year when going to Austin to face the Longhorns. DJ Lagway was lost, possibly for the season from the looks of it at the time, in the game prior to Georgia. Going on the road with a third string walk-on at quarterback didn’t elicit the strongest of efforts from the team, to say the least.
Texas was always expected to be the better team this year and last, but I’m not sure the gap is as wide as last year’s game might indicate. Oddsmakers agree, as the Gators are a mere 6.5-point underdog according to ESPN’s in-house betting service as I write this.
The Manning Factor
Much of the country has warmed up to the Manning family over the years, with brothers Peyton and Eli now ubiquitous personalities during ESPN programs and pitchmen in between them. “Much of the country” doesn’t necessarily include Gator Nation, where one of the most beloved stats is Florida’s 4-0 record against Peyton when he was at Tennessee.
Arch will become the third Manning to take the field in the Swamp. Florida and Ole Miss never played during patriarch Archie’s time, as the Gators and Rebels have never played often or consistently. Even as no one on the team remembers even Eli’s games against UF, and most weren’t even alive for them, there will be some extra juice from the crowd seeing that name on the back of an opponent’s jersey.
Surprise factor
Napier said during his September 29th press availability that the staff and players collaborated on some changes. I don’t expect any of the new stuff to be drastic different; Napier has never made big changes to his offense, and there simply isn’t enough practice time during the season to make huge adjustments anyway.
Sooner or later, I am sure that the new ideas will run out and Florida will revert to Napier’s old patterns. That’s why it’s important not just to score early but get into the end zone specifically. If the Gators can do anything at all new early on, including taking advantage of Dallas Wilson’s presence on the field, it will be their best chance to put up points on a very stout Texas defense.
If there is a template to winning this game, it’s the 2005 Georgia game. Urban Meyer retooled his old Utah offense for the two weeks prior, and the Gators were able to jump out to a 14-0 lead after getting touchdowns on the game’s first two drives. The offense did little else the rest of the way, and UF held on for dear life to win the game 14-10.
Defensive opportunity
As previously mentioned, if Florida’s defense gives the same effort as last year, the team is beyond toast in this one. I don’t expect that to repeat, however, given that they’re not going on the road with the third-stringer behind center.
Setting that aside, I actually like UF’s defense in this one. Manning has not lived up to the hype yet, which is not entirely his fault, and the depth returning on UF’s front will help corral him.
Ron Roberts’s scheme is also of a bend-but-don’t-break variety, and UT is not very good in the red zone. The latter point is partially on the new quarterback, but it’s also on Steve Sarkisian for getting too cute when he gets close to the end zone. It’s been an issue for him for years. As long as the Gator secondary doesn’t let anything get behind them, then they should be able to force UT to bog down into field goal attempts more often than not when they get in scoring range.
The bottom line
Unless Lagway has a miraculous turnaround from getting two more weeks of practice in, it’s once again going to be mostly on the defense for Florida to get the win. The offense must avoid being a drag on the team as a whole as it’s been more often than not this year.
Maybe Lagway gets some of the way back to last year’s form, or maybe Wilson’s presence really does make that big a difference. I’m not sure how good LSU ultimately is, but the Gators could’ve found a way to beat the Tigers if the offense was merely a net neutral in the game. And if the defense plays at its top potential, the offense may not need to score all that many times.
This contest is a good bellwether for the rest of the season. If the Gators give it their all and execute well, they could win this game. It’s a touchdown spread, after all. If they do no better than they did in last year’s match with the Longhorns, it’d portend poorly for the rest of the year for a lot of reasons.