Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier has a ton driving on sophomore quarterback DJ Lagway in 2025.
Lagway has celebrity potential, and he demonstrated it in his freshman season, when he grew to become the starter after Graham Mertz was misplaced for the season on account of harm.
Lagway completed his freshman marketing campaign with 1,915 yards and 12 touchdowns thrown in comparison with 9 interceptions. Turnovers have been a problem, sure, however as a freshman tossed into a tricky place, he proved to be the quarterback Florida wanted to show issues round and doubtlessly save Napier’s job.
The expectation for Lagway in 2025 is that he’ll be among the best quarterbacks within the SEC. Sadly for each him and the No. 15-ranked Gators, although, he is been stunted for a lot of this offseason on account of harm.
Lagway missed a lot of spring ball with a shoulder harm, and he is been restricted in fall camp on account of a calf harm.
He’s making progress, although, as Napier revealed on Monday.
“He took workforce reps at present, which is nice,” Napier stated of Lagway, based on Thomas Goldkamp of On3/Rivals. “And clearly, he’s hitting — he had a fantastic, full stack of throws final week, 4 days in a row. Didn’t scrimmage however did fairly a bit of labor that day. So yeah, he’s feeling significantly better and he’s shifting round properly.”
Florida begins the season off with a sport in opposition to Lengthy Island on Aug. 30, so if Lagway is not able to go by then it isn’t like backup quarterbacks Harrison Bailey or Aidan Warner could not lead the Gators to the win. Even when Lagway does play in that sport, Bailey and/or Warner are nearly assured to get important enjoying time in that sport, anyhow.
Florida wants Lagway to get to one hundred pc or as near it as doable sooner moderately than later, although. USF in Week 2 will not be an entire pushover, after which the Gators need to go to Baton Rouge to tackle No. 9 LSU in Week 3.
The Gators might slow-play Lagway in hopes that he’ll be fully able to go by the LSU sport, however each rep right here in fall observe and originally of the season in these “warm-up” video games will matter for the sophomore quarterback.
He is nonetheless younger and with a lot strain on his shoulders, the extra publicity the higher.
