Last season, it took a four-game win streak to save Billy Napier’s job. This year, it feels like another top 10 upset, after taking down No. 9 Texas in the Swamp last week, is only Step 1 for the embattled Gators head coach.
The good news for Napier is that his life raft last year, DJ Lagway, played by far the best game of his season last week. The bad news is that Mike Elko’s Texas A&M defense has the perfect blueprint to snuff out this year’s hot streak before it gets started and end Napier’s tenure in Gainesville.
Texas A&M’s third-down defense will force DJ Lagway into mistakes
Florida’s offense has plenty of issues. Some of those were solved by true freshman wide receiver Dallas Wilson’s arrival last week against the Longhorns, but not all of them. The biggest one by far is the Gators’ lack of third and fourth down conversions, entering Week 7 tied for 122nd in the country with a 36.8 percent late-down success rate.
That number has to have Elko licking his chops, and despite putting up 29 points on a talented Longhorns’ defense, the Gators converted at just a 40 percent clip last Saturday. Remarkably, those glaring statistics come with an average third-down distance of 6.88 yards, by no means one of the best in the country, ranking 57th, but still better than Texas A&M’s 7.48 yards.
If those trends hold, and Florida often finds itself in third and obvious passing situations against Texas A&M, Elko and the Aggies will make Lagway pay. A&M has one of the best third-down defenses in the country, allowing just a 31.6 percent success rate on late-down situations.
After allowing high-scoring performances early in the season, including 40 points to Notre Dame, the Aggies have backed off the aggressiveness, decreasing their blitz rate from over 50 percent of CJ Carr’s dropbacks in Week 3 to just 20 percent of Mississippi State’s last week. Just because he’s blitzing less, doesn’t mean Elko isn’t getting creative to create pressure.
A&M has begun to use more simulated pressures, showing a blitz-look pre-snap but dropping out and bringing four rushers, only the opposing quarterback doesn’t know which four. Those looks created protection busts against Auburn, with linebacker Tauerean York registering four pressures and a sack despite pass rushing on just five snaps, and Daymion Sanford racking up two sacks on just seven pass-rush reps.
DJ Lagway is a physical quarterback at nearly 250 pounds and isn’t easy to bring down, but he hasn’t shown a particular aptitude, at least early in his career, for winning the chess match pre-snap and setting his protections. Plus, Napier, as his play-caller, doesn’t always provide his quarterback with easy answers against exotic pressure looks.
If Florida’s late-down struggles continue, the Aggies have a great chance of remaining undefeated and ending any chance of Napier saving his job.