First look: Texas A&M football heads to Florida with eye on putting Napier tenure to an end
Ahead of Texas A&M football’s second-ever visit to the Swamp, the Florida program is having a watershed moment. It’s sometimes hard to identify those while they’re still happening, but I think most people from the outside can tell that there’s something going down in Gainesville.
The bad news for Gator fans is that whatever seems to be going down is patently negative at this point. You have a coach calling out the fanbase in press conferences, a team that looked absolutely lost against a rival, and a quarterback controversy that is looking increasingly like a lose-lose situation. Oh, and you have the toughest schedule in the nation ahead of you.
In the midst of all this, the Aggies are coming to town. With the number of likely wins for the Gators currently approaching “vanishingly few,” this Saturday represents a referendum on the tenure of Billy Napier.
For the most part, it feels like a referendum that has already been decided, in an ultimate sense. It would be a gigantic coup for this to end in anything but disaster for Napier at this point; so perhaps it’s more appropriate to say that this game will decide whether or not the can gets kicked down the road.
The biggest question at this point is whether or not Napier starts the five-star freshman QB DJ Lagway. The pressure from the fanbase is immense at this point to do so; the issue is that he is, in fact, a freshman, and a pretty raw passer. Against a defense like Elko’s that could be a recipe for trouble.
A quick look at the weather tells us that it could be a rainy afternoon, so there’s a chance this one is a complete slog because of it. In that case, it could well be Lagway that comes out as the signal caller, and they attempt to run an offensive plan similar to what we saw out of Notre Dame and Riley Leonard.
On the Aggie side of things, this is the first huge road test for the team this year. For a program that has not won a road game since October of 2021, this is also a vital moment. Get out ahead early here, and the Gators might fold—they did it against Miami, after all. But if early struggles lead to belief for the UF roster, this one could be much closer than Aggie fans are comfortable with.
I think the Gator defense is very susceptible to the style of offense that the Aggies run. Further, no matter whether the Ags see Mertz or Lagway at QB, I think it will be a very long day throwing the ball for UF. I’ve got A&M winning this one, 31-17.