
‘This kid’s a player’: Matty Beniers is making a big impact in Seattle
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Published
3 years agoon
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adminMatty Beniers won’t read this or any story about himself. Beniers is so serious about this edict that he asked his parents to stop sending him articles that had anything to do with him.
Humility means everything for Beniers. That is why he feels it is better to concentrate on other items in life other than what people say about him.
It’s also ironic given people can’t stop talking about Beniers. His name is always mentioned whenever someone talks about the Seattle Kraken‘s early success. Start talking about the Calder Trophy race and his name is one of the first that gets said. Beniers is only 27 games into his NHL career, yet he is already popular enough in Seattle that he is starting to get stopped for autographs and pictures when he is in public.
His teammates joke they are tired of talking about him. But they all have so much to say about what has allowed him to excel as a 20-year-old in the NHL while also expressing what makes him a special person who wants to do right by those around him.
The affinity for Beniers is so strong that the Kraken’s pre-game introduction video has 30 seconds that are solely dedicated to Beniers. It talks about how he is the future and how he is part of “The Next Wave” of players expected to lead the franchise for years to come.
Of course, Beniers won’t know about a lot of this because he will never read about it.
“I’ve just never liked seeing stuff about myself,” Beniers said. “I don’t really know why. I think I might have seen other people around me todo the opposite and I just didn’t like it. So I started doing that when I was young.”
Beniers has been managing expectations since the Kraken drafted him with the second pick in the 2021 NHL Draft. Selecting Beniers came with the belief the Kraken were getting a prospect who projected as a top-line, two-way center who could potentially become one of their franchise cornerstones for years to come.
Going 27-49-6 in their inaugural season meant the Kraken had to make the prospect of a better future a selling point for fans. Everyone got a glimpse of that future last season when Beniers left the University of Michigan after his sophomore year to sign an entry-level contract and scored nine points in his first 10 NHL games.
“The first practice he was on the ice, I was like, ‘Oh my God is he good!,” Kraken forward Yanni Gourde said. “It was at that point when you’re like, ‘This kid’s a player.’ A lot of guys come out of college, they come out of juniors and you don’t know if they have it right away. He’s that kid who really stepped on the ice and you knew this kid is going to be good right away.”
Beniers already had a point — an assist — in his first NHL game. What he achieved in his first game at Climate Pledge Arena only heightened expectations. He was active in both zones while making the plays the casual fan or a more keen observer could appreciate.
He also scored his first NHL goal in that same game which went into overtime. Kraken coach Dave Hakstol trusted Beniers enough to deploy him for three minutes of ice time in the extra frame. What was arguably Beniers’ strongest display came when he tried setting up the game-winning goal in OT with a no-look, between the legs pass. The confidence he showed was so strong that he was one of the three skaters selected in a shootout the Kraken ultimately won.
“You’re not overly surprised about anything he does,” Kraken forward Jordan Eberle. “You’re shocked at the confidence level to do that to come in off a college season and come into the NHL and go right to it. He’s a very confident kid but he handles it in a very good way.”
Skill is only one part of the package. Eberle, an alternate captain, said Beniers has shown the maturity and personality needed to thrive in an NHL dressing room. What stood out most to Eberle was the fact Beniers did it late in the season at a time when the team already had its identity.
First-year players are usually more reserved at first. They take time trying to figure out the dressing room before speaking up and displaying their personality. Not Beniers. Eberle said Beniers had no problems fitting in with the rest of the team.
“He’s sociable. He likes to talk. He likes to chirp,” Eberle said. “I think when you have a kid, who at a young age like that, you can get under his skin and he is able to have confidence to give it back, it is a good thing. That means you fit right in.”
Another way Beniers has fit in is with his contributions. He is second on the team in goals and is tied for the third in points (11). He is third among forwards in total ice time, second in 5-on-5 ice time, and second in power-play ice time.
As for rookie stats: Beniers leads all rookies with 11 points, is second with five goals and sixth with five assists. He also ranks second in ice time among rookie forwards and 11th among all rookie skaters.
There is also the trust he has been shown in the defensive zone. He is sixth among Kraken forwards in defensive zone faceoffs and is fourth in defensive zone starts, per Natural Stat Trick. Those numbers help create a composite that shows Beniers is developing into the all-around player the Kraken believe is a strong part of their future.
Beniers is showing even at this stage of his career he can be that top-six center capable of impacting a game in several ways. Having someone like Beniers, among others, is one of the reasons why the Kraken have emerged to be one of the NHL’s more notable surprises through the first quarter of the season.
“He’s a great player and a great human being which makes him a very special and important person in this organization,” Gourde said. “Not only are you trying to build an organization that has a good team every year, but you’re trying to build a team with good character and good people. That’s how you build a foundation in an organization.”
Good people. That is all Bob and Christine Beniers ever wanted their three children to be when they got older. They saw early signs of that in their youngest child when he was playing youth league basketball back home in Hingham, Mass., a Boston suburb.
Beniers had a teammate who was not the best at basketball. But Beniers kept passing him the ball to make sure that particular teammate got a chance to take a few shots in the game.
“After the game, that kid’s mother thanked me for what Matty did,” Bob recalled. “She said, ‘My son never touches the ball. … That’s the way any parent should want their son and daughter to be. That’s to be humble and nice to people and be aware of other people’s feelings. That’s a lot more important than hockey.”
Then Bob learned about another story. It was Halloween when Gourde and his family went to visit Beniers and Will Borgen, who share a house together. The Gourde’s arrived only to find Beniers and Borgen were dressed in costumes so Gourde’s two daughters could have Halloween with them before going trick-or-treating later that night.
“Stuff like that is how you know they are genuine, super good, super nice and we appreciated that,” Gourde said.
Beniers and Borgen are housemates who have bonded over watching games, watching Game of Thrones, playing video games and debating over who is worse at Mario Kart.
“They text each other from their rooms,” quipped Carson Soucy, who sits next to Borgen in the dressing room at the team’s practice facility.
Borgen said Beniers is a clean housemate who is also guilty of leaving his laundry in the dryer for a few days. He says they don’t cook much. But when they do, Beniers is the better cook of the two. Borgen says Beniers’ specialty is his garlic bread. It’s possible Beniers displayed those skills the weekend before Thanksgiving when his parents and two siblings flew to Seattle to do their version of Thanksgiving along with Borgen.
Going out to dinner gives them a chance to hang out even more, explore different restaurants and also see more of Seattle. It’s just that going out to dinner also means Beniers is learning what it means to be a professional athlete in a public setting.
“Some people might want a picture with him, some people might want to say hi, some people just stare and look at him a little bit,” Borgen said. “It’s probably his first year getting that quite a bit but he is a really nice person who was raised right and that is why he handles things so well.”
What’s it like to be Beniers? How does he handle what comes with being a first-line NHL center, who could win the Calder and help the Kraken now and in the future, all while doing it in a market that is still new to hockey?
“I have no idea!” Beniers says in a way that makes everyone around him laugh. “I don’t even think about it. I think I have high expectations that supersedes what everyone else’s expectations are. I think for a lot of guys on this team someone might say, ‘You played a great game’ and you might think you played awful. I feel like I am the same way.”
Bob, however, does have a way to describe it: It’s surreal. For their family, they realize it was just a few years ago when Matty moved from home to go play for the National Team Development Program. The lessons he learned at the NTDP are still ones he carries with him to this day. Bob said the reason Matty takes a nap before every game is because that is what they did at the NTDP to help players understand how sleep can impact a routine.
Bob and Christine watch Matty’s games on TV. They also try to see him in person when time allows. They flew to Pittsburgh to not only watch the Kraken play the Penguins. But they flew to make sure they could celebrate their son’s 20th birthday. Bob said Christine made sure their son got his presents and “a big hug from mom” because those things are still important.
“I tell him all the time he is a very lucky young man,” Bob said. “I have also told him to take a lot of pictures so he can remember the ride.”
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Ryan McGee
Oct 22, 2025, 07:00 AM ET
Inspirational thought of the week:
(Cole Trickle drives his mangled Chevy Lumina into the pit stall)
Buck Bretherton: “Well, how about that? Something we don’t have to fix!”
(Crew chief Harry Hogge walks over and kicks a dent into the side of the car Bretherton is looking at)
Harry Hogge: “I don’t want you to get spoiled, Buck.”
— “Days of Thunder”
Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located behind the footlocker on the “College GameDay” bus where Nick Saban keeps his secret stash of “Anchor Down” Vanderbilt football apparel, we are beginning to worry that perhaps those of you who visit these rankings, as the kids say, “on the regular” might be like those who benefited from Saban’s time in Tuscaloosa. You’re getting a little spoiled.
Just two weeks ago, we had an all-time majestically meh Pillow Fight of the Week of the Year Mega Bowl matchup between UMess and State of Kent, winners of a lot of the most recent Bottom 10 titles. (We tried to look up exactly how many, but someone spilled Yoo-hoo on the archival floppy disk.) Then, this past week, we had the Sam Houston Bearkats kutting it up with UTEPid. Now the stage is set for a third consecutive PFOWY, as Georgia State Not Southern hosts the South Alabama Redundancies. And, as you will read in the words ahead, this is just the tip of a season-sinking iceberg of not-big games coming, as the spotter on the Titanic shouted way too late, “Right ahead!”
So, for all the talk about Power Autonomous Haughty Four conference realignment, in-conference scheduling, CFP committee résumé reading and the headliner showdowns that all of the above seem to bring with them, how about some props for the same happening down here with us? And by props, I totally mean rubber chickens, whoopee cushions and one of those Groucho Marx plastic-nose-on-the-glasses things.
With apologies to former Wichita State wide receiver Mike Proppe, former Drake tight end Hal Proppe, USC DB Prophet Brown and Steve Harvey, here are the post-Week 8 Bottom 10 rankings.
The Minuetmen continued their Backtion in #MACtion schedule, playing a former fellow Bottom 10 anchor, the Buffalo Bulls Not Bills. With 59 seconds remaining, the Amherst Amblers hauled in an interception that seemed to ice a 21-20 win. As the ESPN Analytics Ouija board said they had a 90.9% chance of victory, UMass players proceeded to demonstratively wave goodbye and do faux snow angels in celebration, drawing an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. After a three-and-out followed by a punt, the Minuetmen surrendered a four-play, 50-yard, 22-second TD drive to lose in the closing seconds, their lead turning out to be as real as that snow.
The bad news? The Bearkats lost the Pillow Fight of the Week of the Year Episode II: Attack of the Groans to UTEPid 35-17. The good news? If they don’t tell anyone it happened, no one is likely to ever know, because the crowd they played in front of was so small it would have saved time in the pregame to have had the PA announcer introduce the people in the stands to the starting lineups instead of the starting lineups to the people in the stands.
Official attendance for Sam Houston vs. UTEP : 671
Smallest crowd in SHSU history https://t.co/rnNmBetqfQ
— UTEPnews (@theUTEPnews) October 16, 2025
What a stretch for the Beavs. They finally won a game, beating the Lafayette Leopards, current leaders of the Patriot League. After a week versus the Fightin’ Bye of Open Date U, they will play the first of their in-season home-and-home double feature against Washington State, with whom they are currently tied for first in the 2Pac. Then they host Sam Houston State in the Pillow Fight of the Week of the Year Episode IV: A New Dope.
The Minors won their second game of the season, but their boat remains mired in the Bottom 4 because Pillow Fight victories over other teams in the Bottom 4 come with trophies made of lead. Plus, that pickax of theirs is always accidentally punching holes in the boat.
Ah, the rites of autumn. You can set your clock to their inevitability. The cool dip of the evening temperatures. The changing colors of the leaves. Suburban moms mainlining pumpkin spice. The Miami Hurricanes interrupting their latest “We’re back!” campaign with a midseason loss that lands them in the Coveted Fifth Spot. And the fans of those Canes not understanding what the Coveted Fifth Spot is despite the fact that they are here every year and thus raise Cane by filling my social media timelines with strings of cuss words stronger than Cuban coffee.
The Woof Pack keeps losing close games, the latest being their two-point defeat at the paws of New Mexico. But you know what they say. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. And atomic bomb tests, which happened about 300 miles east of Reno. Feels pretty close to us.
Much like we should all keep a safe distance between ourselves and atomic bomb testing, the Blew Raiders have a built-in buffer between Murfreesboro and the Bottom 5 in the form of Novada, whom they edged by the closest of margins, 14-13 way back in Week 3. But their Nov. 22 visit from Sam Houston does have the makings of a possible boundary-smashing Pillow Fight of the Week of the Year Episode VII: The Farce Awakens.
Meanwhile, the Pillow Fight of the Week of the Year Y’all Edition was won by Georgia Southern Not State over Georgia State Not Southern. I made a joke last week that the loser would have to change their name from GSU to GUS but was angrily informed that this game already has a GUS in the form of the Georgia Southern Eagles mascot named, yes, Gus. The nastiest letter I received wasn’t signed, but it was covered in white feathers.
Our second-favorite red, white and blue team named USA returns to these rankings just in time for its matchup with Georgia State Not Southern, a meeting of the last-place teams in each division of the Fun Belt, aka the Pillow Fight of the Week of the Year Episode V: The Empire Looks Wack.
In my mind I can see this one resident of Massachusetts who had his heart broken by the Red Sox to start the MLB postseason … so he decided to go to the UConn-Boston College game to clear his head, only to watch the Eagles get run over by the Artist Formerly Known As U-Can’t … but then had the thought, “Hey, I can make it out to Amherst for the second half!” and started waving bye with 0:59 remaining when he thought UMass was going to win and watched the Minuetmen blow it … so, when he finally got home to Southie, and after his dog bit him, he made himself feel better by opening a six-pack of Sam Adams and going on the new ESPN App to watch the replay of Bill Belichick’s Tar Holes losing to Cal by fumbling the ball at the goal line late in the fourth quarter.
Waiting list: Northern Ill-ugh-noise, State of Kent, EMU Emus, Oklahoma State No Pokes, Charlotte 1-and-6ers, Wisconsin Bad-gers, Akronmonious, UNC Chapel Bill, the USC-Notre Dame series ending.
Sports
‘This didn’t happen overnight’: Why the Mariners are built to be back after a crushing ALCS loss
Published
5 hours agoon
October 22, 2025By
admin
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David SchoenfieldOct 22, 2025, 07:00 AM ET
Close- Covers MLB for ESPN.com
- Former deputy editor of Page 2
- Been with ESPN.com since 1995
Seattle Mariners pitcher Bryan Woo was being interviewed in the clubhouse following the team’s Game 7 loss in the American League Championship Series to the Toronto Blue Jays when, suddenly, in the background, you can hear an anguished scream.
Mariners’ fans understand heartbreak — they can relate to that scream.
For most of the 49-season existence of the Mariners, fans of the club relied on hope: hope for the first winning season, hope the franchise didn’t relocate, hope of making the playoffs for the first time, hope to end a 20-year playoff drought. Hope for a World Series. And with one crack of the bat on Monday night, that hope was crushed.
It didn’t start out that way, though. The Mariners won the first two games of the ALCS on the road in Toronto — and teams that won the first two on the road in a best-of-seven series had gone 26-3 in MLB history (excluding 2020).
After dropping the first two games in Seattle, they won a dramatic Game 5 on Eugenio Suarez‘s grand slam to take a 3-2 series lead. The winner of Game 5, when a series was tied, had gone on to win a best-of-seven series 69% of the time in MLB history.
The Mariners went on to lose Game 6, playing about as sloppy a game as you can play, and then lost Game 7 on George Springer‘s three-run home run in the seventh inning — only the second come-from-behind home run while trailing by multiple runs in a winner-take-all game in playoff history (Pete Alonso hit the first last year for the New York Mets).
That’s a lot of qualifiers, but it hammers home the despair: That was an especially difficult defeat, eight outs away from the franchise’s first ever World Series, a moment Seattle sports fans will forever remember, alongside not giving the ball to Marshawn Lynch in Super Bowl XLIX. The Mariners remain the only one of the 30 franchises never to play in a Fall Classic.
The pain will linger. Soon enough, however, thoughts will turn to 2026, as they must — and Seattle is well-positioned not only for next season, but for the long term.
While the Mariners have just two playoff appearances in the past five seasons, they’re one of the most stable organizations in the sport, one of just six with winning records every season since 2021 and seventh in wins in that span. They have a strong farm system that features eight players ranked in Kiley McDaniel’s August top 100 prospects update, including shortstop Colt Emerson, the No. 7 prospect, and pitcher Kade Anderson, the No. 3 pick in the 2025 MLB draft, who ranks No. 16.
The Mariners also have a stable group of core players: Of the 17 who were worth at least 0.8 WAR in 2025 — MVP candidate Cal Raleigh led the way with 7.3 — all except free agent Josh Naylor and second baseman/DH Jorge Polanco are already signed to new contracts or remain under team control (Polanco has a $7 million player option that he will likely opt out from).
Both remain good fits in the lineup after strong 2025 campaigns, especially Naylor. Other than a couple of solid years from Ty France in 2021-22, first base has been a revolving door — and a problem — for the Mariners ever since John Olerud was traded more than 20 years ago. Re-signing Naylor, in part because he also provides some much-needed contact skills in a strikeout-heavy lineup, feels imperative.
It’s not an old team either. Polanco (31), J.P. Crawford (30) and Randy Arozarena (30) are the only regulars older than 28 years old, while Luis Castillo (32) is the only starting pitcher older than 28. Castillo is signed for two more seasons while the other rotation members are also under control for at least two more years — Logan Gilbert (2027), George Kirby (2028) and Bryan Woo and Bryce Miller (2029). Having that kind of potential stability in the rotation is an enviable position — with Anderson likely to move fast through the minors and Ryan Sloan, a second-round pick out of high school in 2024 and now No. 43 in ESPN’s prospect rankings, flashing top-of-the-rotation stuff in his first minor league season and also capable of a quick rise to the majors.
The foundation for the team’s current success can be traced back to the 2018-19 offseason. Jerry Dipoto, the president of baseball operations, took over the top job for the Mariners after the 2015 season. They had winning seasons in 2016 and 2018, but after the second one, Dipoto was worried about the future of the organization.
“We were just coming off an 89-win season,” he told ESPN during the ALCS. “At the end of the regular season, I’ll sit down with our owners and talk through what the plan is for the year ahead. I thought the right thing to do after visiting with our front office group was just to reboot. We were a little too old, we were a little too top-heavy, and we had very little in the way of prospect capital. We weren’t going to be able to continue to beat that engine and sustain a competitive, championship-level team.”
The front office produces a flowchart of the organization each year that maps out the next six seasons, trying to estimate what those six years will look like. It didn’t look good, so the Mariners committed to a rebuild. It began with Crawford, acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies for Jean Segura (after the Phillies had first asked for Edwin Diaz, who was instead traded to the Mets), and he’s been the team’s starting shortstop ever since.
Seattle also watched Julio Rodriguez, signed as a 16-year-old in 2017, flourish and develop into an immediate star as a 21-year-old rookie in 2022. His inability to lay off sliders low and away — like the final pitch of the 2025 season — can certainly be frustrating, but he’s had two 30-30 seasons by age 24 while averaging 5.7 WAR. His 6.8 WAR in 2025 ranked fourth among AL position players.
That he’s turned into a potential Gold Glove center fielder (he’s a finalist for the award this season) is just an added bonus.
“We all thought that he was going to wind up being a corner man,” Dipoto said. “And, you know, between the ages of 19 and 21, he leaned out, turned into athletic Adonis, and unbeknownst to us, coordinated with his agent, Ulises Cabrera, and invested in an Olympic running coach. He came to spring training in 2022, and he said, ‘You think I can play center field?’ Because he made it a goal of his to be a center fielder.”
Rodriguez not only impresses on the field, but off as well, with Dipoto speaking highly of his star player’s focus, how he wants to be great and how he has studied the careers of great athletes.
“When Julio is in a quiet space, he’s a deep thinker,” Dipoto said. “He is focused on becoming as great as he can become.”
Maybe there’s even more to come — especially if Rodriguez can learn to lay off those sliders.
Along the way, with Dipoto at the helm, the Mariners were drafting pitchers — and doing a great job of developing them. In 2018, they drafted Gilbert in the first round. In 2019, it was Kirby in the first round. Miller was a fourth-round pick in 2021 while Woo was a sixth-rounder that year. They acquired closer Andres Munoz and setup man Matt Brash in two separate trades with the San Diego Padres on the same day in 2020, giving up nobody of major consequence in either deal.
Dipoto credits Scott Hunter, his scouting director since 2016, and Hunter’s staff, as well as Justin Hollander, who is now the team’s general manager. It’s rare to find rotation stalwarts such as Miller and Woo at that point in the draft — let alone two high-leverage relievers in one day.
“Every player that’s been acquired in a trade or drafted was acquired while we were here, and that makes it really special,” Dipoto said. “This didn’t happen overnight. We’ve bumped our head, we’ve stubbed our toe, we’ve put our foot in our mouth. Literally. And you learn.
“To see J.P. Crawford out there since 2019. He’s the rock. To see Julio, who we signed as a 16-year-old, standing out in center field, doing things that really are on a Hall of Fame trajectory. To see Cal Raleigh, who we drafted and developed, go out there and have maybe the best catcher season in history. To see a starting rotation that is 80 percent homegrown.”
Dipoto first signed Crawford to a long-term deal in 2022, then Rodriguez later that same summer and Raleigh before this season. With J-Rod and Raleigh signed through at least 2031, the offensive foundation in Seattle is there, with that group of prospects on the way.
The ultimate key for 2026 sits with the rotation — it struggled in the ALCS with a 6.37 ERA and averaged less than four innings per start. Its collective WAR took a big dip from 2024:
Baseball-Reference
2025: 7.8 (19th)
2024: 11.7 (10th)
FanGraphs
2025: 11.0 (14th)
2024: 14.9 (fourth)
Some of the decline can be attributed to injuries — Gilbert, Kirby and Miller each missed significant time with them — but note the home/road splits in ERA for Seattle’s starters over the past two seasons:
2025
Home: 3.30
Road: 4.67
2024
Home: 2.74
Road: 4.05
Given the quick hooks manager Dan Wilson deployed throughout the postseason, it seemed he didn’t exactly trust his starters to go deep either (Woo, the best starter in the regular season, wasn’t at full strength and pitched only out of the bullpen in the ALCS).
It makes you wonder: Does this team need an ace? Perhaps one like Tarik Skubal, who is entering his final year with the Detroit Tigers before free agency and will see trade speculation follow him all winter if the Tigers don’t sign him to an extension. The Mariners have the prospects and the pitching depth to at least make a serious inquiry into Skubal.
Emerson is likely to take over at third base in 2025 and will eventually replace Crawford at shortstop in 2027 after Crawford’s deal runs out. That means letting the popular Suarez, the third baseman who the Mariners traded for at the deadline this year, leave as a free agent. Second baseman Cole Young (No. 57 on the preseason top 100 prospect list) played 77 games as a rookie this season and will get another shot after starting well before slumping to a final line of .211/.302/.305. He hit just four home runs, but he’s only 22 years old and there might be more power to come (“You should see his BP sessions,” Dipoto said). Rookie catcher Harry Ford, No. 65 in the August update, should take over the backup duties behind Raleigh after a strong showing at Triple-A, perhaps letting Raleigh take a few more DH at-bats and rest those legs after playing all but three regular-season games for Seattle in 2025.
Everyone around the team says that the oft-mentioned good vibes with the Mariners were the real deal, with a clubhouse that got along and a good-natured group of players. The ALCS defeat was disappointing, but the Mariners will be back.
“Players come here and they fall in love,” Dipoto said. “They fall in love with the environment. It’s a beautiful ballpark. It’s the clubhouse. It’s the camaraderie. It’s the 25 teammates. That’s an awesome thing that’s been happening here for a number of years.”
The foundation has been set. Now the organization just needs to figure out how to go one — or, preferably, two — steps further.
Sports
Rising son: Gators task Spurrier Jr. to help QB
Published
7 hours agoon
October 22, 2025By
admin
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Associated Press
Oct 22, 2025, 01:08 PM ET
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Florida Gators are turning to Steve Spurrier to help fix the team’s floundering offense.
Steve Spurrier Jr., anyway.
Interim coach Billy Gonzales said Wednesday the younger Spurrier, who was hired as an offensive analyst earlier this year, will be more involved with quarterback DJ Lagway when the Gators (3-4, 2-2 SEC) play No. 5 Georgia (6-1, 4-1) in Jacksonville on Nov. 1.
Gonzales will have tight ends coach/offensive coordinator Russ Callaway organize the offense alongside quarterbacks coach Ryan O’Hara in the booth. O’Hara will be on the headset calling plays to Lagway.
Spurrier, meanwhile, will be on the sideline working directly with the sophomore quarterback.
“What we’re trying to do right now is tweak a couple things so we can put our players in a better situation to go out and make plays and perform at a higher level,” said Gonzales, named the interim after Billy Napier was fired Sunday. “We all understand that’s what we need to do. So that’s the No. 1 goal for us as a coaching staff right now.”
Napier was dismissed, in large part, because he failed to get Florida’s offense on track in his four seasons. The Gators totaled a combined 50 points in losses to South Florida, LSU, Miami and Texas A&M this fall, and they rank 15th in the league in scoring.
Facing the Bulldogs without Napier could show how much of a hindrance he was to an offense that believes it has enough talent to compete in the SEC. Gonzales has made it clear he wants to open things up more and get the ball down the field to receivers.
Spurrier is a part of the plan. The 54-year-old son of a Hall of Fame player and coach who is a living legend in Gainesville, Spurrier spent the past two years at Tulsa. He also worked at Mississippi State (2020-22), Washington State (2018-19), Western Kentucky (2017) and Oklahoma (2016). Before that, he spent a decade working under his famous father at South Carolina (2005-15).
“Whenever you’re around one of the greatest offensive minds in history, it’s obviously going to rub off on you as well,” Gonzales said. “He’s been involved, but now he’s going to have more of a role because he’s going to be down there on the field with the quarterback looking in his eyes and getting a chance to talk to him and review the film that’s being relayed.
“It’s going to put us in a great situation to help DJ and the quarterbacks perform on the football field.”
Lagway has thrown for 1,513 yards, with nine touchdowns and nine interceptions, this season while playing behind a shaky offensive line. He has looked better of late as he moves closer to fully recovering from a derailed offseason that included core-muscle surgery, nagging shoulder pain and a strained calf muscle.
“It’s been a long journey, and I’m thankful for the good and the bad,” Lagway said. “God doesn’t make any mistakes. I’m just excited to see where my journey continues and how I can continue to get better.”
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