Deion’s big loss, Ohio State’s narrow escape and an epic Week 4 that lived up to the hype
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David Hale, ESPN Staff Writer
The first three weeks of the season came with some genuine drama, some true upsets and roughly a billion stories about Coach Prime, but it was all little more than an appetizer to Week 4 — a Bloomin’ Onion to Saturday’s 64-ounce sirloin.
This was a day with six matchups between ranked teams.
This was a day in which Deion Sanders would finally be tested, Florida State could assert its place atop the ACC, and Alabama‘s masked defensive coordinator would finally be revealed.
This was the day a nation watched New Mexico and UMass go to overtime.
Before Saturday, the narratives were paper thin, the contenders vast, the signature wins rare.
Week 4 gave us big-boy football.
Ohio State toppled Notre Dame by about an inch and a half with one second left on the clock.
Florida State survived a heavyweight battle in overtime.
Penn State delivered a statement that it was a true contender in the Big Ten, and James Franklin was officially removed from Brian Ferentz’s Christmas card list.
Washington State won the battle of the last two remaining Pac-12 teams, which we’re pretty sure earns it a trophy of some sort. It might just be the old Civil ConFLiCt trophy with a Beaver duct-taped to the top, but a trophy nonetheless.
Nick Saban proved once again that Lane Kiffin might win every news conference, but he’s got no hope of toppling Alabama on the field.
Saturday gave us Dan Lanning’s takedown of Coach Prime, a shootout in Baton Rouge, a near-perfect performance from Spencer Rattler, a left-handed touchdown pass from Drake Maye, and Curt Cignetti asking the officials to hilariously record his voicemail greeting (or at least that’s what we choose to believe he was doing).
‘It’s clear, zebras!’ pic.twitter.com/jRT9fJq591
— Tim Holt (@TimmayHolt) September 24, 2023
In South Bend, Sam Hartman and a methodical ground game had Ohio State on the ropes and Notre Dame oh-so close to a signature win. It was not to be. Kyle McCord led a 15-play drive, hit Emeka Egbuka for a 21-yard pickup to the 1 on third-and-19, then helped push Chip Trayanum just barely over the goal line with a second left to play. If the Big Ten has given us myriad 17-14 games over the years that felt like watching paint dry, Ohio State’s win was more akin to a Godzilla-versus-Mothra showdown of titans, in which every inch of real estate earned felt momentous.
In Clemson, the Tigers looked as dynamic and intimidating as they have in three years, and it still wasn’t enough to upend ascendant Florida State. Jordan Travis and Kalen DeLoach, two players who arrived under Willie Taggart’s doomed tenure, rallied the Seminoles to a come-from-behind win in overtime.
In Tuscaloosa, the Crimson Tide’s offensive woes continued, but Saban proved he — or someone — still knows how to design a defense. After Kiffin promoted the conspiracy theory that Saban had secretly changed defensive playcallers a week ago (and also helped fake the moon landing, we assume), the Tide held Ole Miss to just 3-of-14 on third down, 301 total yards, and 10 points.
On the Palouse, Washington State fended off a late push by Oregon State to survive 38-35. It marked yet another in a long run of Oregon State hoping for a last-minute reprieve, only to face certain relegation to the Mountain West. It also served as a reminder that Cougars QB Cameron Ward is one of the nation’s best. He threw for 404 yards (averaged 11.9 per pass on 34 attempts) and four touchdowns in the win.
Around the country, 12 teams that entered Week 4 undefeated left with a loss.
In other words, Saturday’s games had genuine resonance — a moment when heavyweights traded blows, Cinderellas became pumpkins, Ryan Day gave the most incoherent speech about Ohio since Howard Dean, and a band member wielded a trident.
There is so much more to the story of the 2023 season still to be written, but Saturday felt like the moment when the main characters were fully fleshed out, the plot began in earnest, and stakes were made clear.
FSU, Clemson go the extra mile
The story began with a man on the beach, just hoping to enjoy his last few weeks before starting a new job. It was a story Dabo Swinney, quite presciently, predicted would either be “great or terrible.”
Indeed, there are great man-on-beach stories, such as “Weekend at Bernie’s,” and there are terrible ones, like “Weekend at Bernie’s 2.”
Alas, Saturday was the latter for Clemson.
The Tigers, in need of help in the kicking game, brought in Jonathan Weitz on Monday to take over the starting job. Weitz had been Clemson’s backup for four years, but he’d assumed his college career was done after the 2022 season ended, he left for a study abroad in Paris — “He spent the spring looking at the Eiffel Tower,” said Swinney, who we assume also believes everyone in St. Louis lives under the arch — then moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where he was taking online classes.
But Clemson needed a kicker, Swinney placed a call, and Weitz arrived Monday to join the team. Due to NCAA acclimation period rules, Saturday was his first day in pads.
The story began like a Shakespeare play, with Weitz drilling his first kick to give Clemson an early 3-0 lead, but it ended in tragedy, with Weitz missing a chip shot from 29 yards out with 1 minute, 45 seconds to play.
(Note: We haven’t read a lot of Shakespeare. We’re assuming they all have happy endings.)
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Florida State survives Clemson in OT to remain undefeated
Florida State moves to 4-0 on the season as it gets help from a Clemson missed field goal and clutch play in overtime.
The miss left the game tied, and in overtime, Florida State prevailed 31-24 thanks to the second touchdown of the day from receiver Keon Coleman. It will certainly not be lost on frustrated Clemson fans that it was one of FSU’s transfers who proved to be the difference. Swinney has notoriously shied away from the portal. The beach, of course, is another story.
“I wish I’d been perfect today,” Weitz said afterward. “But that’s my story right now.”
It’s hard to imagine that anyone at Clemson envisioned the story of the Tigers’ 2023 campaign to look like this either.
After a shocking loss to Duke in the opener, Clemson is 0-2 in ACC play for the first time since 2010, Swinney’s second full season on the job. The Tigers have won at least 10 games every year since.
It was, for so long, a game that seemed destined to end with a win, with Swinney delivering another memorable-if-goofy quip (“BYOK, bring your own kicker”), with the coach lording it over the collected doubters that, once again, he was right, and they were wrong.
And then the kick went wide left, FSU scored in the first frame of OT, quarterback Cade Klubnik checked into a poorly timed screen pass on third-and-1, and Clemson’s hopes for another ACC title were all but extinguished.
Jordan Travis, playing with a wounded left arm, gutted out 289 yards and three touchdowns on a day when the running game offered just 22 yards for the Seminoles. Two years ago, he’d nearly quit football. Saturday, he presided over Florida State’s biggest win since at least 2016.
Kalen DeLoach, a holdover recruit from the Willie Taggart era, delivered the fumble return that kept FSU alive. It was almost enough to make FSU fans forget the turnover backpack.
All 289 yards of passing offense for the Seminoles came via transfers. It was a treatise on how to win in this new age of college football.
For the Seminoles, Saturday’s game was a statement. Their time is now.
For Clemson, the ending was less definitive.
Florida State is now firmly in command atop the ACC. Clemson’s title hopes are all but done. And yet, afterward, Klubnik quite reasonably said he hoped the fans saw how good the Tigers played.
Perhaps that’s the takeaway here. Florida State had its own long walk through the wilderness, but a steady accumulation of talent has the Seminoles on the mountaintop.
Clemson might not be in its own wilderness, but it’s certainly stuck in I-85 traffic, at least.
There was a time, not that long ago, that Swinney could pluck a kicker off the beach, throw a jersey on him and turn him loose, knowing — at Clemson — there was a steady supply of magic in the air.
The story ended differently Saturday, as it has all too frequently of late.
The magic belongs in Tallahassee now.
Ducks dump Deion
There are things most college football coaches think but would never say. Things like, “It’d be better to just pay the players” or “NIL is a sham” or “I’m honestly not sure which state Ball State is in.”
On Saturday, however, Oregon head coach Dan Lanning gave voice to all those coaches too uneasy to speak their own minds on Coach Prime.
“The Cinderella story’s over, men,” Lanning said in a fiery pregame speech. “They’re fighting for clicks; we’re fighting for wins.”
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Lanning: Colorado’s fighting for clicks; we’re fighting for wins
Dan Lanning fires his team up pregame with a couple of shots at Colorado.
In fairness to Colorado, everyone knows that clicks are a terrible metric, and the Buffs are actually fighting for engagement and advertiser click-throughs, but that’s splitting hairs.
The important takeaway is Lanning and the Ducks put their money where their mouths were, walloping Colorado 42-6, an abrupt ending to the season’s biggest storyline.
Bo Nix accounted for four touchdowns, and Oregon’s defense was dominant. Many of the cracks in the 3-0 façade finally played havoc with the Buffaloes, with the ground game managing next to nothing, the O-line struggling badly, and the suspect secondary getting burned early and often. In the end, the Colorado die-hards, many of whom have lived and died with this team for upward of four weeks now, were given a cold dose of reality.
More than the on-field issues, however, Lanning’s speech underscored the frustration so many coaches have trying to compete with Deion Sanders, whose big personality and unconventional approach to program building threaten to upend the status quo. In other words, fans love Colorado for the same reason coaches hate the Buffs.
Don’t expect Saturday’s struggles to completely end the Cinderella story, however. Colorado has USC next week, a chance to jump-start the bandwagon. But the Buffs have already exceeded most reasonable expectations, and the buzz around Coach Prime isn’t new and won’t dissolve with a loss or two.
Considering each offseason in college football is as much about brand building and balance sheets, playing for clicks certainly seems like an entirely reasonable way to ultimately land more wins, too.
Did you say ‘Utes’?
The most overlooked team in the country through four weeks? That might be Utah.
The Utes are 4-0. They’ve beaten two ranked opponents. And they’ve done it without their starting QB.
Utah’s offense was far from electric in a 14-7 win over UCLA, but Nate Johnson — starting for the injured Cameron Rising — did enough to win, while the defense was absolutely dominant, including holding the Bruins to 3-of-17 on third-down tries.
The lack of offensive fireworks is probably one reason the Utes have largely been overlooked. In a Pac-12 defined by QB play, Utah has now won games while scoring 24, 20 and 14 and has a total of three touchdown passes in four games — something Caleb Williams or Michael Penix Jr. manage before halftime most weeks.
But credit Kyle Whittingham, who is 23-6 in the past two calendar years. That’s a better record than Clemson, Notre Dame or Oregon and trails only Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State and Alabama in that span.
Ugly win for the Gators
Florida welcomed Biff Poggi and Charlotte to The Swamp in Week 4, and we can only assume the 49ers head coach felt right at home in jean shorts and a sleeveless sweatshirt. Indeed, he probably spent Friday night jamming with a Tom Petty cover band, spearfishing for mermaids and wrestling a 19-foot python to a draw.
On the field, Charlotte looked pretty comfortable, too, largely stifling Florida’s offense that didn’t find the end zone after an early first-quarter score.
Instead, the highlight for the Gators was Ricky Pearsall‘s utterly ridiculous one-handed grab.
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Florida’s Ricky Pearsall channels OBJ with must-see grab
Florida WR Ricky Pearsall needs just one hand to make a spectacular catch for a first down.
Pearsall finished with six catches for 104 yards, but the bulk of the offense came from kicker Trey Smack, who booted five field goals in the game. Ironically, “Trey Smack” is also the pseudonym Poggi uses when checking into hotels so he can’t be tracked by the Yakuza.
Rock, chalk, unranked Jayhawks
A blind résumé comparison through Week 3 …
Team A: 3-0, +11 points-per-game margin, a win over a bad Mountain West team and a win over a solid but underwhelming Power 5 opponent. It played an undefeated opponent in Week 4.
Team B: 3-0, +16.3 points-per-game margin, a win over a bad Mountain West team and a win over a solid but underwhelming Power 5 opponent. It played an undefeated opponent in Week 4.
Team A, you might have guessed, is Colorado. The Buffaloes were the toast of college football and entered Week 4 ranked 19th nationally.
Team B, you might not have guessed, is Kansas, a team largely ignored thus far despite playing extremely well.
So what happened in Week 4?
Colorado was blown out by undefeated Oregon.
Kansas easily beat previously undefeated BYU behind three TD throws from Jalon Daniels.
On offense, Kansas has topped 30 points in five straight games dating to last season. The Jayhawks’ D held BYU to 9 — 9! — total rush yards and had three takeaways in the triumph.
In other words: Rank the Jayhawks!
Heisman Five
Week 4 marks our first Colorado-free Heisman Five. The Buffs will be missed, but we also assume Deion Sanders will take offense to this and earn his revenge at a date to be determined.
1. Washington QB Michael Penix Jr.
The level of competition has not been elite thus far, but a quick recap of what Penix and the Huskies have done …
Week 1: 28-12 Washington with four Penix TD passes
Week 2: 22-3 Washington with two Penix TD passes
Week 3: 35-0 Washington with four Penix TD passes
Week 4: 45-12 Washington with three Penix TD passes
Oh, we’re sorry. That’s what Penix and the Huskies have done this season … in the first half!
2. USC QB Caleb Williams
Arizona State made things interesting, and it was far from a world-beater performance for USC; but ultimately, Williams still emerged with two passing TDs, two rushing scores and more than 300 yards of offense. Next week, he gets his real challenge though: Stealing the show from Coach Prime.
Nix had four total touchdowns in a dominant win over Colorado and, as we all know, when you defeat Coach Prime, you absorb his powers. That’s just science.
4. Florida State QB Jordan Travis
Travis said after the game he felt disrespected because Clemson played so much man defense against him and his cadre of top-tier wide receivers. Dabo Swinney insisted that wasn’t true. He just was too afraid of Travis’ legs to worry about his arm. And that, in a nutshell, is why the Seminoles are so dangerous.
5. North Carolina QB Drake Maye
OK, his numbers might not exactly be Heisman-worthy at this point, but you throw a touchdown left-handed, you make the list.
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Drake Maye throws a TD … left-handed?!
Drake Maye pulls out his best Patrick Mahomes impression and throws a left-handed touchdown.
Under-the-radar play of the week
Louisville‘s 4-0 start under Jeff Brohm is so exciting, it has the Cardinals players doing cartwheels.
Or something like that.
On what appeared to be a trick play, Louisville’s Willie Tyler — a 6-foot-7, 320-pound offensive lineman — lined up in the slot and attempted to distract Boston College by waving his arms and then doing a cartwheel.
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Louisville lineman does a cartwheel midplay
Louisville offensive lineman Willie Tyler does a cartwheel before the Cardinals fumble the ball out of bounds.
It didn’t exactly work, as Jack Plummer and the rest of the offense flubbed away their part of the ruse, but points to Tyler for some serious skill.
Having said that, it was hardly an effective distraction. Everyone knows if you want to distract someone from Boston, you just yell, “Brady sucks!” and then let them throw empty Sam Adams cans at each other for the next 45 minutes.
Under-the-radar game of the week
If you enjoyed Miami vs. Miami in Week 1, then Week 4 had just the matchup for you.
In Houston (a city named for Sam Houston) on Saturday, Houston (a school named after the city named for Sam Houston) faced off against … Sam Houston (a school named for Sam Houston but not the city of Houston because it’s actually located Huntsville, Texas, which, of course, is named for famed frontiersman Tiberius K. Huntsville).
Certainly it seemed like Houston was the better team, but then, Sam Houston had 100% of the Sam in this one. It would be like a mid-’90s battle of the bands between The Verve and The Verve Pipe. Sure, “Bittersweet Symphony” was a banger, but how do you account for the pipe?
As it turned out, Houston (the team) was entirely too much for Sam Houston (the team, not the man), winning 38-7 behind 105 yards and three rushing TDs from Parker Jenkins. Also, believe it or not, Sam Houston (the man) was actually born in Virginia.
There will be a quiz on all this later.
Harbaugh’s return
Michigan‘s long wait for the return of its head coach came to an end Saturday. Yes, Jim Harbaugh had to pack up his model trains, put away the ham radio and sign out of Netflix with four seasons of “The Big Bang Theory” left to watch and get back to the business of embarrassing Rutgers.
In his absence, Michigan won all three games — all vs. lesser competition, all in convincing, if not entirely satisfying, fashion.
So, what happened with Harbaugh back on the sideline? A win against lesser competition in convincing, if not entirely satisfying, fashion — this time 31-7.
Rutgers scored first on a 69-yard touchdown pass from Gavin Wimsatt to Christian Dremel, and Michigan’s offense largely puttered through the first half, leading just 14-7 at the break.
But like Harbaugh’s three-week relaxation retreat, the fun had to come to an end eventually, with the Wolverines’ D netting a pick-six and running back Blake Corum finishing the job. J.J. McCarthy averaged better than 10 yards per throw, Corum scored twice, and the defense held Rutgers to 3-of-13 on third and fourth down. It was, like each of the Wolverines’ games so far, fine. And given that Michigan’s next five games are also against lesser competition, fine is likely more than enough to keep it chugging along.
Oh, sorry for the chugging reference. We know Harbaugh misses his trains.
Paint the town Orange
Garrett Shrader threw for a touchdown and ran for one — his sixth straight multi-TD game — while the Syracuse defense frustrated Army‘s option en route to a 29-16 win.
Syracuse is now 4-0 in consecutive seasons for the first time in 63 years. Back then, Syracuse traveled to road games via the Erie Canal, and Varsity Pizza had just been promoted from the freshman pizza team to JV.
Up next for the Orange is Clemson, a team they had on the ropes a year ago with a 7-0 start to the season in their sights. In that game, however, the Tigers marched back from a 21-7 deficit and won 27-21 after holding the Orange scoreless in the second half, and Syracuse dropped six of its final seven games.
Johnson emerges for A&M
Fun fact: Max Johnson is still playing college football.
Yes, he somehow feels older than his Super Bowl champion dad, Brad, but that’s only because time moves differently at Texas A&M thanks to Jimbo Fisher’s offense breaking the space-time continuum.
Nevertheless, it’s good for the Aggies that Johnson is still around because they desperately needed someone who could sling it against Auburn on Saturday.
After two early field goal drives, A&M’s offense went three-and-out on three straight drives to end the half. Starting QB Conner Weigman went down with an injury, and offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino was already getting his agent to send over his CV to apply for Fisher’s job. (We’re kidding, of course. Fisher dodges job-security concerns better than he dodges Auburn defenders.)
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Auburn DB dodges Jimbo Fisher en route to defensive TD
Auburn’s Eugene Asante picks up the loose ball and dodges Jimbo Fisher as he runs down the sideline for a 67-yard touchdown.
Instead, Johnson came on and tossed touchdown passes on consecutive drives to open the second half, and a 67-yard scoop-and-score put the game out of reach early in the fourth quarter. The Aggies won 27-10.
On the flip side, Auburn’s passing game was a complete mess. Payton Thorne, Robby Ashford and Holden Geriner all took snaps and finished a combined 9-of-23 passing for just 56 yards, with Auburn’s lone TD coming via the defense. And that performance might have reminded Petrino that he still has an application on file with Auburn’s human resources department.
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Andrea Adelson
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — DJ Lagway has a vivid memory of one of his first visits to Florida. He remembers sitting in the quarterbacks meeting room with future first-round pick Anthony Richardson and a few other players, coach Billy Napier and assistant Ryan O’Hara.
Lagway was at the beginning of his high school quarterback career, just starting to dive into the ins and outs of what it takes to play the position. He heard them going over concepts in intricate detail, but he also saw the way the coaches taught, the way the players learned and the relationship they all had with one another.
The more he listened, the more he realized how badly he needed to be in this room himself, believing he could become elite with this type of coaching. “They were just talking and I’m like, ‘I don’t know what that is, but I’ve got to learn that,'” Lagway says.
He committed to Florida in 2022, at a time when Napier needed a big recruiting win. Though he was a toddler in Willis, Texas, when Florida had won its last national championship in 2008, Lagway grew up on stories about the Gators. He loved the colors. He loved the swagger the team played with.
His cousins used to play college football video games, and as a way to appease him, they gave him a fake controller so he could feel like he was playing with them. The first cover he remembers had Tim Tebow on it.
Lagway knew full well how much pressure comes with playing quarterback at a school that has produced three Heisman Trophy winners at the position, but he believed in what he heard in that meeting room, and he believed that Napier could help him live up to expectations. He held firm to his commitment, signed in 2023 and wowed when he played as a true freshman last season.
Now, the stage in Gainesville is his. No fake game controllers needed.
FOUR YEARS AGO, very few people outside Texas knew about Lagway. He started his freshman year at Willis High at safety, playing quarterback situationally. Once the season ended, though, he switched full time to quarterback and started working with a private coach. That summer, headed into his sophomore year, he went to a prospect camp at Texas, zero offers in hand.
Arch Manning, the No. 1 quarterback prospect in the class of 2023, was at the same camp. Lagway admits he was a bit in awe. He embraced the opportunity to learn from Texas coach Steve Sarkisian but also measure himself against some of the top quarterback prospects a year ahead of him.
“I did pretty well, actually,” Lagway says. “It let me know that I can go out there and compete with anybody. It was just fun to see how my talent stacked up with other players in the state and seeing that I can do it. With a lot of more work and a lot of more time put in, it was going to pay off.”
As a sophomore, he relied on his ability as a runner while he learned the mechanics of how to become a great passer. Lagway went to Gainesville for a visit right after that season, the first spring Napier was at Florida in 2022. Napier said he had watched the tape and saw a big, long athletic player he described as “a ball of clay” because he was just getting started at quarterback. It was a no-brainer to offer him a scholarship.
“That meant the world to me,” Lagway says.
Napier went to visit Lagway in Texas whenever he could, and the two formed a close bond. Lagway started to rise in the recruiting rankings, becoming the No. 1 dual-threat quarterback in his class. And following his junior season in 2022, Lagway committed to Florida.
He still had one year left to play in high school, and he made the most of it, throwing 58 touchdown passes and rushing for 16 more en route to Gatorade National Player of the Year honors.
But as Lagway reached new heights in 2023, Florida struggled, losing five straight to end the season. Florida recruits started to decommit, and Lagway kept getting phone calls from programs eager to flip his commitment, telling him Napier would not last long with the Gators. If Lagway changed his mind on Florida, Napier may have been on even shakier ground after going 5-7 to close out his second season as coach.
“He was in one of those ‘tip the scale’ scenarios,” Napier said. “We lost probably four or five other commits down the stretch there. We built that class around him, and if he folds his cards, then probably a lot of other kids do, too. But he stuck. He had a vision for what he wanted to do here. He has a little bit of that edge to where he feels like he could be the catalyst. He could be the one.”
Lagway says that despite the calls from other schools, he never wavered in his decision to go to Florida.
“I stayed true to my commitment because I’m a man of my word,” Lagway said. “I saw day to day how Coach Napier and Coach O’Hara coach, and I knew if I was in their system, I’d be getting developed to get to the NFL.”
Napier believes their early interest in him played a big role. So does O’Hara, the quarterbacks coach at Florida.
“He has no fear. That’s the part that I always come back to, is: ‘Why did you stay committed to us?'” O’Hara said. “He saw the vision. He believed in Napier. He believed in what I could teach him to develop at quarterback. He believed in the system. He believed in the players we were recruiting. He never flinched.
“People were throwing money at him, taking trips to see him. Some heavy hitters, really good quarterback developers. He sees Anthony get drafted, and then the development with (Graham) Mertz, and was like, ‘OK, I can go do this. I can make this my place.’ He did that last year. Now it’s his turn.”
THE AUTOGRAPHED FOOTBALL sits at the center of the table inside the quarterbacks room at the Florida football facility. O’Hara picks it up, explaining that his dad gave it to him as a gift when he was officially promoted to the position earlier this spring after serving as an offensive analyst.
O’Hara took one look at the ball, signed by the Heisman winning trio of Danny Wuerffel, Steve Spurrier and Tim Tebow, and decided it would stay in the meeting room, “just for the guys to keep the aura around, like, ‘Remember where you’re at.'”
Not that Lagway needs any reminders.
The vibes are far different than they were a year ago, when the pressure was on Napier to deliver. The plan was for Lagway to play situationally behind Mertz. But after Mertz sustained a concussion in the season opener against Miami, Lagway had his opportunity to start Week 2 against Samford.
“That whole week was a roller coaster,” Lagway said. “I was battling with some shoulder soreness, just trying to figure out what was going on with that. I wasn’t even sure I was going to play, not even sure I was going to play the season. But still being able to lock in and prepare and just give it my all, that’s what I wanted to do.”
Lagway ended up starting and set a Florida true freshman record with 456 yards passing and three touchdowns. That performance was all Florida fans had to see to double down on their belief that Lagway was the next Gators quarterback great. How did he do that with a sore shoulder? “I’m still trying to figure that out,” he says with a chuckle. Mertz went down with a season-ending knee injury against Tennessee in mid-October. Lagway entered the game and threw a 27-yard touchdown pass with 29 seconds left to send the game into overtime before Florida ultimately lost.
Three weeks later, Lagway had Florida up 10-3 on Georgia in the second quarter. But he pulled his hamstring and missed the rest of the game, and Florida lost for the seventh time in the last eight games against its rival. The injuries felt like they were piling up on Lagway, but so was the pressure he placed on himself to perform.
“That was very frustrating, because I knew how close I was to achieving something that hasn’t been achieved in a long time,” Lagway said. “This is where I kind of messed up, too. I was always looking for that big moment to make history. I wanted to be in the history books forever.”
There is still time for that, of course, but what Lagway did as a true freshman has set the stage for 2025. Lagway went 6-1 as the starter — the lone loss to Georgia, a game he did not finish. His performance also helped stabilize a program that had been teetering. Athletic director Scott Stricklin announced last November that Napier would return for Year 4.
“That decision by Scott was not about me,” Napier said. “It is more of an investment in the entire group. If we don’t have good people, then we probably do splinter. We probably do fall apart. I do think you saw the players take a deep breath and then go play the game the way it should be played down the stretch.”
Indeed, Florida finished on a four-game winning streak, including upset wins over LSU and Ole Miss with Lagway leading the charge. It was the first time since 2003 that an unranked Florida team had beaten Top 25 opponents in consecutive games.
IN JANUARY, O’HARA asked Lagway to come up with a list of goals for this season. They turned it into a PowerPoint slide and saved it, so Lagway can look at it as a reminder whenever he wants. They are keeping those goals private for now, but there is no doubting what Lagway wants: a championship.
To that end, he has spent the offseason watching tape whenever possible. “He’s obsessed with playing quarterback,” O’Hara says.
So obsessed that he texted Napier a screenshot of Kirk Cousins‘ home screen setup after watching the “Quarterback” series on Netflix and asked for the same thing so he could also watch tape like that at home. He texts O’Hara constantly with questions, videos, notes, voice memos, eager to learn as much as possible.
“The big emphasis this year is looking at defenses,” O’Hara said. “We come in here and we might watch 60 clips of one coverage and watch how it unfolds against all these concepts. That’s where he’ll be better, defensive recognition and tying that in with playing more on time from the pocket, getting the ball out quickly, being clean with his footwork and then shortening up his stroke.”
“I want to get better at the boring plays” is something Lagway says to O’Hara all the time. It is obvious how electric he can be with the ball in his hands, but O’Hara said the coaching staff has tried to emphasize to Lagway that checking down and throwing to the running back is sometimes a better option than taking off and running.
Keeping the starting quarterback healthy is obviously a necessary ingredient for any team’s success, but Florida has to be particularly mindful with Lagway. He missed spring practice after offseason core muscle surgery and struggled with shoulder soreness. He has dealt with a calf strain throughout preseason camp. Lagway says the injuries he has faced since his arrival have been frustrating, but he is trying not to dwell on them.
He has asked former Gators quarterbacks for advice. He has listened when Spurrier has walked into the quarterbacks room to go over his own mantras and best practices. Napier says Lagway is also trying to figure out how to handle his stardom on campus.
“He can’t go to the softball game without people lining up when he goes to get a drink at the concession stand,” Napier says. “He’s learning a different lifestyle in that regard. He’s navigating the injury bug. He’s navigating this superstar spotlight. He’s navigating the expectations of this season. For us, we have to help him deal with all the things that come with being the quarterback at a place like this.”
He is a celebrity, though, as much as Florida has tried to shield him from all the hype. Over the summer, he filmed a T-Mobile commercial with Patrick Mahomes and Rob Gronkowski. He has other NIL deals with Gatorade, Nintendo, Leaf Trading Cards and Lamborghini Orlando. Lagway has donated part of the money he has received through those deals to support women’s athletic programs at Florida and to start his own foundation in partnership with UF Health.
Those deals do not happen without his talent or his star power. The focus, at least to Lagway and the coaching staff, is on all the ways he can be better this season. O’Hara says Lagway’s instincts to see the field and make plays are “as pure as I’ve ever been around at any position.”
But instincts only take you so far.
“People think he’s just this big, talented dude, but he really wants to improve at every part of playing quarterback,” O’Hara says. “That’s what makes him so dangerous. He can be as good as he wants to be.”
Lagway himself says he wants to make history. There is one certain way to do that when playing quarterback at Florida: ending the recent run of mediocrity and winning a championship.
“I knew what I signed up for coming into this so I’m excited for it,” Lagway said. “It’s going to be fun.”
The SEC will play a nine-game conference schedule starting in 2026, the league said Thursday, a historic move it’s been considering for years.
The decision was approved by the SEC’s presidents and chancellors after a recommendation by the athletic directors in the conference.
“Adding a ninth SEC game underscores our universities’ commitment to delivering the most competitive football schedule in the nation,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in a news release. “This format protects rivalries, increases competitive balance, and paired with our requirement to play an additional Power opponent, ensures SEC teams are well prepared to compete and succeed in the College Football Playoff.”
Under the new format, the SEC will continue to play without divisions. Each school will play three annual opponents focused on maintaining traditional rivalries, and the remaining six games will rotate among the rest of the league opponents.
Each team will face every other SEC program at least once every two years and every opponent home and away over four years.
SEC teams are still required to schedule at least one additional high-quality nonconference opponent from the Atlantic Coast, Big Ten or Big 12 conferences or Notre Dame each season.
The SEC will continue to evaluate its policies to ensure the continued scheduling of nonconference opponents from the Power 4.
Several ACC athletic directors told ESPN they see no reason traditional ACC-SEC rivalries will be impacted, but future scheduled games with the SEC could be canceled.
ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips said his league is not planning to move from its 8-game conference schedule at this time.
“I like where we’re at with eight games,” Phillips said. “We’ll adjust if we have to, but I think some of those traditional [non-conference] rivalry games that we really enjoy could go away.”
Sankey said on The Paul Finebaum Show that the 2026 schedule will be released later this fall. He added that the College Football Playoff’s decision to use enhanced strength of schedule metrics played into the decision to expand the conference schedule.
“The CFP has made progress, but we’re not at perfection as to how strength of schedule will be used in the selection process,” he said.
Last month, Sankey told ESPN the conference has been discussing a nine-game league schedule since the Clinton administration.
The SEC has played eight conference games each season since 1992, when the conference first expanded from 10 to 12 teams with the addition of Arkansas and South Carolina. The lone exception was the 2020 COVID season when the SEC scheduled 10 conference games and did not play nonconference games.
The SEC played seven conference games per year from 1988 to 1991 and six games from 1974 to 1987.
Before 1974, there was no uniform requirement for the number of conference games to be played by each school, with most schools playing six or seven league contests per year.
ESPN’s David Hale and Andrea Adelson contributed to this report.
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