Florida Football: Napier Announces Mertz Starting QB

Florida football officially has a new starting Quarterback. Graham Mertz.

News broke this afternoon that Billy Napier had officially informed the team of his decision.

Florida Football: New sheriff in town

Mertz started 32 games at Wisconsin with just over 2,000 career snaps and finished 2022 with 2,136 yards passing, which is a career-high, 57 percent completion rate and 2,136 passing yards, 19 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions with a 52.9 QBR.

As expected, Mertz won the starting job over redshirt sophomore Jack Miller and redshirt freshman Max Brown.

His arrival in Gainesville was not the most exciting pickup Florida could have made in the transfer portal, and Napier hinted all offseason that there was going to be a QB competition for the starting job and expressed his desire to bring in a fourth scholarship QB to fill out the roster.

The Spring Game didn’t do Mertz any favors, but it does need to be pointed out that the lack of a viable offensive line during that game was a key contributing factor in the poor QB play.

But Mertz seems to have not only earned the starting role for the Gators, but knew coming in that Napier would have taken interest in him, which we all knew would eventually happen, and that his experience would contribute to him becoming the starter and leader of the team.

Napier has stated numerous times that his staff looked at more than 20 Quarterbacks via the transfer portal, and looks like it’s paid off for not only Mertz but for the Gators as well; however, time will tell if this was the correct move or not seeing how the Gators have one of the roughest schedules in all of college football this season.

The Gators will start the season on August 31st in Salt Lake City for the rematch with Utah Utes on ESPN at 8 pm est.