Florida Football: Return of Graham Mertz provides hope for 2024

If you haven’t looked at the 2024 schedule, it is a doozy for Florida football. The Gators have 11 Power Five schools lined up for 2024, and even within their SEC slate, they will be tasked with facing the conference’s upper echelon.

So, for as much hype and high hopes as Gator Nation has for incoming QB DJ Lagway, the announcement that Graham Mertz will return for one more season in Gainesville is a massive necessity if the Gators hope to avoid another losing season in 2024.

Florida Football: Shades of 2006

If you follow our site or anything that happens behind the scenes with Florida football, then you know who Lagway is. He is potentially the best high school QB in the country and is slated to arrive on campus next month.

On paper, he has all the tools to be a Gator legend and eventually have a statue built alongside Tim Tebow, Steve Spurrier, and Danny Wuerffel. But if one expects to see Lagway on the field in 2024 to carry the Gators, one needs to pump the brakes slightly.

Of the top 15 quarterbacks from the class of 2023 according to 247, Dante Moore at UCLA was the only one to see significant playing time, and he’s already announced he is transferring.

Some guy named Jaden Rashada got a couple of starts, but beyond that, everyone else was relegated to mop-up duty, and the bulk of them took a redshirt for the 2023 season.

Lagway should become a star in time, but that doesn’t mean he’s ready to take the keys.

Yet.

This is where the return of Mertz is crucial for 2024.

As we witnessed throughout the 2023 season, Mertz is a fully capable leader at the position. He doesn’t have some of the flash that a guy like Lagway has, but he was able to find open receivers and deliver an accurate ball all season long. Florida’s problems this season were not because of the quarterback, despite our initial fears when it was announced Billy Napier was going with Mertz out of the transfer portal.

It doesn’t mean we can’t see Lagway at all in 2024. Depending on what the plan is, we could see shades of what Tebow and Chris Leak did during the 2006 season, with Leak leading the way and Tebow coming in for specific packages.

And if all goes according to plan, which is far from a guarantee, the keys to Gainesville will be handed to Lagway in 2025.