![Florida quarterback DJ Lagway (2) leaves the field after beating Florida State 40-21 during an NCAA football game at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, November 29, Florida beat Florida State 40-21.2025. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_2686,h_1510/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/213/01kchm0w6x8krebs10kk.jpg "Florida quarterback DJ Lagway (2) leaves the field after beating Florida State 40-21 during an NCAA football game at Steve Spurrier Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL on Saturday, November 29, Florida beat Florida State 40-21.2025. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
When news leaked out that DJ Lagway was going to transfer away from Florida this offseason, the reaction from most Gator fans was “Well, it is what it is.” The former five-star prospect was a shell of himself in 2025 and at times looked like a QB broken beyond all repair.
The failure of Lagway in 2025 is part of why Billy Napier was fired, and Jon Sumrall got hired in the first place. And now new reports seem to indicate that Sumrall wasn’t sold on going all in with Lagway into 2026.
DJ Lagway claims he was pushed away by Florida
CBS Sports dropped a piece that included quotes from a couple of anonymous sources who said Sumrall and Lagway did not have a positive first meeting. According to sources who spoke in the article:
“Questioned who Lagway is as a football player. The new staff opted to challenge the high-priced quarterback, pushing him on his competitiveness and work ethic.”
Lagway’s camp has obviously pushed back on the narrative that he isn’t a hard worker or competitive. And we saw shades this season where Lagway was clearly frustrated with the state of the program and was not in a happy place as things started to spiral.
But also keeping in mind that the info coming out right now is all from Lagway’s camp, there are real questions about what exactly happened this past offseason in Gainesville. Lagway’s injured shoulder explains why his arm strength suffered in 2025, but it doesn’t explain why his footwork regressed or why his ability to read the field never improved.
Billy Napier’s offense didn’t help Lagway as teams were able to sit on well-known tendencies, but Lagway didn’t help himself either at times and threw 14 interceptions in 2025, the 2nd most of any QB in the country.
Lagway’s camp claims money wasn’t an issue, but we can’t imagine Sumrall was willing to sign off on a big money for a QB that Pro Football Focus graded 81st out of the 95 QBs who had at least 300 dropbacks in 2025.
It’s possible too that Sumrall would have liked to keep Lagway if this were the pre-NIL Era, but when forced to choose big money towards Lagway or allocating those funds throughout the rest of the roster, Sumrall chose the roster.
No matter what actually went down in those meetings, the end result is that Sumrall and Lagway didn’t see eye to eye, and Sumrall’s first big pivot point moment has happened long before the first snap has been taken.