For those watching last Saturday's contest against LIU, the biggest hope for Florida Gator fans is that DJ Lagway would come out and show glimpses of what made him the catalyst for Florida's season last year. Lagway didn't have any viral moments, but he was a tidy 15/18 for 120 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions. It wasn't the most exciting performance, but it was good enough before he left at halftime.
But rival fans have picked up on an ESPN metric that makes it seem like Lagway had a terrible day.
It would be wise for those fans to proceed with caution.
DJ Lagway should be just fine
ESPN's QBR metric is designed to take a deeper look at a QB's performance and factor in things that traditional QB rating doesn't. Lagway's traditional QB rating against LIU was 194.3, which is 18th best in the country.
But for whatever reason, ESPN's QBR gave Lagway a 29.7 out of 100, which is 104th in the country.
ESPN has never revealed what their exact formula is, but it would seem that they are punishing Lagway for the lack of deep passes he hit on Saturday. Outside of a couple of completions to Vernell Brown III, we didn't see some Lagway slinging it deep too often.
So should we be concerned?
No, not yet.
We here at Hail Florida Hail have commented on how the lack of offseason work would impact Lagway this year. Mental reps are not the same thing as 11 v 11 reps.
But what was encouraging from Lagway on Saturday was his overall accuracy on intermediate passes. Last year, on passes between 10 and 19 yards, Lagway had just a 46% completion percentage. On Saturday, Lagway was four for five on these passes for 52 yards.
If Lagway's accuracy on intermediate passes ticks up in 2025 and he cuts down on his interceptions, then he can morph into the top-five ceiling most seem to think he has this year, no matter what QBR wants to claim.