Five plays that have defined Florida Football's season so far in 2024

Cam Ward pass complete to Xavier Restrepo for 24 yds for a TD

Opening day for Florida couldn't have gone more poorly if they had tried. At the heart of the frustrations for Gator fans was watching all the offseason narratives Billy Napier tried to sell us fall apart in the span of about 40 minutes against Miami.

There are a string of plays we could pick from this game that defined the lack of preparedness from the Gators, but the end of half sequence sucked all the life out of The Swamp. Florida had been on their heels but were given a shot of life when Montrell Johnson ran 71 yards for a touchdown to pull within 17-10.

Miami marched right back down the field and with under a minute to go in the half, Florida's secondary was split as Cam Ward competed a 24 yards touchdown pass to extend the lead to 24-10. Miami scored a touchdown coming out of halftime to make it 31-10 and the blowout was on.

DJ Lagway throws 41-yard touchdown pass vs. Samford

Yes, it was against Samford. But even against an overmatched opponent like Samford, we saw magic from DJ Lagway that we hadn't seen in a long time.

Up 21-7 in the 3rd quarter, Lagway made a throw to Aidan Mizell that made even the most cynical of Gators fans raise an eyebrow or two. And as we wrote in the fallout from the game, the reason fans wanted Lagway over Graham Mertz was because it opened up the possibility of a vertical game that didn't exist under Mertz.

And as we saw against Kentucky, this throw wasn't a fluke in a vacuum.

Marcel Reed pass complete to Cyrus Allen for 73 yds for a TD

After the loss to Miami, we called Billy Napier a snake oil salesman who needed to find oil soon. After losing to Texas A&M, we just said whatever was going to be done eventually needed to be done immediately.

Florida had once again come out woefully unprepared and in the first half against Texas A&M and in the first half gave up drives of 14 plays, 9 plays, 9 plays, and 15 plays en route to a 20-0 halftime deficit.

Florida came out of halftime and did go down the field for a touchdown to make it 20-7.

The problem is Texas A&M's next drive was just two plays for 75 yards to return it to 27-7 and it was off a complete coverage bust in the secondary. The same secondary that was supposed to be fixed with all of the defensive staff shuffling.

Florida would eventually go down 33-7 before a couple garbage time touchdowns made the final score 33-20.

4th and 1 Stop On UCF

For the first four weeks of Florida's season, it was better to hide your eyes whenever the defense was on the field. The Gators had been insistent on playing a soft shell defense that was getting shredded underneath, and even when it was 3rd and short the Gators would still play soft and off the line.

Since their first bye week the unit has looked far more aggressive, and one key play that highlights the turnaround for this unit was their 4th down stop against UCF.

With the ball on their own 43, UCF tried to run it up the middle with KJ Jefferson. Jack Pyburn came crashing down on the ball to hold the play up before the rest of Florida could rally down and stop the Knights short.

Florida has gone on to some other key stops, including a goal line stand against Kentucky this past week.

Ten Second Run-Off Against Tennessee

Last year against Arkansas the Gators lost the game in large because they were clueless on how to run the field goal unit onto the field with the clock winding down. Semantics of the rules saved the Gators from a ten second run-off to even be able to have an attempt, but no such semantics could save Florida against Tennessee.

With the first half winding down, Florida had 12 men on the field when they made a field goal with no time on the clock. Because of the penalty, the half was over and Florida walked away with no points.

Florida would go on to lose in overtime.

As we noted after this game, the problem for Napier is that he spends the bulk of his press conferences talking about being consumed with the process, but time and again it are processes that let the Gators down.

And until these moments get fixed, it is hard to put faith in Napier from ever rising up to win anything of significance.