Billy Napier hints who will be the starting QB for Florida Football against Texas A&M

Following its 45-7 victory over Samford, Billy Napier is faced with a choice moving forward. He can put all his chips behind five-star QB DJ Lagway, or he can return to the status quo and reinsert Graham Mertz when he is cleared.

Based on comments Napier made after Saturday's win and once again on Monday, he seems to have no intention of benching Mertz for the foreseeable future.

Florida Football: Controversy Creates Cash

The common retort against starting Lagway after his performance on Saturday is that "Yeah, but it was against Samford." There is a hint of truth to that, but the reality is that Florida seldom saw the level of vertical passing last year that they saw on Saturday.

Air yards is measured by taking the total number of passing yards but subtracting yards after the catch. It tracks how far down the field was a pass when it was physically caught. It is meant to filter out plays like the 85-yard jet sweep Tre Wilson scored on Saturday, which counted as an 85 pass for Lagway.

It's with that in mind that last year against McNeese State, UNC Charlotte, and Vanderbilt that Florida had 77, 150, and 28 air yards, respectively.

This past Saturday, Florida had 221 air yards.

Translation: Playing Samford wasn't the sole reason why Florida went vertical in a manner they hadn't all last season outside of the USC game (which they scored 41 points in).

But while we as fans may be swayed as to who we want to trot out as the starter against Texas A&M, Napier isn't as convinced.

After the game on Saturday Napier said: "I think that our intentions are the same. We intend to play him every week. I think we intended to do that last week as well. I think we had 20 plays or something at halftime last week. So we struggled to get any rhythm going. But he brings a different element to our team. There's no question he'll be a part of every plan going forward."

On Monday, Napier reiterated similar tones heading into Texas A&M: "Both of these guys will make us harder to defend. We intend to use both of them."

"Intend to play" and starting the game are two different things, and it should be noted that Napier didn't explicitly say who would be the starter for Texas A&M.

But if we read between the lines, Napier has every intention of starting Mertz if he is cleared to play. And while Napier claims there is a plan in place to get Lagway into the game, the only reason he played against Miami was because Mertz got hurt.

If Lagway trots out to run a basic Napier offense, it will get clunky. Most had dreamed of Tim Tebow-like packages for Lagway prior to the season, and perhaps Napier does have a rabbit up his sleeve.

His choice of QB this Saturday is a decision he has to get correct because if he doesn't, Napier might not be granted the ability to make many more choices with the Gators.