Just three weeks ago, the Florida football program was seemingly on the brink of a lost season. Boos rained down across Ben Hill Griffin Stadium following UF’s 33-20 loss to Texas A&M, rumors emerged that Florida boosters secured enough money to fund head coach Billy Napier’s buyout and the team’s locker room was all but dead silent following the game.
Fast forward three weeks, and it’s almost like Florida’s struggles never happened. Almost.
Since their loss to the Aggies on Sept. 14, the Gators have won back-to-back games and are seemingly hitting their stride at just the right time. Two weeks ago, Florida’s offense dominated in a 45-28 win over Mississippi State.
The Gators had their first bye week of the season prior to a Sunshine State matchup against UCF Saturday, which redshirt junior edge rusher George Gumbs Jr. credited for getting the team back on track.
“The bye week was a time where we, those three practices… We changed some things,” Gumbs Jr. said. “We got our mojo, we got some swag. We [were] running around, having some fun, and we all came out like, ‘OK, we all feel better.’”
With a fresh set of legs and a seemingly bolstered mindset across the locker room, the Gators rolled the Knights over in a 24-13 victory at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Florida’s defense carried the load, holding one of the top rushing attacks in the country to just 108 yards on the ground.
All of the newfound momentum points back to one question: What changed for the Gators between now and their loss to Texas A&M three weeks ago?
For starters, Florida has had an admittedly easy slate over its last two games in comparison to the rest of its schedule. Both of the Gators’ losses came against teams ranked in the latest AP Top 25 poll. Texas A&M jumped to No. 15 following a win over No. 21 Missouri this past weekend, while Miami clocked in at No. 6.
But the Gators’ newfound momentum goes beyond any strength of schedule assessments. Since their win over Mississippi State, Florida has found a new energy. With their backs against the wall and seemingly the entire country counting them out, it was solely up to the guys in UF’s locker room to either right the ship or let it continue to sink.
“The guys were just ready to compete today,” UF redshirt senior quarterback Graham Mertz said. “When you’re in that locker room before the game, looking around at the guys, you can kind of get a sense after you’ve played five years of college football of how the team’s feeling, and they’re ready to go.”
Florida has also started to put all the right pieces together to find its rhythm on both sides of the ball. Offensively, the Gators adopted a two-quarterback system against Texas A&M that saw both Mertz and freshman quarterback DJ Lagway under center.
Initially, this system drew ire from fans and analysts alike, namely due to the lack of cohesion in the offense with the constant back-and-forth between the two signal callers. Since then, however, Napier has made adjustments to this rotation, giving Mertz the majority of snaps, while Lagway relieves him on every third drive.
The results have spoken for themselves, with the duo combining for 506 yards on 49-for-55 passing over the last two weeks. Mertz has also thrown four touchdowns in that time span.
“I’m having fun, man,” Mertz said. “I think for me, it’s just something different. Something I’ve never done. It’s forced me to really be in the moment.”
Meanwhile, Florida’s defense had a breakthrough performance against UCF on Saturday. Through the first four games of the season, the Gators surrendered 27.3 points and 425.5 yards per contest.
But in their matchup against the Knights, Florida looked like a totally different squad. The Gators came away with five sacks against UCF (Florida only recorded eight sacks in its first four games of the season) and stifled the Knights’ rushing attack, all while holding a Power Four opponent to less than 20 points for the first time this season.
With all of this being said, Napier and his squad are still well aware of the unpredictability within the landscape of college football. Just ask the four teams that were ranked in last week’s AP Poll Top 10 before losing to unranked opponents in a rather unceremonious fashion.
Florida is still a long way from returning to the Top 25, but the Gators have a lot riding on what happens in the next few weeks. Just like these back-to-back wins have seemingly stirred up some new momentum in the locker room and across the fan base, that energy can be just as easily crushed on any given weekend as the team enters the back half of its schedule.
“Lots of things happen early in the season,” Napier said. “The key is, can we stay focused on improvement? Can we bring the right attitude, focus, urgency and mentality to how we prepare, how we practice?... Sure, we have some momentum, but you have to have the right mix of humility and enthusiasm.”
Things won’t get any easier for the Gators from here. Up next, the team is slated to travel to Knoxville this week for a road SEC showdown against No. 8 Tennessee, who are coming off a 19-14 loss to Arkansas. Safe to say, the Volunteers will be hungry and desperate to avoid back-to-back losses, which puts the Gators directly in the crossfire of a potential Tennessee bounce back.
Additionally, Florida is still slated to face three other teams in the latest AP Top 10 this season- No. 1 Texas, No. 5 Georgia and No. 9 Ole Miss.
Nevertheless, Napier has made it abundantly clear that he believes in his squad, no matter what the rest of the year may bring.
“This is a group that has worked extremely hard, and obviously, they were disappointed with some of the early performances,” Napier said. “Ultimately, this group is consumed with getting better… I have a ton of respect for the players on our team. We’ve got a good group.”
Contact Jack Meyer at jmeyer@alligator.org. Follow him on X @jackmeyerUF.
Jack Meyer is a fourth-year journalism major and the Assistant Sports Editor for The Alligator. In his free time, he enjoys reviewing music, spending time with friends, playing video games and going to the gym.
