Know the other guys: Florida
With No. 5 Texas A&M facing off with Florida Saturday night (6 p.m. central, ESPN), here’s a look at some key players on both sides of the ball for the visitors.
Offense:
QB DJ Lagway needs no introduction to Aggie fans or the Aggie football team. The former 5-star from Willis flirted with A&M for a long time before committing to Florida, and Mike Elko made a last-ditch run at him once he took over as head coach. But he stuck with the Gators and is now their starter. He took over as the fulltime quarterback during the A&M game last year when Graham Mertz got hurt and the results weren’t pretty: 6-13 for 54 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions. But he got progressively better as the season went on and was considered one of the top quarterbacks in the SEC before the season began. He struggled early, passing for just 61 yards in a driving rainstorm against Miami and throwing 5 interceptions in a 20-10 loss to LSU. But he turned in his best performance of the season against Texas completing 21 of 28 passes for 298 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 interception. For the season, he’s completing better than 68% of his passes for 988 yards, but has thrown just as many interceptions as touchdowns (seven). Considering this will be his first time playing at “home” and how things went last season in Gainesville, he’ll probably be very fired up for this one.
RB Jadan Baugh may have his hands full tomorrow. Two of his backups are out and a third, Ja’kobi Jackson, is questionable. Fortunately for the Gators, he’s RB1 and he’s been effective (76 carries, 396 yards, 3 TD). He’s a load at 6-foot-1 and 231 pounds, but his long run for the year is 16 yards. Still, he can grind opponents down, just as he did last weekend against Texas, when he carried the ball 27 times for 107 yards.
It’s not a coincidence the Florida offense had its most productive game against an opponent not named Long Island University when wideout Dallas Wilson finally made his debut. The 6-foot-3, 213-pound true freshman torched the Texas secondary for 111 yards and 2 touchdowns on just 6 catches. He’s the first Florida receiver to go over 100 yards and score twice in a debut game for as long as they’ve been keeping stats. He provides the Gators with a deep threat, and he’ll test Dezz Ricks and Will Lee.
To this point, Florida’s most productive receiver has been another freshman, Vernell Brown III. Brown leads the team in catches and has almost double the receiving yards as the next closest target, tight end Hayden Hansen (291 to 151). Brown is averaging 13.9 yards a catch, which is easily the best amongst major receivers not named Dallas Wilson.
Defense
JACK George Gumbs has been the team’s best pass rusher and overall threat to get into the defensive backfield. He has 3.5 tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks and a forced fumble along with 3 quarterback hurries. He’s a guy that A&M’s offensive tackles will have to handle if they want to shut down the Florida pass rush.
The other starting end, Tyreak Sapp, had his best game of the year against Texas with 6 tackles and a tackle for loss. He’s a big edge at 274 pounds and he’s off to a slow start compared to last year, when he had 13 TFL and 7 sacks. If he gets hot, he can be a real problem.
Linebacker Myles Graham leads the Gators in tackles with 29, has 2.5 TFL, 4 hurries and has broken up 2 passes. Graham has the ability to blitz or drop back into coverage, making him a tricky proposition for opposing offenses.
Safety Bryce Thornton has been everywhere for the Gators so far this year. He is third on the team in tackles with 18, has 3 quarterback hurries, 3 passes broken up and a pair of fumble recoveries — the only two the team has. He played up near the line of scrimmage frequently against Texas, pressuring Arch Manning as he came off the edge. He can do anything his coaches need him to.
