The Florida Gators didn’t play their best game but they came away with a 31-11 win over the Florida State Seminoles.

Momentum
This is a new feeling for the Gators under Billy Napier. Florida has real, tangible and intangible momentum heading into the offseason. The Gators finished 2022 on a three-game losing streak. They finished 2023 on a five-game losing streak. Florida has won three in a row to finish the 2024 campaign and they’ll have a chance to make it four in a row in a bowl game.

Florida has been cleaning up on the recruiting trail and they’ll look to finish strong with National Signing Day just days away.

“We’ve done a good job evaluating players and recruiting players. That’s not been our issue here. What we needed to do is prove ourselves on the grass, prove to recruits that we can teach and develop players and that our formula works and win,” Billy Napier said after the game. “There’s nothing that is better for recruiting than winning. Ultimately, I think that’s kind of been the final piece of the puzzle is some stability and prove it between the lines that your formula works. And I think we’ve done that for the last couple of weeks.”

Proof of concept has been achieved.

Give it up (again) for the defense
Whatever they did or said or read during the first bye week worked. Save the speeches from that week, play them over and over again.

“I’ll just tell we all had to look each other in the eye and tell each other we were going to make things change and that was it because our word is probably one of the most important things,” Tyreak Sapp said. “It means a lot to each other so we tell each other, so we tell each other we trust you, we want to do everything we can in our power to turn things around and took that personally with the work and you see what you get.”

Some notes on the defense:

• The Gators delivered a season-high eight sacks and 14 tackles for loss – both being the program’s most in the last five seasons – since Aug. 24, 2019 vs. Miami (10, 16).
• Florida’s five fumble recoveries marked the team’s most since at least 2000 and one shy of the program record of six (three times, last vs. Vanderbilt in 1993).
• The Gators finished with at least four sacks in three straight contests and at six or more for the second time in the last three games.
• Across Florida’s three-game winning streak, the Gators have racked up 34 tackles for loss highlighted by 18 sacks, in addition to 14 pass breakups, 12 hurries and eight forced fumbles.
• The Gators have recorded a takeaway in nine-straight games and 11 of 12 overall.
• Florida posted a first-half shutout for the third time this season (Samford, Tennessee) and held its opponent without a first-half touchdown for the fourth time (Samford, UCF, Tennessee).
• Florida recovered multiple fumbles for the first time this season and has recovered a fumble in four-straight contests.
• The Gators had two fumble recoveries in a half for the first time since Nov. 5, 2022 vs. Texas A&M.
• With five against FSU, the Gators now own 22 takeaways on the season.

We’re seeing DJ Lagway’s floor
It’s hard to wrap your mind around it when you see Lagway shaking off a 330-pound defensive tackle, look downfield, and hit a pass for a first down, but he’s only 19 years old. The baby face sits atop a 240-pound frame. He’s humble but he’s unfathomably gifted. He came to Florida knowing the history of the program. He knew that Florida had fallen on hard times. He wanted to take on the challenge of bringing them back to national prominence.

This is the floor for Lagway. With Billy Napier and Ryan O’Hara to help him develop, we’re only going to see Lagway improve. The touch he has on his deep throws is unique and he’ll continue to develop and work on his short and intermediate passes. His leadership, for a 19-year-old, is impressive.

“As a leader, I’ve seen a lot of maturity at his age. Just becoming that natural leader that his teams need right now,” Montrell Johnson said of Lagway. “You know guys mess up and a lot of young guys don’t want to speak up but he’s the opposite of that. He speaks up.

He speaks his mind. It’s going to be great for the future.”

Lagway was still in diapers when Tim Tebow was a freshman at Florida helping the Gators to a National Championship. He has a chance, and a great one at that, to have a statue right next to Tebow outside of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

Recruiting
The Gators have been on a recruiting run for the ages and they ain’t done yet.

The Gators will continue to push to close the class strong.

“We have some momentum, but there is lots of work to do here to get to where we want to go. But it’s good to have some momentum here, and obviously we need to carry this over into the way you prepare for the bowl game. Need to finish this academic semester strong and sign some good players next week when it comes to recruiting,” Billy Napier said after the FSU game.

The best recruiting tool might be your starting quarterback. DJ Lagway has elicited shocked looks from recruits who tell reporters with wide eyes and smiles that they got to meet Lagway on their visits to campus. He has a gravity to him and great players want to play with other great players. Lagway is a great player and he’s already looking toward the future … but he wants to start with his own guys first.

“I’m definitely going to be involved in the transfer portal and the recruiting class but the biggest thing is keeping the guys that we have here,” Lagway said. “That’s the biggest thing. Just making sure that everyone’s locked in and we can add and build on this momentum we have at the end of the season.”

Going bowling
We saved this one for last but it’s necessary. Who among us would have thought on September 14 after a loss to Texas A&M that Florida would be bowl eligible? Most fans were calling for Billy Napier’s job. The Gators had gotten dragged around the field by Miami and Texas A&M. The program didn’t look like it was on the right trajectory. It was a gutting feeling, a sinking hole that seemed to deep and strong to pull out of.

Then the team got a road win over Mississippi State and they found something in the bye week.

“It’s gratifying but like it’s always great to know that we earned it, we earned the right for those games, I don’t tell my guys, we don’t deserve anything, we earned everything we have and everything we get and nobody gives us anything,” Tyreak Sapp said. “When people play the Florida Gators, they are going to put their best foot forward and they are going to try to destroy us just because of who we are, and we accept the challenge, week in and week out, day in and day out, and we take that personally and we go ahead and we go to work and no matter what happens out there on that field, we always come back together as brothers.”

The team rallied around themselves and their head coach. They showed up down the stretch — a weird day in Austin, Texas aside — they played hard and they’re starting to believe. They’ll get one more opportunity to play as a team.