DJ Lagway: Florida Gators Starting Quarterback against Samford Bulldogs with Graham Mertz Out

the Florida Gators will be facing the sford Bulldogs tomorrow and here's what I'm looking for from DJ lagway and his Gators you are locked on Gators your daily podcast on the Florida Gators part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day hello and welcome back to another episode of Locked on Gators part of the locked on podcast Network the board behind me we are available daily and free in the podcast and on YouTube Happy Friday I am Brandon Olsson find me on Twitter at wns Brandon today's episode of Locked on Gator is brought by Game Time download the game time app create an account you locked on college for $20 off your first purchase I spent more concert tickets today h just just saying just saying Florida Gator tomorrow will'll face the Samford Bulldogs last time Florida face Samford they won 5270 lot of points scored in that one this time when they face sford it will be DJ lag's first career start obviously that matters a ton uh the depth chart came out on Wednesday and we saw DJ lagway starting quarterback uh Kay Millan behind him and redir freshman walkon I believe Adrien Warner behind him possibility that you see all three of them play actually but that dep chart had a lot of things that popped out first off Right Guard and right tackle are still Damen George and Cameron weights um not ideal obviously that receivers no khil Jackson uh at end no Joey slackman and star no Shar Denson there's a lot of guys that are minorly banged up but the big talking point was DJ lagway getting his first career start with graham Merz out with a concussion and I think there's a few things that we need to see I guess from this game for DJ lagway first off I just want to see how how comfortable he looks just how comfortable do you look playing quarterback for a college football team right are you g to get panicky when things break down again like I talked about it yesterday in high school DJ lagway would would have no problem extending plays with his legs and looking a pass or just straight up running and creating a play with his legs sure but it's different even just doing it in high school compared to doing it in college you're doing it against better athletes you're doing it at a at a higher level of competition so it's different everywhere and you might not have as much room to run as you had in high school so I'm curious to see how DJ lightway handles any pressure that may get into him or may it into the back field I'm very interested and curious to see DJ lague pre- snap I I want to know because I think for for me that's the main thing that I need to see with lague is arm Talent is there you look at the high school film and you can see it screams arm Talent right you watch DJ lag's High School film at Willis you're watching someone who as a a high schooler is throwing from different arm slots so he's side arming it he's overarm he's like throwing normal he's working around everybody he's doing that's that's a baseball thing we know that that's also a thing that basically every quarterback does now um every Young quarterback like we're at the age where College freshman grew up watching Patrick Mahomes BJ lagway was like 11 when Patrick Mahomes made his made his NFL debut like we're we're we're getting to the age where these these college athletes grew up watching Patrick Mahomes and every quarterback you look at now we talked about this last year with Brandon Carol and we were talking about DJ lagway and how just the arm slots it's insane that he can do it but now that's the thing that you're looking for it's how every young basketball player now everybody can shoot threes they could shoot deep threes and so much of that is watching Steph Curry do it and then being like Oh we can we can use all the range that we can find and you see Steph Curry do it and then now there there's a bunch of guys in the league that do it obviously not as well as Steph Curry but Steph Curry kind of set that new this is the elite level of play and Patrick Mahomes has set the new this is the elite level of play and and don't get me wrong Patrick Mahomes didn't invent the arm the throwing from different arm slots right Matthew Stafford was probably the first one that did it consistently and well um Aaron roders has done it a lot of guys have done it but these kids grew up watching Patrick Mahomes do it and and the Highlight Place Patrick Mahomes does it multiple times on a single Drive let alone just in a game whereas Matthew Stafford earlier in his career it would pretty much just be oh we got a SL I'm gonna try to get around my line around the rushers whatever may be and he would throw from that angle but Patrick Mahomes does it like like like it's fun like it's part of the scheme to throw like that um so I'm interested to see just DJ lagway throwing the football we know right again if you watch High School film if you've watched his School film you see that if you've watched his high school film you see he could throw that thing over them their mountains he can let it sing what I want to see against sford is what he's going to be doing pre- snap is he going to be making any calls to the offensive line is he going to be making any adjustments I want to know how much he's even looking at pre- snap just watching his head movement I want to see post Snap what he's going to be looking like I'm curious if there's a coverage shift how he handles it if he gets panicky at at all it it's just something that we need to see and again if those things where they've got him in the the metaphorical classro right like they've got him working on a whiteboard iPad whatever it is they've got him working on those but it's different to see these things when it's not actually unfolding in front of you like even if they put a GoPro on the helmet and you see everything and you watch it back it's easier to process and watch that than it is to actually live in that moment and so I'm very interested to see how DJ liway handles that because the arm Talent is not a question okay the the the just physical tools and traits not a question you look at his frame he looks like he's ready for the NFL draft so you look at his frame he's there you look at the arm Talent he's there it's about putting it together mentally he's got to clean up some mechanics but his mechanics have improved from high school you look at at his high school film and then you look at the Spring Game and his mechanics improved he's gotten a a quicker tighter throwing motion he's improving throughout time like we're watching this happen right in front of our very eyes but I need to see exactly what we're going to be and also I want to know what the offense is going to look like I think Russ Callaway will be calling the plays with DJ lagway there again think think um I think Russ Calloway will be calling the plays with DJ lague in I want to know what that's going to look like is Russ going to be looking for for the Deep shots is he going to be trying to just like is it going to be a simple offense because you could also take the approach of hey we know it's sford we know we're more athletic we might just forvert some stuff or we might hide DJ completely just throw little screens pop passes run the ball get out of there with a huge win and then if he's got to start against Texas A&M he's got to start against Texas A&M and they're not going to have the film on him so there's a few approaches you could take to it because while that I think that's a valid approach by the way of saying hey we're going to like not just screens and pop passes and running the ball but keep it really simple really condensed Playbook and really basic and then you can say hey if he has to start against Texas A&M they're not going to have film on him however you can also argue that maybe you should let him fly let it throw it around have the Playbook as open as you possibly can so you can see what you have in him so that if he does have to play against Texas ANM he's got more live reps available because again we've talked about it before Billy Napier said it before when live bullets are flying it's different and that matters when we're talking about a true freshman quarterback making his first start of his college football career uh the offensive line played horrible on Saturday last week we are going to talk about that next on lockdown Gators and I don't know if you guys use LinkedIn or not I do when you're hiring for your small business business you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role that's why you have to check out LinkedIn jobs LinkedIn jobs is the tools to help you find the right Professionals for your team faster and for free and Linkedin isn't just another job board LinkedIn helps you hire professionals that you can't find anywhere else there is not another job board or job Forum or job site that I'm on it's LinkedIn and that's it in any given month over 70% of LinkedIn users don't even visit other leading job sites don't know a person that actively uses another job site I I genuinely can't tell you a single person that's how dominant LinkedIn is they're they they're in Monopoly post your job for free linkedin.com lockon colge that's linkedin.com lockon poos your job for free terms and conditions do apply and I don't know if you can see this dope shirt that I'm wearing um barely barely the the camera just barely um but it is a HomeField apparel shirt so if you are unaware of HomeField apparel Incredibly Dope company these softest t-shirts that I own just not even Just Sports t-shirts just these softest t-shirts that I own I love it the Fabric's amazing I I cannot get enough of them uh I've got my orange two bit shirt if you look for Florida gear by the way Florida when they launched the Florida section it broke records for the the highest grossing school on HomeField like they shattered record there's over 180 colleges that you can choose from They just added Pepperdine which for 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that are like oh you're being too hard on the kids for making a mistake um they're not kids at this point they are fourth and fifth year players okay so there's that and also I will say this effort is not a mistake right effort is lazy it's not a mistake to not make an effort so I'll throw that in Austin Barber is going to see more snaps at left tackle reportedly um not that I doubt it but it's just you know Florida is theoretically going to win this game by a lot of points hopefully and so hopefully Austin Barber won't need to play a lot and hopefully Devon Manuel and even Fletcher Westfall will get reps but uh after rotating every third Sixth and Ninth series with Devon Manuel Billy naier said hey Austin Barber is going to be the guy had left tackle rightfully so he played a great game left guard is going to be Harris or Bryce love it or Rod Kierney as the third string there we will see both of them or all three of them we will see both nji Harris and Bryce love it I'm certain at left guard um Rod Kierney could play either guard spot or Center but I'm very confident that he's going to play as well Jake Slaughter playing at Center obviously starting center Rod Kierney behind him Jason sandella true freshman interior offensive line if you're going to see Jason zandel at all this year I would expect it to be this game Jake Slaughter was the only offensive lineman last year last week that played every single snap so there there's that Jake Slaughter was the only player to play center last week only offensive linan to play every single snap Damen George or Cameron weights at Right Guard um I I've said before I don't want either of them to touch the field ever again I don't think they deserve to Dawn that logo uh that that interception no effort whatsoever inexcusable I understand that it's it's hard and and they had played quite a bit it's effort you put it in and even if it doesn't look pretty even if it doesn't work out at least you could say you know what no matter what happened I tried my best they can't um Christian Williams listed as the third Right Guard he was on the left guard depth chart last week against uh against Miami if I'm not mistaken I believe it Nigi Harris and then Rod Kerney or Christian Williams um and then I think Right Guard was Damen George Christian Williams and Bryce love it or or Cam weights was the third Right Guard in there um not there's much to do with that but that's what we're looking at right tackle is Brandon crch Dixon or Cameron weights and then Kaden Jones is the third right tackle I am expecting to see all three of those right tackles play I think you have to you've got to at least see what you got and and see if it's worth making a full-time switch there what I want to see from them last week they played poorly okay last year they played poorly but last year this is an offensive line obviously different guys but it's an offensive line that couldn't move Charlotte consistently so I'm pretty interested to see how it goes with Sanford keep in mind Sanford is FCS Charlotte is FBS it's just group of five so Charlotte is a better team but I'm just curious to see what that's going to look like um as as in the trenches I guess there I also want to see what the Run game looks like because that's something that we talked about quite a bit this week is Florida and and all offseason I spent the entire off going hey I think Florida should go with more Gap based Run game I think they should when they hired Jonathan dcer I said hey I think they're going to go more Gap based Run game hiring Jonathan dcer the Browns were the most Gap based Run game Heavy team in the entire NFL last season he was working with them would not Shock me if we if we saw more Gap base Run game from the Florida Gator we did uh counter got broken out quite a few times last week didn't really break anything last week last year we saw counter quite a bit um or once or twice a game but you know just in the grand scheme of things we saw it and this year I think we'll see it more I think that it has it's one of those higher ceiling plays for this team specifically uh and pin pole we saw last we saw last week was the first time Billy napers offense has ever called pin pole it's a 71 yard rushing tou touchdown to Montreal Johnson what the pin pull is I'm not going to go reach for the Whiteboard right now but what the pin pull is is that the tight end on the edge pins The Edge rusher down to the interior of the line the offensive tackle there handles the defensive tackle and then your Center and guard on that side pull across you could also do both guards there's there's variations to pinple um Oregon used to run it a lot Ohio State runs it a lot it's very common run concept um Chip Kelly spammed it Mark hord try a lot too at Oregon but that pin pole Run game it's explosive it's effective I do think the Florida again can do it like if you run it especially if Damen George is gonna be out there if you run it to his side where he gets to pull and just hammer down the linebacker around the corner whatever it is sneak up on him and get him and then you could have Jake Slaughter or whoever is at the other guard spot pulling around there's a lot you can do with it I want to see this run game go more Gap scheme we saw Duo Hayden Hansen um on Wednesday when he was here to talk about the game and the Florida gate by the way hell of an interview on Wednesday but we talked about his favorite scheme to block and it was Duo and Duo is just it's a bunch of double tees throughout basically he was like yeah you could run it against any front it's fun um and I told the story you know I've been covering the Giants in person and Eric gray and Joshua Kelly both told me they're the only two running backs I've spoken to one-on-one they both told me that duo is their favorite Run game uh run run scheme to work with as a running back and now we've got Hayden saying it as a tight end the Rams ran it more than anybody else in the entire NFL last year Duo is taking over football and it's a beautiful thing um lot of options to run it from running against any front it's fun to see but offensive line I need to see more Gap game I need to see you actually dominate because last year that was my big issue against Charlotte was that you should have been able to score touchdown after touchdown just run and dive if you wanted to and instead you settled for a bunch of field goals it was embarrassing need to see that offensive line perform better and the defensive side of the ball also struggled quite a bit we'll talk about that next on lock on Gators game time has a new feature called Game Time picks that makes getting tickets for your favorite Live Events even easier game time picks filters out the fluff to show you only incredible deals on great seats so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets literally thousands uh I and I mentioned earlier I said I just got new concert 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podcast and on YouTube and I need to see more from the Florida Gator defense this week obviously we expect this defense to dominate Samford we'll see if we actually get that I can't even shock it because just three years ago Dan mullen's final season we watched Stanford put up 52 points in the swamp yep same head coach there by the way I'll uh I'll I'll bite my tongue until they actually play but we've been told that since last week or or during last week during the game against Miami we've been told that there were too many defensive communication breakdowns and when you watch the game you can kind of see see where some of them happen you can see uh I I forgot who it was that scored a touchdown but Jordan Castell falls on the ground and he kind of like looks behind him as if he was expecting someone there and we saw a couple of times where there'd be a corner looking kind of around or there'd be a linebacker looking around a little bit and it kind of looked like multiple time I I know I keep saying kind of get over it it looked like multiple times there were players looking around as if they were kind of confused to how things were supposed to be happening or or where someone was supposed to be and I mean Hayden on Wednesday he wasn't talking about the defense in specific he was talking about just the team but he was like it felt like every play one person would screw up at one point every play that was happening and I feel like part of that has to be communication I will also say this compared to last year the season opener against Utah I feel like we saw a lot less defensive Communication in this game and maybe it's just less emphatic communication maybe it's just less noticeable communication maybe it's less physical and more verbal communication but last year we would watch Scooby Williams and I say Scooby because he was the Mike linebacker the Mike linebacker is going to be the Green Dot player he's going to be a play caller always in this defense uh that's why Shamar doesn't have the microphone or the headset for the defensive coordinator it's pop Howard um but last year we'd see Scooby Scooby was like rubbing his stomach and Scooby was throwing up Hove and and like there were a whole bunch of things going and we could see that basically every play there was constant communication that they were bad and their players were worse last year than this year but there was more communication that was visible you watch the Miami game and there's not nearly as much noticeable communication and that could be due to multiple things that could be due to they only needed that communication in certain obviously you don't have to communicate every single time when you see the look that you're looking at if nothing changes and you've already got your call you might not need to see anything change you might not need to make a call so it could just be that hey they were calling things that they were calling coverages or defensive plays that we're just hey regardless of what that team does we're doing this regardless of how they come out regardless of what look they're coming out in we're doing this could be that could be but I just watched that defense give up 11 plays of 20 plus yards which is the most that any school that's only played one game is given up this year third worse in the entire country and the only two teams to give up more played two games when Florida played one so we we've seen too many defensive breakdowns too often plays broke down just not even just communication breakdown just physically they broke down and I understand that it's hard to play in coverage for so long but it would be you know cam Ward scrambles around and they're someone with no one within 10 15 yards of him and I don't know what the hell is going on there like there were defensive breakdowns like that where no one is in any area there were defensive breakdowns where I forgot who even posted the play I forgot what the play was but Derek wingo and Shamar James are the linebackers Shamar James is the inside linebacker there as in the the one closer to the middle of the field or closer to the middle of of the offensive line Derrik Wingo is on the wide side they run it toward there Derrik Wingo fires down toward the middle is and Shamar James collides with him I first off I will say this I have a hard time believing that Shamar screwed that up because to me it just doesn't make much sense that feels like that should have been Wingo going to the attack to to attack the wide side and contain because the defensive line slanted in so I feel like it should have been Wingo going to contain Shamar going to fill the other lane but Wingo closed in too tight Shamar went to that same spot which was shamar's spot and then everything just broke down and I will especially say that considering drick Wingo is what A fifth or sixth year player Shamar James is a third-year player and they've both spent their entire college careers in Gainesville those communication breakdowns shouldn't be happening those miscues shouldn't be happening at this point in the game those shouldn't be happening like you should be better than that you brought in Ron Roberts he's a very experienced defensive coordinator 30 plus years of coaching experience was a head coach at Delta State for I think a decade you very experienced as a coach and their defense crumble every opportunity it was given to crumble things like that can no longer happen it happened against Miami you gave up 41 points it cannot happen against Sanford it cannot happen against Texas S&M it cannot happen against Mississippi State if you still have a job it cannot happen against UCF it cannot happen against Kentucky it cannot happen against Tennessee those games are flipped if you still have a job it cannot happen against Georgia it cannot happen against Texas it cannot happen against LSU it cannot happen against miss it cannot happen against Forest State cannot at this point it is no longer a youth issue it is a coaching issue because the youth that was last year and the year before those are gone not that they're gone but the youth excuse is gone these guys are mostly experienced at this point this is a more senior team we'll see what happens with more younger guys playing this week due to injuries but those miscues can no longer happen I don't know if Billy Ney even has a chance to keep his job anymore at this point but if you want to keep your job those miscues cannot happen thanks Mega lock down Gator your first listen of the day every day we are available daily and free the podcast and on YouTube we will be going live tomorrow after Florida presumably beats Samford for lock I'm Brandon all don't forget to follow me on Twitter at wns Brandon and I will see you all tomorrow