No. 15 Florida Rolls Over Long Island in Season Opener
On a picture-perfect night, in front of a sold-out crowd at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, the No. 15 Florida Gators defeated the Long Island Sharks, 55-0. Saturday’s matchup marked the first opening weekend victory for Florida since coach Billy Napier’s inaugural game against No. 7 Utah in 2022 and the most points scored by a Napier-led Florida team.
All offseason, Napier preached how this defense was on a mission to play at a championship-caliber level. The Gators looked everything like a championship defense Saturday, as LIU failed to get anything going offensively.
“I thought we were on the same page, thought we communicated well, against a team that’s got some triple option elements to the their offense,” Napier said postgame. “I think we were assignment sound and pursued the ball inside out and in general. Look, we’re going to be tested in the future, so it’s a good start, but obviously we’ve got work to do as a team to turn this thing around and get ready for a pretty good South Florida team.”
Florida went up 7-0 after junior defensive back Bryce Thornton returned LIU quarterback Chris Howell’s fumble for a touchdown. Four drives later, LIU quarterback Ethan Greenwood coughed up the ball deep in LIU territory – once again recovered by Thornton, who nearly housed his second fumble recovery if not for the turf monster tripping him up.
The dominance continued on the rest of the half, as Florida held LIU to two more three-and-outs to close out the half. Florida held LIU to 36 total yards, one first down and two turnovers.
That impressive performance carried into the second half, where at one point, Florida had forced 10 straight three-and-outs before giving up just their second first down of the game at 9:14 mark in the fourth quarter. In total, Florida held LIU to 86 total yards and two total first downs.
“It was a great feeling,” said linebacker Myles Graham. “That’s a great brand of football, a great brand of defense. It was smash mouth, that’s how we want to play.”
On the other side of the ball, it was mostly smooth sailing offensively for Florida. Excluding the Thornton defensive touchdown, the Gators put 31 points on the board, including three from quarterback DJ Lagway.
Sophomore running back Jadan Baugh led the way for Florida on its opening drive. Baugh had four carries for 44 yards and capped it off with a four-yard touchdown to put the Gators up 14-0.
Baugh led the Gators with 104 yards rushing, averaging 11.6 yards-per-carry.
“I’ve been impressed with Jaden because he played as a rookie, experienced some success, but I haven’t seen him,” Napier said. “There’s been no complacency there, and I think that’s a tribute to his character. He’s really a good leader as well.”
Kicker Trey Smack crushed a 56-yard field goal that made it 17-0. He struggled some Saturday, missing three kicks from 40, 39 and 57 yards. Lagway closed out the half with his three touchdown passes to Eugene Wilson III, Hayden Hansen and J. Michael Sturdivant in that order.
Lagway, who did not play in the second half, finished the night going 15-for-18 for 120 yards and three touchdowns passes.
“It felt great to be back out there,” Lagway said. “It definitely wasn’t what I would expect to go out there. Just got to play a better brand of football.”
Freshman Tremell Jones Jr. took over at quarterback and played the entire second half. It was assumed that Jones would be behind other backup quarterback Harrison Bailey and Aidan Warner. Instead, the young freshman got an opportunity to go out, make some plays and that is what he did.
Jones led Florida to a pair of scoring drives in mop up duty, including a four-yard touchdown pass to tight end Tony Livingston that pushed the lead to 48-0. With 25-seconds left, Jones found Taylor Spierto for his second touchdown pass of the night, making it 55-0. Jones finished the night 12-for-18, with 131 yards and two touchdowns.
“[Jones] really had a strong surge the last few weeks,” Napier said. “We’ve seen him as he got healthy and we started to give him more reps with the first and second unit. We saw him just keep getting better. And he’s a pure passer man, he can really throw it. He’s got velocity over the ball, his spin rate is impressive and then he’s a very accurate quarterback. I think you can see he’s got some savvy, made a few plays with his feet, but in general, he’s impressed us, and he earned that job.”
Category: College Football, Feature Sports News, Gators Football, SEC
