The LSU win last year was a foretelling of things to come

Tyreak Sapp was brilliant in Florida's 27-16 win over LSU last season (Photo by Chris Spears)

A few thoughts to jump start your Wednesday morning:

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the SEC Network aired Florida’s 27-16 win over LSU from last November. That was the Gators’ great awakening game. After beating LSU, which simultaneously knocked the Tigers from contention for the SEC Championship Game and the College Football Playoff, the Gators went on to win their next three games. In going 4-0 to finish the season at 8-5, Billy Napier went from the coach most likely to be working as someone’s analyst in 2025 to one with a team that legitimately has a shot at the College Football Playoff.

The win over LSU provided plenty of clues why the Gators of 2025 are going to be the real deal even with a schedule that on paper is as brutal as last year. Lest we forget, three of Florida’s five 2024 losses were against teams that made the College Football Playoff and the five teams that beat UF had a combined record of 52-17.

Here are a few clues:

1. Healthy DJ Lagway: Florida was leading Georgia when DJ went down with a hamstring injury. A lot of people with When he came back against LSU, he was only 80-85 percent according to Napier. People who know say his shoulder issues are behind him and he will be 100 percent to start the 2025 season. If he’s healthy, the Gators will have one of the top four quarterbacks in college football.

On Florida’s first scoring drive in the first quarter, Lagway made two NFL caliber throws. One was a 34-yard completion to Chimere Dike on third and seven. The coverage was tight but Lagway put the ball where only Dike could catch it. Two plays later he hooked up with Elijhah Badger at the LSU one, another perfectly thrown ball that Badger caught and turned into the game’s opening TD. In the fourth quarter, Lagway and Badger hooked up on a 36-yard pass that led to the go-ahead TD. Again, the coverage was tight but Lagway made the kind of throw that you expect of NFL quarterbacks, not an 18-year-old college freshman.

LSU did its best to confuse Lagway and only a couple of times did he seem to be a lost ball in the tall grass. On 95 percent of the plays, Lagway made the right read or was poised enough to move in the pocket while avoiding the rush to find a passing lane. There is a reason most freshman quarterbacks struggle and this is it. Pocket presence is everything. The feet have to move instinctively to open lanes while keeping the head up and looking downfield. It is a skill that most college quarterbacks take two or three years to master.

2. The O-line: LSU did not sack Lagway the entire game despite resorting to exotic blitz packages on most pass plays in the second half. Lagway is to be praised for his pocket presence, but the O-line was absolutely in a zone from start to finish. The play that best illustrates what the O-line could do was the  55-yard touchdown run by Jadan Baugh that put the game away with 3:48 to go. On the play, left tackle Austin Barber gets out quickly to take out the edge. This clears the way for tight end Hayden Hansen to get a free lane to the safety.  Left guard Knijeah Harris pulls, gets to the second level and takes out a linebacker. Center Jake Slaughter keeps the running lane clear by taking out the nose tackle. Over on the right side, Bryce Lovett, in at right guard, seals off the tackle. Baugh only had one man to beat, which he did easily on his sprint to the end zone.

Florida averaged 6.6 yards per running play against the Tigers. Lagway averaged 8.7 yards per pass attempt.

Barber, Harris and Slaughter (first team All-America) are back intact for 2025. Lovett has moved out to right tackle where he had an impressive spring. Damieon George Jr. had a good game at right guard and finished the season one of the top ranked run-blocking guards in the country. Florida’s five O-linemen might be as good or better than any O-line in the country.

3. The pass rush was relentless: Coming into the game, LSU’s offensive line was touted as the best in the country. The Tigers had given up only six sacks all season when the Gators spent the day harassing Garrett Nussmeier. Nussmeier went down six times for 44 yards in losses. Officially, the Gators were credited with six quarterback hurries but Nussmeier was rattled into at least five bad throws because he was seeing ghosts.

That’s what the creeper defense is supposed to do. When executed properly, it makes opposing quarterbacks see pass rushers who aren’t there while pressure comes from blind sides. When Ron Roberts went to the booth and replaced Austin Armstrong as the defensive play caller, the Florida defense suddenly got so much better. LSU was the game when it all came together.

In this game, Caleb Banks had a sack, two forced fumbles and three quarterback hurries. He could have gone to the NFL, but chose to come back. With the kind of pressure he can provide from a had in the dirt position, it opens things up for speed rushers like George Gumbs and Tyreak Sapp.

During the LSU game, Roberts kept moving Gumbs and Sapp all over the place. Gumbs wound up with a sack in which he ran down Nussmeier at the sideline after a 15-yard sprint through traffic. Sapp had four tackles for loss and a sack, which came when he lined up over the left guard.

Florida’s pressure allowed the secondary to get the job done against one of the fastest receiveing corps in the country. LSU averaged only 5.5 yards per pass attempt. Anything less than 6.5 per attempt is outstanding.

Nineteen of Florida’s 39 sacks came in the final four games. The Gators improved by 17 sacks over the 2023 season.

The LSU game was just the start of an impressive finish to 2024. Florida has the pieces returning and some new young talent to win a lot of football games in 2025. Can the Gators challenge for the SEC championship and make the playoff?

A year ago that answer would have been no. This year? It’s entirely possible.

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT

The late, great Bill Veeck, who at one time or another owned the St. Louis Browns, Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox, once said, “I don’t mind the high price of stardom. I just don’t like the high price of mediocrity.”

As much as he didn’t mind paying his stars, I think even Bill Veeck would have grabbed his chest and hollered, “It’s the big one!” had he seen the contract extension Shai Gilgeous-Alexander just signed with the Oklahoma City Thunder. He signed on for four more years for a mere $285 million. If we go simply by regular season games, that’s  roughly $868,902.44 per game. Figure that’s $48 per fan if he plays every single regular season game and the crowds average 18,000.

Nice work if you can get it. SGA is a star and after a season in which he was the NBA scoring leader, regular season MVP and MVP of the playoffs, the Thunder think he’s worth the investment. The NBA will have a salary cap of a little more than $154 million per team next year, so SGA will eat up half the salary cap of the Thunder. In the NBA a team is allowed to have 15 players under contract and another three on 2-way contracts (NBA/G-League), so even the guys who ride the pine are rather well paid. For a 2024-25 rookie, minimum wage was $1,157,153.

Former Gator Tre Mann, who spent most of the past season injured, just signed on for three more years with the Charlotte Hornets for $24 million. Former Gator Dorian Finney-Smith left the Lakers for a 4-year, $53 million deal with the Houston Rockets. Toronto just extended the contract of center Jakob Poeltl, who averaged 14.5 points and 9.6 rebounds per game. He gets $104 million over the next four years. Not bad for someone who only an NBA diehard or a Toronto Ruptures fan knows.

The NFL has a salary cap of $279.2 million for 2025. That is spread among 53 roster players during the course of the season, so the average player makes $5,264,154.72. An undrafted rookie has a minimum wage of $600,000. The stars get paid very well, but so do the scrubeenies. Additionally, each team can carry 16 practice squad players who can be elevated to the 53-man roster in the event of an injury. They make $13,000 a week, so a player who stays on the practice squad for the 17-game regular season makes $221,000.  

There is no salary cap in baseball although teams that exceed $241 million in salaries. The New York Yankees have a $289.3 million payroll for 2025. The Yankees are allowed to carry 26 on their roster until September 1 when they can expand to 28. Minimum wage for a rookie is $760,000. Obviously, the stars make much more than that. Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Lakers signed a 10-year deal worth $700 million. He’s going to squeeze by on $2 million a year and take the rest after his contract expires. The Mets pay Juan Soto $765 million over 15 years. Aaron Judge of the Yankees is a relative bargain at $40 million a year.

The stars in the three major professional sports are very well paid. Bill Veeck always knew that it’s the stars who bring people to the stadiums, so while his mouth might go dry at the high price of an SGA or Patrick Mahomes or Juan Soto, he would understand that it’s the cost of doing business. What would cause him to stagger, clutch his chest and proclaim readiness to meet his maker is the price you have to pay for the guys who ride the pine or the starting second baseman who hits .233 and regularly whiffs or hits into an inning-ending double play with runners in scoring position.

I had a conversation with a friend of mine Tuesday afternoon. He complained that he can’t afford to take his wife and kids to see the Orlando Magic play anymore. “We used to be season ticket holders but no more,” he told me. “Now we might get to four or five games a year. Tickets, parking … have you seen the cost of a skinny weenie and a beer these days? You could feed a family of eight in Nicaragua for a month for what it costs a family of four to go to a game by the time you pay for everything.”

My friend wondered out loud where it will all end. “If you keep paying people these outrageous salaries and keep raising the prices, at some point people won’t come to the games anymore. When that happens do you think some team will go bankrupt?”

Nope and here’s why. The people who own the teams are typically worth billions. They don’t mind if their team loses money because it’s a tax writeoff and if they run into hard times, they can always sell the team for a profit. The late Jerry Buss, for example, bought the Los Angeles Lakers for $67.5 million in 1979. His daughter, who inherited the team when he died, is finalizing a deal to sell the Lakers for $10 billion.

The new owner will pay his stars top dollar. That’s what you do when you have a legendary NBA franchise that hasn’t won a championship in five years. He will pay and so will everyone else who is trying to keep up with him. The stars will make even more money and the guys who sit the bench will get paid a ton.

Somewhere in heaven Bill Veeck and Red Foxx are clutching their chests.