When Big Dez got the ball, the entire stadium tilted sideways

Desmond Watson got to channel his inner Gayle Sayers against Tulane (Gator Bait Photo by Chris Spears)

TAMPA -- If he had enough hair to let down, Billy Napier would have done it Friday night as he sat at the podium in the bowels of Raymond James Stadium while sandwiched between Chimere Dike, DJ Lagway and the human eclipse that is the enormous Desmond Watson.

Billy was having fun, perhaps the most fun he’s had in three years as he answered questions from a media that all but had his coaching obituary written a little more than two months ago. Fun is what you have when you’ve finished a season that began so poorly with four straight wins to secure an improbable 8-5 record.

Fun is what you have when you’ve just won the last game of the season in blowout fashion and you’ve just allowed Watson to channel his inner Gale Sayers to convert a third-and-1 on Florida’s final scoring drive of the Gasparilla Bowl. It was an idea cooked up in practice as the Gators prepped for Tulane, which played for the American Athletic Conference championship a couple of weeks ago but on this night was completely overmatched.

“We started out, we just had a run where he was a blocker, and we had a play-action pass where he was kind of a decoy,” Napier said after the Gators left Tulane languishing like a lost ball in the tall grass on the side of the road, 33-8. “And then just watching our players when we put that package in, the guys were like, ‘Hey, give him the ball! Give him the ball!' And we literally put the play in on the field at practice.”

The Gators were already ahead 26-0 late in the fourth quarter when Watson lumbered out on the field with the ball on the Tulane 26. Taking a handoff from backup QB Aidan Warner, Watson rumbled over the left side for the yard it took to earn the first down. Big Dez running with the ball felt like an earthquake, almost as if the entire stadium was turned sideways on its foundations. It was only a yard, but Napier and Watson's teammates celebrated as if Big Dez had outrun the entire Tulane team as he sprinted 99 yards with the ball tucked high and tight.

Following a delay of game penalty, Watson lined up in the I-formation as the fullback, leading Anthony Rubio through a hole for an 8-yard gain. Watson lost his helmet on the play so he had to leave the game, but he was mobbed by teammates who were already in a celebration mode.

Sitting at the podium, dwarfing Napier and easily twice the combined size of Lagway and Dike, Watson grinned when asked if he could also catch passes.

“I can do it all,” Watson quipped. He spoke softly but ever so confidently. Everyone in the room grinned with him.

He’s a senior. This was his final game as a Florida Gator, but he has a memory now that will last a lifetime.  After all, how many 460-pounders can say their feet danced through a hole as they carried the ball for a first down?

This 4-game winning streak to close out the 2024 season is a memory that could end up lasting a lifetime if Napier and the Gators can use this momentum to truly turn the corner of a program that was teetering on the verge of irrelevance. Three consecutive losing seasons and five losers in the last 12 after going from 1980-2012 without a single sub-.500 season have transformed the Florida football program from perpetual SEC and national championship contender into one riding off into the sunset.

An 8-5 record doesn’t mean the Gators have turned the corner on the journey back to contenders, but every journey begins with a first step and this streak is as a good place as any to begin. Against Tulane, the Gators did it without bringing their offensive A-game. Despite 529 yards -- 305 through the air and 224 on the ground -- and a nearly 18-minute time of possession advantage, the Gators left points on the field.

Plenty of them. Lagway, the game’s MVP who completed 22-35 passes for 305 yards and a TD, threw a pair of interceptions. One killed off a promising drive, the other was in the end zone on a third-and-goal from the Tulane four.

Penalties turned a first down at the Tulane 29 into a second-and-29 that eventually became a 44-yard Trey Smack field goal. Another penalty nullified a 8-yard touchdown run by Jadan Baugh in the fourth quarter, resulting in another Smack field goal, this one from 30 yards out.

A first quarter sack in the red zone turned another potential touchdown drive into a 34-yard field goal by Smack. In the third quarter, a first-and-goal at the Tulane three netted -3 yards on two running plays and a hurried incompletion on third down. Smack kicked a 24-yard field goal on that one.

At the podium, Napier playfully chided Lagway, ““You know I told DJ, I said, ‘What if we scored touchdowns on all those possessions?’ We’d have a lot more points right now.”

Following a 6-0 halftime lead, the Gators scored three second half touchdowns -- a 7-yard Lagway to Tony Livingston pass, a 25-yard run by freshman KD Daniels and Rubio’s 8-yard run. The Daniels TD ranked right up there with Watson in terms of entertainment value. On fourth-and-1 from the Tulane 23, Lagway fumbled and the ball went backward. Daniels alertly picked up the ball and plowed straight ahead, but instead of going down, he burst through to the second level, then sprinted his way to the end zone.

A lot more than three touchdowns would have looked good on paper, but they weren’t exactly necessary the way the defense was playing. This was Florida’s fourth straight game in which the defense played a definitive role, unimaginable thinking back to the way the defense played in September. Tulane came into the game averaging more than 205 yards on the ground and 209 through the air. They couldn’t get either working against the Florida defense kept the Green Wave from sustaining any kind of drive until the very end when they scored a meaningless touchdown with 29 seconds left. The Gators picked off three Tulane passes, one by Trikweze Bridges on the Green Wave’s first offensive play of the game, another by walk-on Alonzo Allen Jr. in the third quarter and a fourth quicker pick by freshman linebacker Myles Graham.

The Green Wave managed only 194 offensive yards, the lowest total allowed by the Gators all season. Tulane QB Ty Thompson completed only 11-29 passes for 125 yards. The Tulane running game netted only 69 yards on 27 carries, just 2.6 per attempt. Tulane converted only 3-13 on third down, 1-4 on fourth down.  

What the defense did against Tulane was indicative of the final four games of the season. The Gators got stops and they got takeaways. A year ago, the Gators had only 22 sacks and seven takeaways. In 2025, bolstered by four games of dominance to end the season, the Gators wound up with 39 sacks and 25 takeaways (11 fumbles recovered, 14 interceptions). In the final four games, the Gators had seven fumble recoveries, five interceptions and 19 sacks.

“I think one of the reasons we've been able to turn it around is we played really good defense down the stretch, and today was no different,” Napier said. “I think we stopped the run, we made it one-dimensional, we kept the shots in front of us. I thought we did a good job tackling on the perimeter.”

Turn around the Gators did. After a 1-2 start that included humiliating home losses to Miami and Texas A&M, the Gators went 7-3 the rest of the way. Three of the losses (Tennessee, Georgia and Texas) were to teams that are in the College Football Playoff. Against the toughest schedule in the nation, the Gators knocked LSU and Ole Miss out of contention for the playoff and they beat Tulane, which played Army for the AAC championship. Important when contemplating the future is Florida's 6-1 record when Lagway was the starting quarterback.

Back in September and prior to forcing Tennessee into overtime at Neyland Stadium, Napier was thought to have one foot in his coaching grave, the other out the door at The Heavener Center. Reports of Napier’s demise obviously were greatly exaggerated. Billy is Florida's football coach for the foreseeable future.

The trick now for Billy Napier is to prove that the Gators aren’t one-season wonders. They will get the rest of December off, then it will be time to crank things up again in January. When January rolls around, Billy Napier’s buzz haircut will go back to looking like it is spray painted on, but until then Napier, his staff and the Gators have earned the right to have some fun, share a few smiles and even let their hair down a little bit.

A one-season 8-5 record offers no assurance that the Gators have turned the corner on a rocky road back to relevance in the Southeastern Conference, but it is a good place to start. The question now becomes is this one-season achievement sustainable? Do the Gators have the momentum necessary to get back to the days where a 9-win season was considered a bad year?

There will be time enough to figure that out, but for this moment, it’s time for Billy Napier to channel his inner hippie, complete with long hair that blows in the wind.