Please Read: Welcome to the new-look Inside the Gators
- Take Five: The Next Steps
- Take Five: The Napier Era Ends
- Parental Perspective: Florida Football Parental RoundTable
- Parental Perspective: Four-star’s father talks about the process and the UF staff
Here are five Florida Gators who are in the spotlight, and on the spot, to perform this week against Mississippi State.
Lagonza Hayward
Last week against Mississippi State, players on the Florida defense were dropping like flies. Combine that with the fact that the defense was already injured, and the Gators had a lot of second and third strings on the field. While some of the young guys struggled, others thrived like Lagonza Hayward. The true freshman got to see his first bit of serious action on Saturday and made the most of it with six tackles and 2.5 TFLs. His explosiveness on the ball is going to be big against the Bulldogs. Even though he is listed as a defensive back, he was playing more of a confusion role on Saturday, playing different positions all over the field while mixing in some deadly blitzes. Expect to see more of that against Georgia.
Dallas Wilson
After a massive first week and debut for the Gators, Dallas Wilson has been cold the next two. Not to say that this wasn’t expected, with how high his usage was in his first game, defenses were bound to game plan around him. With only 5 catches and fewer than 60 yards in the last two games, Wilson needs a bounce-back. I can’t say I know for sure how the new offense is going to look, but I would assume they would try to take advantage of the Georgia pass defense, which is one of the only weaknesses on this team.
Brien Taylor Jr.
In the last three games, Florida has found itself 2-1 with wins over Texas and Mississippi State. A consistent part of those games has been Taylor Jr. and his dominating presence on the defensive line. He has 8 tackles with 3 TFLs and 2 sacks in this stretch for the Gators. Florida is going to need a lot more of that on Saturday when taking on the Georgia offensive line. Gunner Stockton will light the Florida secondary up if they can’t get pressure on him.
Caden Jones
Jones has been one of the more solid offensive linemen so far this season for the Gators. He started the season on the bench but took the starter Bryce Lovett’s job almost immediately, which was expected by most with how Lovett struggled in the spring and summer. After basically splitting snaps with Lovett the first two games, Jones has gotten the nod the last five games in a row and will most likely get the start on Saturday. Georgia has one of the better defensive lines in college football, so Caden Jones will be essential in creating holes for Jadan Baugh.
DJ Lagway
If I were DJ Lagway, this game would have been circled on my calendar since November last year. Florida leads its rival behind a true freshman quarterback, and then Lagway goes down. Pretty sure every Gator fan had mentally convinced themselves that if Lagway had played the whole game, Florida would have won. Now it’s finally time for DJ to have his revenge game. While he has struggled so far this year, Lagway now has a new coach calling his plays in QB coach Ryan O’Hara. O’Hara knows more about what Lagway does well and doesn’t do well than any other person on the staff. Excited to see how Lagway and O’Hara work together.
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