If it\u2019s always darkest before the dawn, morning is nigh in Gainesville, Florida.<\/p>\n
We know this because it can\u2019t possibly get any worse for the University of Florida\u2019s athletic program than it was this week.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s 49-17 lambs to the slaughter defeat at No. 5 Texas was merely the icing on a cake baked with shock, scandal and more than a dash of despair.<\/p>\n
The Gators, missing 8 starters and several key backups, were helpless from the outset, unable to move against Texas\u2019 outstanding defense and unable to make critical stops on third down against Quinn Ewers and the Longhorns’ offense. The game was settled when Texas scored 3 times in the final 6 minutes of the first half to lead 35-0 at halftime and it was 42-0 before the Gators finally found the scoreboard in the third quarter to extend the nation\u2019s longest streak of games without being shut out to 457 games.<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s ineptitude in Austin, however, was hardly the biggest story in Gator Nation this week.<\/p>\n
An alligator is a natural predator to a big steer, but sport doesn\u2019t always imitate life, and this week in Florida athletics was stranger than fiction.<\/p>\n
Just one week ago, the Gators led archrival No. 2 Georgia 10-3, with the ball and in position to add to the lead. For the first time since 2020, the Gators were in control of the Cocktail Party, fighting the more talented Dawgs to a stalemate on the line of scrimmage and moving the ball behind an effective run game and their freshman phenom quarterback, DJ Lagway.<\/p>\n
Lost in the wilderness for much of the past decade, there was light across the St. John\u2019s River. Florida appeared poised to turn the corner.<\/p>\n
All the joy came crashing down in an instant when Lagway was carted off the field after injuring his hamstring on a seemingly innocuous non-contact play late in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
Faster than the rolling darkness of an emerging Florida thunderstorm, fate and fortune once again turned on the Gators.<\/p>\n
Georgia won the Cocktail Party 34-20, scoring 2 late touchdowns against an exhausted Florida defense, stuck squirming upstream against the current for too long thanks to an offense that struggled to move under third-string quarterback Aidan Warner.<\/p>\n
Hope briefly teased a return Monday, when word came that Lagway\u2019s hamstring injury may not be as \u201csignificant\u201d as coach Billy Napier originally believed.<\/p>\n
But such hope was short lived, as it often is at a program that feels star-crossed at best and cursed, somehow still paying down the ledger of the sins left behind by Urban Meyer\u2019s lawless but fast, furious, prolific reign over the SEC and sport, which delivered Florida 2 national championships and a Heisman Trophy winner in a 3-year span from 2006-2008.<\/p>\n
Lagways don\u2019t come around often, though.<\/p>\n
Perhaps Lagway could reverse the curse. Surely the voodoo oozing from and enveloping The Swamp like a cloud could be stopped. All it takes is one magnificent quarterback to wake the echoes, no?<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe once a decade you get a player that ready and that talented,\u201d a Georgia assistant texted last Sunday, a day after the Dawgs escaped the Gators after Lagway\u2019s injury. \u201cThey will win big if they keep him there. That\u2019s all I know. If I am them, I don\u2019t care what it costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps thinking the same way, Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin sent notice to the Florida fan base on Thursday that the much-maligned Napier would return to Florida as head coach in 2025.<\/p>\n
\nA message from Scott Stricklin pic.twitter.com\/NpLD6ktrHj<\/a><\/p>\n
— Florida Gators (@FloridaGators) November 7, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n