Cam's Column: No Excuse for Florida to be Manhandled by Miami

Year three of the Billy Napier era got started with the Florida Gators' worst home opener in its distinguished history.

Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier's team needs to look better in year three than it did against the Miami Hurricanes. / Matt Pendleton-USA TODAY Sports

280 days. 

That’s how long it’s been since Florida’s 24-15 loss to Florida State to end the 2023 season. That’s how long Florida had to prepare for its 2024 campaign. That’s how long Florida had to prepare for its season-opener against Miami. 

Instead, Saturday’s 41-17 blowout loss in front of over 90,000 fans at home looked like Florida only had 28 minutes to prepare for the season. 

Embarrassing, unexpected and surprising are just a few of the words that could be used to describe Saturday’s performance. I’m sure there’s a few that I’m missing, but you get the point. 

At least Florida acknowledged that, right? 

“Yeah, I mean, it's embarrassing, to be quite honest with you. That's how I feel,” said head coach Billy Napier. “That's how our kids feel. We've got a decision to make. I think we have -- that's what I just told them. There's no excuses. Keep our mouths shut, show up and work. We have to do better.”

At every turn, the Hurricanes dominated the Gators, and there’s absolutely no reason it had to be that way. The two programs are similar in a way. 

In two years under Mario Cristobal, Miami’s gone 12-13 (now 13-13) with one bowl appearance, a loss. In two years under Billy Napier, Florida’s gone 11-14 (now 11-15) with one bowl appearance, a loss. 

Both programs relied on stacking up blue-chip talent in the high school recruiting class, and both were active in the transfer portal to beef up their rosters. 

Two programs in similar spots who made similar moves ahead of meeting each other to open the season. Meanwhile, that’s not how it looked on the field Saturday afternoon in The Swamp. 

It looked like two teams on opposite spectrums of the college football world. It looked like the 2001 national champion Miami Hurricanes were playing the 2013 4-8 Florida Gators. 

It looked like a team and a coach in its first game of a tenure, not its 26th. 

“Well, again, you've got to give Miami some credit. They've got a good football team,” Napier said. “I think they had a handful of wrinkles that were new. There's no question about that.”

No kidding. 

(By the way, not to rub salt in the wounds, but Miami also beat that 2013 Gators squad 21-16 for their most-recent win in the series before Saturday). 

Before we look at the stats, let’s get some of the hard stuff out of the way. 

Florida’s 33-game home-opener win streak was snapped. Florida last lost a home-opener in the 1989 season. The loss was the worst home-opening loss in program history, which dates back to 1906. 

If you were in the stadium, you could see many Gator fans leaving in the third quarter as “We Are the Boys” sang in the stadium. Miami fans’ chants of “It’s Great to be a Miami Hurricane,” echoed throughout, as well. There was also the boos from Gator Nation as the team headed into the locker room for halftime. 

Not what you want to have in a season-opener against a heated rival you rarely play. Not what you want to have in any game for that matter, but the fact that it was against a heated rival makes it that much worse. 

Speaking of rivals, Florida is now 1-8 against its main rivals under Napier (Georgia, FSU, Tennessee, Miami, LSU). That number becomes 1-10 if you include Kentucky. 

At least there’s the 1-1 records against Vanderbilt and Missouri and the 2-0 record against South Carolina, right? (Reminder, Florida plays none of those teams after the SEC rearranged to no divisions ahead of the 2024 season). 

Now, let’s get to the stats. Cover your eyes if you must. These numbers aren’t for the faint-of-heart. 

The Hurricanes out-gained Florida 144-139 on the ground. Not terrible, but we’ll get to how that’s a little inflated in a little bit. 

The Hurricanes out-gained Florida 385-122 through the air. Terrible. 

The Hurricanes out-sacked Florida 3-1 and had more tackles-for-loss with eight, while the Gators had two. Terrible. 

Florida went 1-for-9 on third down, while Miami went 5-for-10. That third down conversion didn’t happen until the second half. Terrible. 

Pretty much any stat in the book, except for total return yards (shout out to the Gators’ game-changers), was dominated by Miami.

If it was a surprise to you, don’t worry. It was a surprise to Napier and his team, too. 

“I think that I felt strongly that we would perform better. But I'm not here to make excuses. We've got to get it fixed,” he said. “We're going to get another opportunity next week, and we've got to play better and coach better. I'll have more answers for you on Monday, but sitting in here right now, I have no excuses for you.”

(It was a surprise to me, too. I’ll eat my prediction of a Gators’ 31-27 win, but at least I had the point total correct, right? That’s gotta count for something.)

In his first start for the Hurricanes, Cam Ward completed 26 of his 35 attempts for 385 yards and three touchdowns. Seven of those completions and 112 of those yards went to Xavier Restrepo. 

Before the game ESPN's oft-wrong Booger McFarland said Ward would kickstart his Heisman campaign in Gainesville. It sounded funny at the time, but he and the Hurricanes were the ones laughing after the game.

This is all coming on the heels of Florida praising its new and improved strength and conditioning program, its new and improved defense that gets pressure in the backfield and its new and improved secondary that creates turnovers and makes plays on the ball.

None of that was shown on Saturday. 

Florida’s lone sack didn’t come until the fourth quarter, and its lone interception came from a linebacker. 

Now, Miami’s rushing numbers on paper aren’t anything spectacular. The Hurricanes had 33 attempts for 144 yards and two touchdowns, good for 4.4-yards per carry. Florida may have only had five-less rushing yards and 0.6 more yards per carry, but it came down to consistency.

The Hurricanes were simply more consistent. They wore down the Gators’ front from start to finish. Ward's ability to scramble early extended drives and ate up chunks of yardage.

“A lot of the runs got to the perimeter where the secondary was forced to make the tackle. We'll see. It's definitely not strength and conditioning,” Napier said. “I think good, sound football. I think ultimately when we look at it, there's not a ton of explosive runs throughout the game. I think most of them were manageable.”

Maybe not explosive for the Hurricanes, but consistency was all they needed. For Florida, it was opposite day. 

Takeaway Montrell Johnson Jr.’s 71-yard touchdown rush, the Gators recorded 68 yards on the ground in 28 attempts for a miserable 2.4-yard average. 

Now, that’s not to discredit his touchdown. It truly was a great run with great blocking from Knijeah Harris and Jake Slaughter on outside pulls. But that was about it in the rushing attack. No sustained success at all. 

The passing game wasn’t much better. 

Graham Mertz went 11-of-21 for 91 yards, no touchdowns and an interception. He wasn’t given much time to work with from the offensive line and tight ends, who gave up three sacks. In the rare attempt when he did have time, throws were missed. 

Notice I didn’t just point out the offensive line’s woes. It was a team-effort on Saturday, and Napier even indicated that. 

“I think that when it comes to protection, all players contribute to that, not just the offensive line,” he said. “I think there's going to be areas where we can separate and get open. There's going to be things the quarterback can do differently. Maybe it's the running back or the tight end that's involved in protection. So I think it's more of a unit thing than a position group thing.”

A concussion suffered on an intercepted pass ended Mertz’s day and thrust five-star freshman DJ Lagway into the game, but it didn’t matter at that point with Florida down 28 points early in the fourth quarter. 

Give Lagway credit, though. He did lead the Gators on a nine-play, 58-yard touchdown drive midway through the fourth quarter, but he did throw an interception on the next drive.

This comes on the heels of Florida praising its new and improved passing game with a deeper and strong offensive line group, confident quarterbacks that take shots down the field and faster receivers who create space. 

None of that was shown on Saturday. 

In fact, the only promise kept on Saturday was improved special teams, which had all 11 guys on the field for each attempt, had a solid return game with Chimere Dike and Jadan Baugh and solid kicking and punting performances from Trey Smack and Jeremy Crawshaw.

At least that was shown on Saturday.

But going back to the entire team, this all comes on the heels of 280 days of promises that the team would be better than it’s been in past years – that the team had more depth, effort, talent, experience, communication, intensity, et cetera. 

None of that was shown on Saturday. 

The rest of the Gators’ slate doesn’t get any easier, and to make matters worse, Miami was the Gators’ second-lowest ranked AP Poll opponent on the schedule. The lowest-ranked opponent that appeared on the preseason AP Poll is Texas A&M, who is ranked 20th and will travel to Gainesville in two weeks. 

By the way, Texas A&M was tied with No. 6 Notre Dame, 13-13, in the fourth quarter before eventually falling 23-13. Good luck, Florida. 

I may be overreacting. There’s a chance Miami is simply better than people gave them credit for. Maybe it’s a case of the first-game-blues for the Gators. Heck, maybe Florida finds a way to turn it around. It is only the first game after all.

But after 280 days of promised improvement, all it took was one night to shatter confidence from an outside point-of-view. At least there’s a promise they’ll get it fixed, right? 

“Honestly, this game right here does not define us at all. This is not what it's going to look like for the rest of the year, I can promise you that,” said edge rusher Justus Boone.

Florida better hope that promise is kept. If not, it’ll be another long season that Gator fans already aren’t willing to put up with. At least Napier and the team understand that, right? 

“We'll have to navigate (outside negative reactions),” Napier said. “I think we've got to be men and we've got to show some maturity. Ultimately if you care about the team, you'll show up and work hard at your job. I think this group will do that. But we can't control that. It's part of the job, and it's part of their responsibility to the team.”

I don’t know what the answer is to Florida’s woes. There wasn’t just one issue that cost them the game. Pick your poison on the issues because, trust me, there’s plenty to choose from.

Considering the time they had to prepare, not to mention their opponent coming into the game in a similar spot, in Billy Napier’s words, “There’s no excuses.”