Florida Gators QB Graham Mertz Drops Bold Message for 2024 Season
Graham Mertz and the Florida Gators are looking to get back to winning. After a rough season in 2023, the team is hoping to work their way to being a potential contender in 2024.
While they aren't receiving a lot of contender love from the national media, Mertz and the Gators have a new mindset.
During the 2023 campaign, Mertz put together an impressive season from an individual perspective. He was quietly one of the most underrated quarterbacks in the nation.
Looking ahead to this season, Mertz doesn't care about his individual success. He dropped a bold statement about the year, revealing his mindset.
“I think the biggest thing? Like, individual stats don’t matter. W’s matter."
He also spoke out about the new mindset of winning at all costs and shared that Florida did not have that mindset last season.
“The reality is we didn’t have that last year. So I think, for us and every day that we walk in, we know what our record was last year and we know what everybody says about it."
Mertz expounded further about his mindset and revealed more of his leadership qualities.
“All you can do is just go out there and go win every game. That needs to be the mindset. I mean that’s everybody. Every quarterback is telling their team, ‘Look, we’re going to go win every game’. But it’s how do you get everybody to buy into that and work towards that?”
Last season with the Gators, Mertz ended up completing 72.9 percent of his pass attempts for 2,903 yards, 20 touchdowns, and just three interceptions. He also scored four touchdowns on the ground.
Not only has Mertz found success on the field, he has made quite a few great moves off of it in the NIL market.
Currently, the Florida quarterback is ranked as the No. 74 NIL athlete across the entire nation. He is ranked No. 52 in the college football market.
On3 has given Mertz an NIL valuation of $687,000. That number is sure to rise throughout the next year.
Hopefully, the Gators' starting quarterback will be able to lead his team to success on the field and continue his personal success as well. If he can take the next step in 2024, he could be looking at being an NFL draft pick.
Expect to see Florida look much better this season than they did last year. Mertz and the team have a new mindset and it's all about winning. It will be interesting to see if they can accomplish their goals.
EVAN MASSEY
Evan Massey is a sports reporter and analyst who covers both the NFL and NBA. He has worked for ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, Forbes, Bleacher Report, NFLAnalysis.net, NBAAnalysis.net, and many other publications. In his free time, Evan enjoys spending time with his wife and son.