Florida Quarterback DJ Lagway Could be Special

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Florida coach Billy Napier talked a lot about talented quarterback DJ Lagway at the Southeastern Conference Media Days Wednesday in Atlanta and also got asked a lot about his star player.

“Obviously DJ, it’s well documented the job that he did last year becoming our quarterback midway through the season. I was most impressed with how he handled that, the type of teammate that he was, the humility, the character. And the guy was phenomenal on game day,” Napier said.

“He’s just a great competitor. He showed a ton of grit and toughness, played through some injuries, and obviously I thought he grew every week as he continued to get better, and I think year two for him has got a chance to be really special. His degree will be in education sciences.”

The coach likes his overall team that played well the second half of the 2024 season and did beat Kentucky.

“One of the great things about this 2025 team that we have is we have a lot of football players that have leadership traits. We got some guys that have been through some battles. They have experience,” Napier said.  “I really believe that’s the most crucial ingredient when you start talking about having a great team, the character of the players that are leading the team. And I think we have that with this group.

“This group believes in what we do. I think that’s where we really took a big step in the right direction last year is we found a level of confidence that we could go toe to toe with any team in the country any place, anytime. You spot the ball last year — at the end of the year, you could argue we were playing as good of football as anybody in the country, and I think that that’s a result of our development process.”

Here’s more of what Napier said during his time at the main podium:

Q. I wanted to ask if you could take me back to the final days of quarterback DJ Lagway’s recruitment and especially with other schools trying to make a late push, like A&M.

BILLY NAPIER: Yeah, no. DJ, we were fortunate that we found DJ early in his high school career. We built great rapport. DJ stayed the course, and I think one of the things that’s unique about our team is that we recruited each one of these groups with the mantra of kind of like you have to be up for the challenge in terms of what we’re trying to take on here.

So DJ was no different in that regard, and I think his mentality towards recruitment, the consistency in his attitude and approach, he never wavered, obviously in a little bit of a difficult time as well. So DJ has got great parents. I think he’s got a great foundation in terms of the values. I think he’s a great teammate. So he was phenomenal throughout that entire process, and he’s certainly made a difference in our team.

Q. Your 2023 recruiting class has largely remained intact, which isn’t really the case across the league. What do you attribute that to when the results haven’t quite been there?

BILLY NAPIER: That’s a great question. Look, we committed to recruiting high school players. We signed, for the most part, three big groups of high school players, and we’ve been strategic with the portal in terms of immediate needs. But I do think that we’re trying to build a veteran team.

Now, that ’23 group, I tell them every day, you know, look, you came here, you have this experience. We’re in position to keep the momentum that we have. It’s important that they’re the example.

I think nowadays it’s more important to identify the character component and the circle of influence around the kid. You know, I think that if you recruit a problem, they’ll continue to be a problem, and I think we present our product in a way where we’re selling the degree, the alumni network, the Gator-made program, and you have to be up for the challenge of trying to get Florida back to where it’s been before.

And I think that’s one of the reasons we’ve been able to keep it together is we told them when they came in, you know, look, it’s not going to all be sunshine and rainbows here. We’re in this thing for the long haul. So I think a lot of this is how you pitch it in recruiting. We’re going to continue to do that, and retention is more important than it’s ever been.

Q. Billy, where is DJ in terms of throwing the ball and the OTAs? And is he making all the throws you feel like he’s going to need to make in a game situation?

BILLY NAPIER: Yeah. DJ has continued — we throw the quarterback three times a week. He’s continued to do that. He actually got a good session in this morning before he came here. So, yeah, we feel confident in terms of him being ready to go.

Q. Coach, what did you see early on in DJ Lagway, and how much has he helped you in recruiting and avoiding logo fever when you look at that schedule?

BILLY NAPIER: Yeah. DJ has — look, I think what’s impressed me with DJ is how he has handled success. We knew DJ before he dominated Texas high school football his senior year. He became the Gatorade National Player of the Year. So seeing the humility, seeing how he treated people, how he embraced his role in that community on that team, the steadiness, I think his parents obviously provided a great example there. But he did the same things last year as he started to kind of become a bigger — have a bigger role on the team.

So the other thing I would say is just the competitor on game day is really unique. I think his ability to block out all the external factors and really get consumed with leading the team, playing winning football, executing.

And we’ve built around the guy. There’s no question. Players want to play with DJ. We’ve built his class around that and certainly some of these guys that are in the rookie group were a part of that as well.