Gators loss at Tennessee spotlights Billy Napier’s in-game struggles

Florida coach Billy Napier touts “complementary football” as key to his winning formula.

But W’s rarely come easily for his Gators, even on an atypical night in Tennessee when football’s three phases all showed up. With his offense, defense and special teams clicking on Rocky Top, Napier didn’t do his part during a soul-crushing 23-17 overtime loss to the No. 8 Vols.

Rather than go for the win and avoid overtime, Napier played it safely. With the chance to build a first-half cushion, his offense fell flat and provided hope to Tennessee.

UF failed twice with a yard or less to gain, including on the goal line when quarterback Graham Mertz fumbled.

“We had many opportunities to score points and left a ton of points out there,” Napier said.

Coach Josh Heupel’s Vols (5-1, 2-1 SEC) eventually capitalized to keep alive their College Football Playoff hopes. The loss undercut Florida’s push for a winning season and Napier’s case to save his job.

Until Tennessee tailback Dylan Sampson’s third touchdown run secured the win, the Gators went toe to toe with a top 10 team with a sellout crowd of 101,915 against them.

Napier had his team, particularly UF’s embattled defense, prepared to compete as 15.5-point underdogs. Yet his repeated miscues derailed the effort and offered the latest example of Napier’s in-game struggles with play-calling, game management and overseeing the operation.

Consider the end of the first half when the Gators squandered three critical points after an illegal-substitution penalty left UF with 12 men on the field and negated Trey Smack’s 42-yard-field goal. Napier claimed an injured player failed to exit the game.

“The player that had been substituted on that unit did not come off (the field),” he said. “He stayed.”

The ensuing 10-second run-off ended the half, with the Gators leading 3-0, because Napier had used Florida’s final timeout moments earlier with the game clock stopped.

Four trips to the red-zone ultimately produced a single field goal for a UF squad entering Saturday third in the SEC with 78.95% touchdown rate (15 of 19) inside an opponent’s 20.

Yet all could have been forgiven, if not forgotten, when true freshman quarterback DJ Lagway found Chimere Dike for a 27-yard touchdown with 29 seconds remaining. With a chance to win in regulation, the Gators initially lined up to attempt a 2-point conversion. But after a Tennessee timeout, Napier had Smack kick an extra point to tie the game.

“Wasn’t quite ready to do that at that point in time,” Napier said of his shift in thinking.

The Gators soon went backward to open overtime, forcing Smack to attempt a 47-yard field that drifted right.

The dispiriting loss left Napier and his players searching for positives.

“Definitely a tough one today,” said Dike, who finished with 133 all-purpose yards. “But you have two choices: You can either fold or you can respond and keep being better.”

The Gators might have to do it without Mertz and top rusher Montrell Johnson Jr.

After a 13-yard touchdown pass to Arlis Boardingham gave UF a 10-0 lead, Mertz side-stepped a pass rusher and immediately fell to the ground with a non-contact injury to his left leg. Four plays earlier, Johnson injured his left lower leg at the end of a 20-yard run and left the game with 85 yards on just 12 carries.

Lagway stepped in for Mertz after he’d suffered a concussion during the season opener against Miami and threw for 456 yards against Samford, a UF true freshman record. But at Tennessee, Lagway replaced Mertz, promptly threw an interception and finished 9 of 17 for 98 yards, though he did show resilience on the Dike touchdown.

The best news Saturday night for Florida was continued defensive improvement.

The Gators held Tennessee to 312 yards, more than 200 below its average (519), forced 2 turnovers after entering with just 4 in five games and had 3 sacks to give them 11 in three games after managing one combined during losses to Miami and Texas A&M.

“It was great for us to see the improvement week to week,” veteran linebacker Shemar James said. “It kind of starts in practice. It’s great to see the product get put on film.”

With Kentucky visiting the Swamp Saturday for homecoming, Napier will challenge the Gators to keep pushing.

“It’s the hardest part about it,” he said. “They played their tails off. You have to put yourself out there, with no guaranteed reward. It takes courage to do that.

“There’s an opportunity here for our team. I just really believe there’s something good on the other side of this.”

Edgar Thompson can be reached at moc.lenitnesodnalro@nospmohtge