Graham Mertz explains dealing with outside noise, Billy Napier hot seat speculation

Graham Mertz‘ time at Florida has not exactly gone perfectly, from a number of injuries — including a torn ACL this season that effectively ended his college playing career — to the Gators program struggling, there’s plenty of room for improvement. And that’s left plenty of room for the vocal critics, too.

There’s been no shortage of chatter about head coach Billy Napier and his job security and with heralded true freshman quarterback DJ Lagway enrolling this season, plenty started to say Mertz should perhaps be benched, too. But the Florida quarterback never let it get to him, he said on “The Paul Finebaum Show” on Thursday.

Really, Mertz said, you can’t let any outside noise in.

“I think it’s — as you play a lot of football in college you learn to, not necessarily look at that stuff or hear that stuff,” Mertz said. “All you can do is focus on what’s helping you and your team prep to win the football. So for me, that’s kind of a thing I’ve learned throughout the road, is, ‘Look, all I can focus on is stuff that adds value to the team and helps us win.'”

Mertz is in his sixth season of college football, having spent his first four at Wisconsin before transferring to Florida for the 2023 and now 2024 season. Mertz played in 50 games and was leading the nation in completion percentage — 76.6% — at the time of his injury this season.

And for all he learned on the field, Mertz also learned in this time that focusing on the outside noise is not helpful, good or bad.

“So, for me, I kind of learned to not look at anything, good, bad, ugly — anything — and just focus on my people and coming in to the building, trying to be the same guy, be consistent every single day,” Mertz said. “Yeah, I think the long answer to that question is you can’t attention to anything, good or bad. You just need to focus on helping your team and being the best guy you can every single day.”

It’s also, to a certain extent, impossible not to see or hear some of it, Mertz admitted. That’s been especially true with the growing chatter around Napier and his job security.

While Mertz is plenty aware that those conversations are happening, he’s not tuned into them. He and his teammates and everyone else in the program are dialed in to improving and winning.

“I think that’s one thing where, like I said, you can ignore as much as you want but you’re definitely going to hear some stuff,” Mertz said. “I think the big thing is just the people we have in this building. They do a fantastic job of setting the standard for us and really just keeping us focused. And I think that, yeah, I’m sure people have been saying a lot of stuff but we’re focused on winning, man. We’ve got a group here from our coaches to our support staff to our equipment managers to the custodians. Anybody in this building, they keep us focused. And we all want to win.

“So I think the biggest thing for us is just really locking in to the present moment and regardless of circumstances — if we were winning every game, you can’t pay attention to anything. So, for us, I think we’ve got a lot of veteran guys that also do a good job of reminding the young guys of what’s really the focus. And that’s getting a little bit better every day and that’s winning. So, I think that we have a great setup that really keeps us focused on the present and locked in to what really matters for the team.”