Graham Mertz 'fired up' for his final season with the Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Graham Mertz walked out of the tunnel after the rest of his team. He was in a blue Florida Gators jacket, an interlocking UF baseball cap, and a sling — an accessory he wished wasn’t necessary. Mertz missed the final few drives of a loss to Missouri and then the season finale against Florida State after breaking his collarbone and was forced to be a spectator to the end of a disappointing season.

Mertz arrived in Gainesville to little fanfare. What was Billy Napier doing going to Wisconsin — a team traditionally adverse to the forward pass — to find his new starting quarterback? Mertz’s touchdown to interception ratio was 38-26 heading into 2023 spring camp. The next eight months were filled with Mertz proving himself, first to the locker room and then to the media and fans who questioned him.

“The first thing I would say is he has the respect of the entire organization and the respect of his teammates,” Napier said of Mertz. “I think over time, his example – not only with his work ethic but I think as a competitor, has the toughness, the way he prepares, the way he treats people. Not just his teammates, but I would say all throughout the building. He’s a consummate pro.

He would finish his first season in Orange and Blue with the best completion percentage in the SEC (72.9%). Mertz threw a career-high 20 touchdown passes and a career-low three interceptions. He earned, through his work behind the scenes and his play on the field, the respect an admiration of a fanbase with very high expectations for its quarterbacks.

Graham Mertz “fired up” for 2024

None of those personal accomplishments mattered to Mertz. Standing in sweatpants and a polo after Florida’s first spring practice, he was asked if shutting up the people in the room who doubted him and the fans who questioned him gave him satisfaction.

“I don’t really place my satisfaction on that. Frankly, I was unsatisfied with last year,” Mertz responded. “I base my satisfaction off of did we win every game? And I think that’s the only way to go about playing this game and being at the quarterback position. I think that’s what should drive you.  I don’t really ever try to put weight into external thing, good, bad or ugly, because I personally don’t think that has any impact on how I’m doing my job.”

The job Mertz was asked to do was done well. At the beginning of the season, he was asked to operate the offense, which he did successfully. Down the stretch, he was asked to do more with his arm, push the ball downfield, take shots, and take chances. He threw for a career-high 423 yards on the road at South Carolina, quite literally throwing the Gators to a much-needed road win. He surpassed the 300-yard mark again on the road at LSU.

“Obviously, when you come into a new spot and you haven’t done anything there, it’s natural for that to come up,” Mertz said. “But it’s, it’s about the guys in the locker room, it’s about the coaches. It’s about the support staff, it’s about the janitors. It’s about everybody in this building that you’re giving them — are you serving them every day to the best of your ability? For me that was I knew I was doing that and that’s what gave me satisfaction was knowing that I was I was giving everybody here everything I had. I will continue to do that.”

To Mertz, that service is every day. It happens not only through working out and performing on the field but in how he carries himself inside the building. How you treat people when nobody is watching defines your character. Mertz knows, however, that how he and the team perform on Saturdays will define his career. He won’t listen to the outside noise but he wasn’t happy with how the season ended

“I don’t really ever try to put weight into external thing, good, bad or ugly, because I personally don’t think that has any impact on how I’m doing my job. It’s are you here and are you doing your job to the best of your ability?

“We won five games. Point blank. That’s not it. That’s why I’m back. And that’s why we’re fixing it.”