Florida Twitch: Ole Miss silenced DJ Lagway and The Swamp in our play-through
No. 9 Ole Miss (8-2, 4-2 SEC) returns from its second bye week with a trip to Florida (5-5, 3-4) Saturday at 11 a.m. CT on ABC.
The Rebels and Gators are meeting for 26th time in history — in a series tied 12-12-2 and dating back to 1926. Ole Miss leads 6-4-1 in Gainesville. Its last win was a 31-30 upset of No. 4 Florida in 2008.
Ole Miss leads the SEC in 21 different categories. The Rebels sit atop the FBS in seven, including a program-record 46 sacks, as well as 103 tackles for loss.
Third-year star quarterback Jaxson Dart is 372 passing yards shy of Eli Manning’s career Ole Miss record (10,119). Dart would move into 10th in SEC history. He owns more passing yards through 10 games than eight of the last 10 Heisman-winning quarterbacks.
“This has been a really good time period here for us,” fifth-year Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin said this week. “Coming off playing really well lately. I think we’re peaking at the right time.
“It’s exciting to be playing well at the end of the season. We’re getting stronger. Tre (Harris) is now looking like he’s ready to go; we haven’t had him for three and a half games. I think Jaxson’s led the country in passing without him. Really exciting to get the best receiver in the country back.”
Dart is the nation’s leader in total offense (371.3) passing efficiency (188.6) and yards per attempt (114).
Florida starter DJ Lagway has been a revelation in his true-freshman season as the Gators’ quarterback. Lagway sat out the Texas game two weeks ago but returned for LSU and won SEC Freshman of the Week.
Lagway completed 13 of 26 passes for 226 yards and one touchdown. He’s still not fully healthy from his soft-tissue injury, which has limited his mobility outside of the pocket.
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“He didn’t miss a rep with the first unit last week,” Florida head coach Billy Napier said earlier this week. “We’ll take the same approach this week. “We’ve got every gadget known to man, every gadget you can imagine, downstairs. We’re using all that data and all those metrics to make decisions to try to put him in position to be as healthy as he can be.”
Lagway is college football’s best deep thrower.
He has a 99.4 grade on 20-plus-yard throws, according to Pro Football Focus, the best of all FBS quarterbacks.
“He’s in his own category,” Ole Miss linebacker TJ Dottery said of Lagway. “I think the kid’s really, really good. He has a lot of potential. If I had to say somebody, probably a little bit of South Carolina’s quarterback (Sellers).”
The Ole Miss Spirit’s Zach Berry, as he does every week, got an early jump on the Rebels’ upcoming opponent with a College Football 25 play-through on Twitch.
Here’s hoping Dottery and Co. handle business like Berry did. The Rebels’ College Football Playoff hopes depend on it.
