GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — With two defenders closing in and a strained left hamstring to protect, Florida quarterback DJ Lagway’s only option was to step up and let it fly.
Lagway’s 36-yard completion to Elijhah Badger was a thing of beauty and arguably the most important play in Florida’s season. It set up Ja’Kobi Jackson’s 1-yard scoring run and put the Gators ahead for good in the fourth quarter of a 27-16 victory over suddenly reeling No. 21 LSU on Saturday.
“Elite play,” Florida coach Billy Napier said. “God blessed that young man.”
Lagway returned after missing most of Florida’s last two games and delivered enough clutch plays for the Gators to earn their first series victory since 2018.
The Gators had dropped eight in a row against ranked opponents and were 1-10 under coach Billy Napier in rivalry games. But this was the kind of performance that has mostly eluded Napier during his three seasons in Gainesville.
“You’ve got to be a tough guy, and you got to be up for the challenge,” Napier said. “This group has proven they’re up for that. It’s harder than ever in my opinion. These guys could have pointed fingers and splintered a long time ago. That’s what I’m most proud of.”
LSU coach Brian Kelly had few answers following his team’s third consecutive loss. Cameras caught Kelly screaming at receiver Chris Hilton early — he seemed to call him uncoachable — and getting yelled at late by receiver Kyren Lacy.
“This is a simple exercise of do you want to fight or not?” Kelly said after the game. “Do you want to fight and take responsibility as coaches and players that we’re not playing well and we’re struggling right now? … There’s a rough spot here that we have to fight through and we have to do it together.”
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Florida’s defense, played together and deserved every accolade. The unit sacked Garrett Nussmeier seven times — one more than LSU (6-4, 3-3) surrendered in its first nine games combined — and allowed just 16 points despite being on the field for 92 plays and more than 41 minutes.
It may have helped that last week’s 49-17 drubbing at then-No. 5 Texas was humbling and humiliating.
“We knew that wasn’t our brand of football that we played in Texas,” Florida linebacker Shemar James. “That left a bad taste that we had.”
The game started to turn in Florida’s favor when T.J. Searcy sacked Nussmeier late in the third quarter. Nussmeier fumbled, one of his linemen scooped it out of the air and then fumbled again. Caleb Banks recovered, one of several huge plays for the defensive tackle.
The Gators went backward from there despite the solid field position and ended up punting. But Jeremy Crawshaw pinned the Tigers inside the 10.
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Florida then forced a punt and started another drive in LSU territory. This time, Lagway made the biggest play of the night.
“DJ, he’s a dude for sure,” James said. “He showed grit tonight. He came out and made pretty good throws and commanded the offense, and that’s what we were kind of missing. We’re very fortunate to have DJ on our team.”
The Takeaway
LSU: Kelly’s streak of 10-win seasons will end at seven. Kelly won double-digit games in each of his last four years at Notre Dame and extended it with consecutive 10-win seasons in Baton Rouge. But losing three in a row to Texas A&M, Alabama and Florida make it impossible to get past nine and will surely lower his approval rating with the team’s frustrated fanbase.
Florida: The Gators will have to win one of their final two games, against Ole Miss and at Florida State, to become bowl eligible for the second time in Napier’s three seasons. Florida is trying to avoid its fourth consecutive losing season.
Up Next
LSU: Hosts Vanderbilt next Saturday.
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Florida: Hosts Ole Miss in its home finale next Saturday.
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Business NewsSportsDJ Lagway returns and Florida upsets No. 21 LSU 27-16 for 1st series win since 2018
The 2024 Sarasota Sharks Turkey Meet kicked off on Friday, with Canadian Olympic gold medalist Summer McIntosh turning heads with a new personal best time in a secondary event.
McIntosh won the 500 free on Friday evening in 4:35.74, about eight seconds slower than her personal best, and followed it on Saturday morning with a 2:08.86 win in the 200 breast.
That 200 breast time was her first time swimming the event in yards; she has a best of 2:27.23 in long course meters and 2:29.31 in short course meters.
McIntosh cemented her status as the world’s top female swimmer in Paris with gold medals in the 200 fly, 200 IM, and 400 IM and a silver in the 400 free, so her having a fast 200 breaststroke is not a huge surprise. Swimming a 2:08, though, at this point of the season, in a local club meet, was enough to catch attention. For perspective, the top 200 breaststroker in the high school class of 2025 (which is likely where McIntosh would have been if she had taken the traditional route) is Addie Robillard with a 2:08.40.
McIntosh just-missed Sabyne Brisson’s 2023 LSC Record of 2:08.34, done when Brisson was a freshman at Georgia Tech.
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Given what McIntosh swam in the 500 free, it’s pretty easy to project that she has a 2:06 or 2:05 200 yard breaststroke in her – and that’s in what is probably her 9th or 10th best yards event.
In the 200 IM, where her breaststroke is most important, she split 37.53 en route to gold in the Olympic final. That was a ways behind the silver medalist Kate Douglass, who won the 200 breaststroke in Paris, but is comparable to the other non-breatstroke IMers like bronze medalist Kaylee McKeown (37.77) and Yi Yuting (37.37)
She is also scheduled to swim a 100 fly, 100 back, and 100 breast this weekend, which will fill out her career yards IMX score. She has no 100 yard back time, her best 100 yard breast is a 1:04.11 from this meet in 2022, and her best 100 yard fly time is a 51.10 from Winter Juniors East in December 2022.
The meet was mostly designed as a racing opportunity for Winter Juniors-and-below members of the Sharks team, along with a few other smaller local clubs, so most of the rest of Sarasota’s top swimmers did not compete. For example, McIntosh won the 500 free by more than 30 seconds and the 200 breast by almost 10.
McIntosh is scheduled to race in December at the Short Course World Championships in December, though, and this was McIntosh’s first racing since her triumphant Summer Olympic Games.
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Jimmie Williams led South Florida over West Georgia on Friday night with 14 points off of the bench in a 74-55 victory.
Williams went 6 of 10 from the field (1 for 4 from 3-point range) for the Bulls (2-2). Jamille Reynolds added 12 points while shooting 4 of 7 from the field and 4 for 4 from the line while he also had 11 rebounds and five blocks. Brandon Stroud had 11 points and shot 4 of 11 from the field, including 1 for 6 from 3-point range, and went 2 for 4 from the line.
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The Wolves (0-4) were led in scoring by Shelton Williams-Dryden, who finished with 20 points and eight rebounds. Kolten Griffin added 13 points, nine rebounds and four assists.
Reynolds led his team in scoring with eight points in the first half to help put them up 37-24 at the break. South Florida extended its lead to 53-39 during the second half, fueled by a 9-0 scoring run. Williams scored a team-high 10 points in the second half.
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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.
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