Based on everything we’ve heard, I’d expect DJ Lagway to return from his hamstring injury and play on Saturday against LSU.

The Florida signal-caller “continues to improve” (h/t Nick de la Torre). And according to coach Billy Napier, he’s trending in the right direction to be back for an all-important game against the Tigers, who have a 5-year winning streak in the matchup.

In an ideal world, the plan for Lagway would be obvious. LSU has made defending quarterbacks look like they’re trying to nail jelly to a tree. Since Marcel Reed took over halfway through the 3rd quarter for Texas A&M 2 games ago, LSU has allowed Reed and Alabama’s Jalen Milroe to gain 247 yards on 21 carries, 7 of which were touchdowns. That’s 11.8 yards per carry by opposing quarterbacks.

So ideally for Florida, Napier would recognize the obvious, and Lagway would revert into the guy who racked up 2,196 rushing yards as a prized high school recruit in Texas. Lagway would ideally get double-digit designed quarterback runs, and a depleted Florida offense would look to take advantage of LSU’s Achilles’ heel en route to perhaps a monumental victory both in the short and long terms.

In the short term, a win would perhaps be the difference in Florida earning a bowl berth. In the long term, not only would it impress the bevy of recruits who’ll be on campus for Saturday’s showdown, but beating an AP Top 25 team for the 1st time in 14 months would give Napier something tangible to build on this offseason that goes beyond “we played hard in the middle of the season.”

But that ideal world might be more complicated than that.

You see, there’s great risk in that game plan. What do you mean? Didn’t Napier already get a vote of confidence that he’s returning next season?

Sure, but Saturday will have a major say in Florida’s offseason vibe, no matter how it turns out.

Let’s start with the worst-case scenario. That would be Lagway suffering another lower-body injury that sidelines him in the spring. As in, that time in which Lagway should be getting all the 1st-team reps and developing a rapport with Florida’s pass-catchers and being the leader of the program in the post-Graham Mertz era. That’s significant, especially in the likely event that the Gators are aggressive in recruiting skill players in the transfer portal.

There’s also the possibility that Florida is more selective in the portal and relies on the development of its underclassmen.

Now is the time when I make the joke “is 65% of that NIL money tied to Lagway?”

Sorry. We can move on.

Lagway has looked the part so far. There’s no denying that he played a major part in the vote of confidence that Napier got. It’s one thing to get a vote of confidence from an athletic director. It’s another to beat a respected SEC team.

That’s not a slight at Kentucky, who had Florida’s number until Lagway led the Gators to a blowout win on Oct. 19. But UK is 3-6 this year. LSU is the inverse of that. Technically, LSU still has a path to an SEC Championship. Lagway can play spoiler and end that.

Florida won’t just be trying to play spoiler. The Gators’ bowl chances change drastically based on Saturday’s result. Lose, and Florida will need to win both games and beat an emerging, potentially Playoff-bound Ole Miss squad, who’ll be coming off a bye week after pounding Georgia. But if Florida gets past LSU, the path to a bowl game instead goes through Florida State, who fired both coordinators amid a historically disastrous 1-win season.

“But bowl games don’t matter.”

Agree to disagree. They might not matter to everyone, but for a program that’s loaded with underclassmen who would stand to benefit from a couple of extra weeks of practice together with a pressure-free postseason game, a bowl game matters.

If Napier can navigate that and finish 7-6, he can sell his program differently than the previous 2 years. There’s some proof of concept in having a winning season against what many dubbed “the toughest schedule in college football history.” That’s not even digging into the wrath of injuries that Florida endured in the latter half of the season.

Lagway has this opportunity as a result of that. Perhaps the injuries throughout the rest of the roster will make upsetting LSU too tall of a task. That could be the takeaway by day’s end, and perhaps a conservative game plan with Lagway will be what holds Florida back. If that’s the case, a 2nd consecutive bowl-less season will be staring Florida in the face. That hasn’t happened since 1985-86. If that dubious distinction follows Napier into a pivotal offseason, you can bank on it showing up in every hot-seat article that prominently features the Florida coach (again).

If Napier is going to change that conversation, it feels like Lagway’s performance on Saturday against LSU has to be the start.

Let’s see if that ideal world exists.