Florida begins SEC play next weekend in Baton Rouge against a top-5 LSU team.
That game begins a run of 4 games in 5 weeks against AP Top 25 teams — 3 of which are on the road. The unyielding nature of the Gators’ 2025 schedule was well known heading into the new season. But no one expected Florida to launch into SEC play already carrying a loss.
Maybe Florida got caught looking ahead. Maybe South Florida, which has now knocked off ranked opponents in consecutive weeks, is legit. Maybe more pain is in store for Billy Napier and Co. After an 18-16 home loss to South Florida on Saturday, throw out everything you thought about this Gator group.
Florida scored 3 points in the first quarter and then kicked a pair of field goals in the second quarter. No one reached the end zone in a 9-6 first half. Despite gaining 212 yards of offense, Florida struggled heavily to close drives out in the red zone.
The Gators were penalized 11 times for 103 yards in the game, including a few costly redzone penalties and a pair of detrimental fourth-quarter penalties that propelled USF’s game-winning drive.
Florida was flagged for pass interference and then unsportsmanlike conduct late in the fourth quarter. Both helped along an 8-play, 87-yard drive for USF that bled the final 2:25 of the game off the clock and ended with a 20-yard, walk-off field goal from USF’s Nico Gramatica.
Gramatica missed a 58-yard field goal attempt with 2:52 to play that would have put South Florida up. Florida took over at its 40 with a chance to ice the game. Instead, quarterback DJ Lagway fired incomplete on first down, Jadan Baugh gained just 2 yards on a second-down run, and Lagway missed deep on third down to give the ball right back to the Bulls after just 27 seconds.
The Gators finished with 355 yards of total offense to 391 for USF. They were outgained on a per-play basis 6.0 to 5.5 and committed the game’s only turnover.
Ahead of next week’s trip to face the Tigers, Napier has plenty to clean up.
Florida 16, South Florida 18
Here’s the Florida-USF box score (use the dropdown menu to select team or player stats), followed by the complete play-by-play:
DJ Lagway vs Byrum Brown
A statistical breakdown of how Florida QB DJ Lagway outperformed USF counterpart Byrum Brown:
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
