Monday Down South: DJ Lagway, Arch Manning, set off sirens in the September Panic Index
By Matt Hinton
Published:
Takeaways, trends and technicalities from Week 3 in the SEC.
Autumn Alarms
Is it too soon to draw any definitive conclusions about how the rest of the season is going to unfold after the second Saturday of September? Of course. Is it too soon to be stricken with angst over your team’s outlook? Never.
Here’s your regularly scheduled Monday Down South September Panic Index:
DEFCON 1: Florida
There’s nothing new to write about the doomed trajectory of Billy Napier‘s tenure in Gainesville that hasn’t been written, retracted and written again (with exclamation points this time!) over the past 12 months. There was nothing remotely surprising about the final score of Saturday night’s 20-10 loss at LSU, a game Florida entered as a 7.5-point underdog. The Gators held their own in the box score, where the defense allowed a single touchdown for the second week in a row. And yet. Somehow, they still found a way to hit what felt like a new low.
When Napier’s future teetered on the brink in 2024, the silver lining was the presence and promise of DJ Lagway. If nothing else, at least here was something to look forward to. When Napier was granted a public reprieve last November, it was with the implicit understanding that Lagway, 5-star freshman with a golden arm, represented a light at the end of the tunnel. When the Gators surged into the offseason on a 4-game winning streak, it was hailed as proof of concept — the Lagway Era had achieved liftoff, right on schedule. (Even if the defense and ground game had as much to do with the abrupt u-turn as the precocious quarterback. He’s not the Face of the Program for nothing.) When they opened this season with their highest preseason ranking since the pandemic, it was with visions of a more-or-less fully-formed Lagway in voters’ minds. And when they choked away what should have been a routine win over South Florida in Week 2, it was still possible to imagine that Lagway, the least of the team’s problems against USF, gave them a glimmer of hope entering a brutal stretch of games over the coming month.
Then came Saturday night in Baton Rouge, where glimmers go to die.
There are forgettable nights. Then there are nights you only wish you could forget, that threaten to follow you around like a ghost until they’re all anyone can remember. For Lagway, this was the latter. Making his 10th career start in a must-win game that Florida’s defense gave him every opportunity to win, he melted down: 5 interceptions, each one arguably worse than the last.
The first pick, coming with Florida leading 3-0 midway through the first quarter, was an ill-advised sideline shot left well short of its target — a bad throw, but ultimately not costly thanks to the defense. That would be the only mulligan. The second pick, coming in a tie game just before halftime, was a laser directly into the hands of a waiting centerfield safety who’d sized it up from a mile away; LSU capitalized with a go-ahead field goal on the last play of the half. Pick No. 3, coming in a 13-10 game midway through the 3rd quarter, was the dagger: A badly telegraphed slant that may as well have arrived with postage paid and a GPS map to the end zone. The ensuing pick-6 extended the Tigers’ lead (and eventual winning margin) to double digits. Pick No. 4, coming midway through the 4th, was a hopeless lob into triple coverage that effectively ended any chance of a comeback. As for No. 5, well, see above. By that point, he was merely letting go of the wheel on a performance that was already nose-down in a ditch.
Excluding the slapstick heave in garbage time, Lagway’s first 4 INTs all had one thing in common: They all came on 3rd-and-long, obvious passing downs. But the scoreboard never dictated forcing throws until the very end, and only then because of the throws he’d forced when the game was there for the taking. Nor can he chalk up the miscues to pressure, at least from LSU’s defense — although the Tigers got in their fair share of harassment over the course of the game, all but the last of Lagway’s interceptions launched from a clean pocket. If he was feeling the heat, it was coming from inside the house.
Now, the usual move at this stage of the proceedings would be to appeal for patience. It’s 1 bad game, right? Lagway is young, obviously gifted, and still has plenty of time to grow into the enormous potential he flashed as a freshman, right? The theme here is panic, but sure, let’s go ahead and grant that he does have time to grow. His beleaguered head coach, however, definitely does not. The trip to LSU was the first of a month-long, 4-game gauntlet against opponents ranked in the top 10 in the updated polls, with Miami (in Coral Gables), Texas and Texas A&M (in College Station) on deck. Forget about the November stretch against Georgia, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Florida State: Barring a dramatic turn of events in the meantime, the odds of Napier making it to November are plummeting by the week. Especially with 2 open dates between this weekend’s trip to Miami — which just demolished the same USF outfit that stunned the Gators in Week 2, for the record — and the Cocktail Party on Nov. 1. A week off is an invitation for heads to roll.
So while Lagway can still salvage a future that lives up to the hype, with each loss it gets a little likelier that it will be a different coach reaping the benefits. And if it comes to that, it might be time to consider whether that future will be unfolding somewhere else. The locals are beyond ready to move on from the Napier administration, whatever the cost. If that cost includes moving on from the quarterback who was supposed to save it, as well, suddenly it’s beginning to look like one they’ll be willing and able to afford.
On alert: Arch Manning
The good news: Texas won comfortably against UTEP, 27-10, with Manning accounting for all 3 of the Longhorns’ touchdowns (1 passing, 2 rushing). The bad news: Pretty much every other aspect of his performance against a 6-touchdown underdog that should have been ripe for the picking.
Short of a full-blown 5-interception meltdown, it was about as unsettling as it could be. On paper, Manning finished 11-for-25, averaged a meager 4.6 yards per attempt, and turned in the worst numbers of any SEC starter in Week 3 in terms of both efficiency (87.5) and Total QBR (26.5). He was 1-for-7 under pressure, per Pro Football Focus, and a dismal 2-for-9 on attempts of 10+ air yards, with the majority of his 114 passing yards coming on passes completed behind the line of scrimmage.
The real-time experience was worse — a parade of inaccuracy and bizarre decision-making that made his season-opening flop at Ohio State look crisp by comparison. He missed long, wide and late. His mechanics were a mess, devolving into a sketchy sidearm release that led to inaccuracy and tipped balls. Some viewers continued to wonder if he’s secretly nursing some kind of injury. (If he is, it remains an extremely well-kept secret.) He ignored or just didn’t recognize open receivers, and at one point attempted to improvise a wild, Manziel-esque scramble-drill that ended with a slow-motion disaster of a throw that seemed to hang in the air long enough for a UTEP defender to plot its exact coordinates.
By the end of the first half, the home crowd had seen enough to briefly boo him off the field following 1 of the Longhorns’ 11 failed 3rd-down conversions. The second half was better only in that it was too vanilla for anything to go haywire.
The thing is, as with Lagway, the locals’ frustration stems from the fact that they’ve seen what Manning is capable of, and it ain’t this. In his cameos last September in place of an injured Quinn Ewers, Arch looked confident, accurate and generally like a massively touted prospect with the world at his feet is supposed to look. It’s not like we don’t know the guy can throw the heck out of a football. But aside from a too-little, too-late rally in the 4thquarter at Ohio State, as the undisputed QB1 he has looked tentative and tight under pressure to live up to the hype.
Unlike Lagway, Arch is in a stable situation on a top-10 team with Playoff experience and everything to play for. Texas has one more nonconference tune-up against Sam Houston before the SEC opener at Florida. In the case, patience really is a virtue. But so is recalibrating expectations that were clearly too much, too soon.
Elevated: LSU’s Offense
Brian Kelly made a point of dressing down a reporter on Saturday night for leading off the postgame press conference with a question about the Tigers’ struggles on offense. Which, fine: A 10-point win over rival Florida is worth defending on its own terms. (Again, that margin covered the point spread.) LSU’s defense is vastly improved and has held all 3 opponents to date to a single touchdown. Harold Perkins Jr.’s return from a torn ACL in 2024 along with key portal additions in the secondary have had the intended effect so far.
But Kelly protests too much, probably because on some level he recognizes that, for a team with championship ambitions, the offense is a red flag. LSU ranks last or next-to-last in the SEC in total offense, scoring offense, rushing offense, pass efficiency, yards per play, and red-zone touchdown percentage. Would-be Heisman candidate Garrett Nussmeier has attempted more passes than any other SEC quarterback, but ranks at or near the bottom of the conference in touchdowns (3), yards per attempt (6.5) and passer rating (125.3). Nussmeier’s lowlight reel on Saturday night was nothing compared to DJ Lagway’s, obviously, but it did include an egregious interception that snuffed out a potential scoring drive in the 4th quarter. For a 5th-year senior, it was inexcusable.
Now, 17 points in a defensively driven win at Clemson? No complaints. But the opener remains LSU’s best outing. In Week 2, they settled for 23 points against a 37.5-point underdog, Louisiana Tech. In Week 3, managed just 10 first downs against Florida, didn’t score after halftime, and had no ground game to speak of until sophomore RB Caden Durham popped a 51-yard gain on what was effectively the last snap of the game. That run alone doubled LSU’s rushing total for the night up to that point.
One thing the offense has going for it: Plenty of options at wideout, even if they’ve yet to make much impact as a group. Another thing: They’ve kept Nussmeier relatively clean. Per PFF, he’s faced the lowest pressure rate to date of any SEC starter despite the departure of both of last year’s starting tackles for the NFL Draft. Eventually — like, say a Week 5 trip to Ole Miss — they’re going to need their supposed strengths to start generating actual results.
Monitoring: Georgia’s Secondary
Georgia is getting accustomed to nail-biters: The Dogs’ wild, 44-41 win at Tennessee was their 3rd overtime win in their past 4 games vs. power-conference opponents, following on the heels of last year’s razor-thin wins over Georgia Tech and Texas to close the regular season. Watching their blue-chip secondary get repeatedly torched in the process, on the other hand, was new.
Granted, Tennessee QB Joey Aguilar did much of his damage for the afternoon in a fast and furious first quarter in which he finished 14-for-14 for 213 and 2 touchdowns and ran for a 3rd. Early on, the Vols went after sophomore Georgia DB Ellis Robinson IV, victimizing him on a 72-yard bomb (on which a flailing Robinson appeared to intentionally commit pass interference, to no avail) and drawing a 2nd DPI flag at his expense later in the quarter to set up another score.
Robinson was yanked from the lineup posthaste, after which Aguilar cooled down considerably and Georgia’s offense methodically closed the gap. Eventually, though, the big plays and breakdowns resumed. The Vols closed the 3rd quarter by retaking the lead on another bomb from Aguilar to Chris Brazzell II, this one well played by cornerback Daniel Harris right up to the moment it came time to make a play on the ball.
I sympathized on that one with Harris, who did all he could realistically be asked to do all the way up to deflecting the ball at the highest point, yet still found himself on the wrong end of a massive, momentum-swinging play by Brazzell. The Vols’ next big play, on the other hand, was an easy one, covering 32 yards from Aguilar to a wide-open Braylon Staley.
Altogether, Aguilar was 5-for-6 on attempts of 20+ air yards for 195 yards — accounting for the lion’s share of his 371 passing yards on the day — and 4 touchdowns, joining CJ Stroud (2022), Mac Jones (2020), Joe Burrow (2019) and Drew Lock (2017) as the only opposing QBs to drop 4 TD passes on the Dawgs in Kirby Smart’s tenure. Either Aguilar is a sneaky first-round prospect, or Georgia has some significant work to do on the back end.
Stabilizing: Alabama
I’m not prepared to declare amnesty for Bama’s opening-day disaster at Florida State just yet, but Saturday’s thorough, 38-14 beatdown of Wisconsin was a giant step toward restoring confidence in an outfit that has done its best under Kalen DeBoer to squander it. Everything that went wrong in the opener went very, very right against the Badgers, right from the start. QB Ty Simpson was well-protected an on-point, finishing a near-perfect 24-for-29 for 13.2 yards per attempt and 4 touchdowns. (That coming one week after he actually was perfect, hitting all 17 of his passes against UL-Monroe before calling it a night at halftime.) The defense looked like an Alabama defense, forcing 2 turnovers (both interceptions by emerging junior DB Bray Hubbard) and holding Wisconsin to 209 total yards, much of that total coming in garbage time. Ryan Williams, one of the goats of the loss to FSU, was back to doing Ryan Williams Things.
Of course, the question where the Tide are concerned has never been about their ceiling when things are clicking. It’s about their consistency — especially on the road, where they’ve lost 5 of their past 6 since last October outside of Tuscaloosa. Their next big test on that front comes in 2 weeks in the SEC opener at rival Georgia. But they’re in a significantly better place heading into Athens now than they were 2 weeks ago.
Pending: LaNorris Sellers
South Carolina scored a touchdown on its opening series against Vanderbilt, and didn’t score again after Sellers was knocked out of the game with an apparent concussion.
In Sellers’ absence, the Gamecocks turned to 6th-year utility man Luke Doty, a former quarterback-turned-receiver who saw his first extended action behind center since 2021. Doty looked like a guy shaking off nearly 4 years’ worth of rust, committing 2 turnovers (1 interception, 1 fumble) and generally failing to move the needle in a deflating, 31-7 loss. That snapped a 16-game winning streak against Vandy dating to 2008, knocking Carolina out of the AP Top 25 in the process.
Shane Beamer told reporters on Sunday that he’s “optimistic” Sellers will be available for this weekend’s trip to 3-0 Missouri, an absolute must-win for the Gamecocks to salvage any sliver of a chance of pulling off another dark-horse Playoff run. Vanderbilt at home was supposed to be the most winnable game on the conference schedule. An 0-1 start in conference play ESPN’s Football Power Index now puts South Carolina chances of crashing the CFP against a stacked remaining schedule at just 1.2 percent. If Sellers isn’t back looking like himself at rival Mizzou, that number effectively drops to zero just 2 games into the conference slate. The Gamecocks’ national championship odds already are falling.
Dude of the Week: Mario Craver
Texas A&M invested heavily over the offseason to upgrade the talent level at wide receiver, adding Craver (Mississippi State) and KC Concepcion (NC State) to a rotation that lost its top 4 wideouts from 2024. Both have been hits in the early going, with Concepcion supplying some extra juice in the return game, for good measure. But it was Craver – all 5-9, 165 pounds of him – who leapt off the screen and into the national consciousness in the Aggies’ 41-40 triumph at Notre Dame: 7 receptions, 207 yards, 1 TD and a fresh set of blisters for one of the most respected secondaries in America.
Through 3 games, Craver is the FBS leader with 443 receiving yards and 9 catches of 20+ yards – 2 more than any A&M receiver managed last year over the entire season. Craver (4) and Concepcion (3) have combined for 7 TD catches already.
Goat(s) of the Week: Max Gilbert and Tommy Buchner
What’s worse than missing the game-winning field goal in regulation, only to watch your team lose in overtime?
How about botching the hold on a routine PAT that would have extended the lead to 7 points late in the game, only to watch your team ultimately lose by 1?
Sorry guys. At least you don’t have to endure the infamy alone.
Notebook
1.) Virginia Tech fired head coach Brent Pry on Sunday on the heels of an 0-3 start. The first name on the wishlist to replace him, according to the media hive mind: Shane Beamer. For now, it’s probably safe to say the thought process there begins and ends with the fact that his last name is “Beamer.” (If you’re under 30, Shane’s dad is the guy from the meme. Also he’s the guy who put Virginia Tech football on the map, before it fell off again in the decade since his retirement.) Beamer appears content at South Carolina and has repeatedly said he’s in it there for the long haul; the feeling in Carolina generally seems mutual. But then, based on Saturday night’s flop against Vandy, there’s a chance that goodwill is about to be put to the test. Just something to keep in mind as the season unfolds.
2.) Tennessee was concerned about the absence of both of its starting cornerbacks against Georgia, and it was right to be. One of the fill-ins, Colorado transfer Colton Hood, held up fine, allowing just 1 reception for 5 yards, per PFF. (Hood was also flagged once for holding, negating an apparent interception in the first half.) The other, true freshman Ty Redmond, was a target: UGA completed 6 of attempts in Redmond’s direction for 113 yards, including a 45-yard gain on the Bulldogs’ first play of the game and the clutch, game-tying touchdown from Gunner Stockton to London Humphreys at the end of regulation.
Not that the corner deserves too much blame on a throw that good – it was perfect because it had to be, and the catch might have been even better. The kid’s gonna be OK. But he didn’t do anything to make the Vols any less eager to get Jermod McCoy on the field ASAP.
3.) He wasn’t missed, but the targeting penalty that got LSU linebacker Whit Weeks ejected barely 2 minutes into the game against Florida was the weakest of sauces.
Yeah, I know, what else is new? A whole generation of players and fans have come of age now with this rule. Still, give me a break, man. If you gotta throw a flag for helmet-to-helmet contact, even the obviously incidental variety, whatever. I get it. The NCAA is terrified of being exposed to legal liability for the long-term effects of head injuries and needs to be able to point to the targeting penalty as an effective deterrent in a hypothetical lawsuit. Fine. If the lawyers say that’s what it takes to make “player safety” hold up in court, that’s what they get paid for.
But at long last, can we please stop kicking guys out of the dang game for what is by all rights basic football stuff?
The obvious solution — splitting targeting calls into Targeting I (15-yard penalty) for routine collisions and Targeting II (penalty + ejection) for more egregious ones involving launching, etc. — has been on the table for a decade. It’s a decade overdue.
4.) Veteran Notre Dame reporter Pete Sampson of The Athletic looked into rumors that Irish QB CJ Carr was tipping off plays against Texas A&M and came away convinced: Per Sampson, when Carr’s feet were parallel to the line of scrimmage, it signaled a run; when his feet were staggered, it tipped off a pass. Considering the Irish put up 429 yards and 40 points anyway, maybe A&M’s defense just wasn’t that quick on the uptake.
5.) How seriously are we prepared to take Vanderbilt? The Commodores’ 31–7 win at South Carolina was a milestone win for Vandy several times over: First win by 20+ points over an SEC opponent since 2018; first win in an SEC opener since 2011; first road win over a ranked opponent since 2007. They debuted at No. 20 in the updated AP poll, their highest ranking at any point since the 2008 team climbed to No. 13 on the strength of a 5-0 start. That team went on to finish unranked after losing 6 of its last 8. This team? TBD. But after outscoring Virginia Tech and South Carolina by a combined 65-7 over the last 6 quarters — both on the road — they’re only getting harder to dismiss. Routine wins over Georgia State and Utah State the next 2 weeks will make the ‘Dores 5-0 heading into a grudge match at Alabama.
6.) If you missed Ole Miss’ 41-35 win over Arkansas on Saturday night, you missed … well, a typical Ole Miss-Arkansas rivalry game: The Hogs and Rebels combined for 1,001 yards of total offense, 54 first downs, 17 3rd-down conversions and a grand total of 3 punts. The winning quarterback, D-II transfer Trinidad Chambliss, accounted for 405 total yards and 3 touchdowns in place of an injured Austin Simmons.
Moment of Zen of the Week
Matt Hinton, author of 'Monday Down South' and our resident QB guru, has previously written for Dr. Saturday, CBS and Grantland.
