‘On a Mission’: ”I must complete my unfinished mission” Gators top player threats Billy Napier

For the first time since 2020, the Florida Gators return their starting quarterback heading into a new season, and there’s a buzz surrounding the room as a whole.

Graham Mertz, one of college football’s most veteran quarterbacks, and recently most efficient, returns for a second year in Gainesville for his sixth and final year of collegiate eligibility. “It’s a big deal for the Florida Gators that Graham Mertz is back to play quarterback,” said UF head coach Billy Napier following the Gators’ first spring practice on Wednesday. However, Mertz’s return, and the excitement that came with it, wasn’t always a guarantee.

A career year in 2023, with 2,903 passing yards and 20 touchdowns against only three interceptions, all while completing nearly 73% of his passes, set Mertz up with an opportunity to be picked in the 2024 NFL Draft.

However, Florida’s five consecutive losses to end the campaign, four of which Mertz started, combined with a season-ending collarbone injury meant unfinished business in Mertz’s eyes, and he announced his plans to return to Gainesville days after the Gators’ loss to Florida State.

“You play this game your whole life, your dream is to go to the NFL. For me, when you have that option in front of you, you are really weighing both sides to it,” Mertz said on Wednesday.

“Like, obviously, I was coming off a collarbone [injury]. My big thing was I felt like we left a lot out there this year, and I want to finish my career the right way.” As he returns from his season-ending injury for a final season, and with a year in Napier’s offensive system under his belt, Mertz’s main focus is to help the team improve upon its 5-7 finish last season and avoid its fourth-straight losing season, something that hasn’t happened since the late 1930s. “For me as a quarterback, it’s timing, anticipation.

You look at our practices, we have these compete periods, it’s winning every compete period, talking a little crap to the defense, but winning every compete period,” he said. “And really just raising that level of competition, and accountability, consistency, all that stuff within the offense.”

For Florida to accomplish its first winning season since the same year the Gators last returned their signal-caller, Kyle Trask, it will rely on its starting quarterback as a leader. The first step in assuming such a role is to earn the respect of those around him, which Napier praised Mertz for doing previously.

“I think over time, his example – not only with his work ethic but I think as a competitor, has the toughness, the way he prepares, the way he treats people. Not just his teammates, but I would say all throughout the building.

He’s a consummate pro,” Napier described Mertz. “And you know, I think the quarterback sets the standard for the entire team and organization. And he’s done that.” Going into this season, though, Mertz will have another duty on his plate. While being the leader of the overall team, he’s also personally tasked with mentoring the future of the Gators’ football program in true freshman quarterback DJ Lagway. “Graham’s on a mission. [He] came back with a purpose,” Napier said.

“Not only to increase his value personally but for our team to accomplish more. And then certainly DJ being a young player, being a rookie, there’s a ton to learn there. The advantage of DJ being able to observe Graham and certainly Graham’s embraced that mentorship and done a phenomenal job so far.”

Mertz expressed that he relates to Lagway’s experience as a highly-touted quarterback recruit to some degree, although the accolades aren’t nearly the same as those of his protégé. “I was a young guy, highly recruited, all this stuff, and that can be a lot. Obviously, I’m not Gatorade National Player of the Year and all this stuff, so it’s a different scale,” Mertz explained.

“So I can bring things that I went through, and recently when I was learning the offense here, and how to teach him, how to grow at a faster rate, but I mean he’s doing a great job.”

This time last year, the excitement around the Gators’ quarterback room was not nearly as palpable as it is now, with a veteran starter and talented freshman. There was outside skepticism. Florida had lost star quarterback Anthony Richardson to the NFL draft and 2023 four-star signee Jaden Rashada to transfer while landing Mertz, who had struggled in three years as a starter at Wisconsin, out of the NCAA transfer portal. Mertz’s career year, however, turned skepticism about his past into optimism about his future.

He threw for a touchdown in every start, set program records in completion percentage (72.9) and pass attempts without an interception (239) and completed at least 62% of his passes in all 11 starts. That being said, the six losses he accrued as a starter and another that he watched from the sideline still linger in his mind.

“Frankly, I was unsatisfied with last year. I base my satisfaction [on], ‘Did we win every game?’ And I think that’s the only way to go about playing this game and being at the quarterback position,” Mertz said.

“I think that’s what should drive you. I don’t really ever try to put weight into external things, good, bad or ugly, because I personally don’t think that has any impact on how I’m doing my job. It’s, ‘Are you here and are you doing your job to the best of your ability?’ We won five games. Point blank that’s that’s not it. That’s why I’m back. And that’s why we’re fixing it.” Despite proving the naysayers from a year ago wrong, Mertz suggested that’s not where his satisfaction materializes. It comes from his effort and servitude for those around him, from teammates and coaches all the way to support staff and university employees in the football complex.

“It’s about everybody in this building that you’re giving them … are you serving them every day to the best of your ability?” he pondered. “For me, that was I knew I was doing that and that’s what gave me satisfaction, was knowing that I was I was giving everybody here everything I had. I will continue to do that because that’s what I try to do.”