Dave Aranda’s firing at Baylor puts DJ Lagway back in the spotlight, and not in the way his camp likely wanted.
Aranda is out after seven games into the 2026 season, and that matters here because he spent the offseason helping build the case that Lagway’s issues at Florida were tied to everything except Lagway himself. For Florida fans, that turned a once-indifferent transfer departure into a sore spot.
Lagway’s path to this point has been a winding one. He committed to Florida in December of 2022 and never wavered despite outside pressure. He opened the 2024 season as Graham Mertz’s backup, then stepped into the Samford game after Mertz was hurt in the opener against Miami and immediately turned heads.
What followed was a messy rotation with Mertz that the Man in the Black Polo put together. Once Mertz tore his ACL, Lagway took over, and in his first SEC start against Kentucky he threw for 259 yards on just seven completions. He later got hurt against Georgia, came back against LSU, and helped Florida finish the 2024 season on a four-game winning streak.
The 2025 offseason brought a different kind of chaos. Lagway was part of a strange stretch centered on rehab work after he did not want shoulder surgery, then strained his calf just as he was about to start throwing when fall camp opened. By the time the 2025 season got underway, he was not the same player Florida had seen the year before.
Florida moved on from the Man in the Black Polo midway through that season, and Lagway eventually left after Jon Sumrall arrived. He transferred to Baylor, where his father played.
At first, plenty of Florida fans were fine with it. Lagway had tried, he had been limited by an Ask Madden offense, and a fresh start made sense. The frustration came later, when Lagway’s camp and Aranda pushed a version of events that put Florida fans at the center of his struggles in Gainesville.
That is where the temperature changed. According to that offseason narrative, Florida fans were responsible for Lagway staying isolated in his apartment and for shaking his confidence. The same fan base that was asked to donate to Florida Victorious so Lagway could have multiple luxury cars and his parents could have a private jet to games was suddenly being used as the explanation for everything that went wrong.
Then the season started, and the storyline got uglier for that camp. Lagway was hurt in the first game.
He also botched a relatively easy throw against Auburn with the game on the line. Baylor lost at home to TCU 17-6 in front of 46,000 fans.
And now Aranda has been fired, while Lagway’s camp has to deal with a second coach getting dismissed in two years.
There’s a version of this story where Florida fans are the ones with Lagway living rent-free in their heads. But the way this offseason played out, it looked a lot more like Florida was living there instead.
And maybe that’s the real takeaway: Gainesville doesn’t need to be blamed every time someone’s situation goes sideways. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the one that’s hardest to sell.
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