DJ Lagway’s move to Baylor feels like the kind of reset both sides needed.
The former Florida quarterback came into Gainesville with the kind of buzz that can warp expectations before a player ever takes a snap. There was always the hope he could be the next Tim Tebow. On paper, he had the tools to become a Florida legend, and at times during his freshman season he showed enough of that five-star ceiling to make it easy to believe he could be the one to rescue Billy Napier.
A year ago, the hype was still very much alive. Lagway was on the cover of CFB 26 and being talked about as a darkhorse Heisman candidate. But the momentum never turned into the kind of breakthrough Florida was waiting for, Napier was fired, and Lagway no longer looked like a fit for Jon Sumrall.
Now at Baylor, Lagway sounds like a player eager to leave Gainesville in the rearview mirror.
In an interview with On3’s J.D. PicKell, Lagway was asked repeatedly about the transition from Florida to Baylor, and he was careful not to point fingers or come off too bluntly.
Still, one answer stood out. When asked how this offseason compared with the chaos of last year, Lagway said:
“Just going through that process of just missing the whole off-season and really not being able to spend that time with my guys, man, that really hurt me a lot. And really just reflecting on how would I do things differently this upcoming season.
And right after the season, I was still up in Gainesville, actually. I had my trainer.
He came like a high school trainer that I've been training with since I was in seventh grade. He came up there to Gainesville, spent like 20 days just kind of basically getting my body right and being able to have confidence and kind of getting myself feeling like myself again.
I feel like we've been just crafting and working on different things and being able to feel like myself again.”
There’s no question that missing the offseason last year was a major setback for his development, even if that wasn’t something people were eager to say out loud at the time.
But that answer doesn’t line up neatly with what Lagway told USA Today back in March. Then, he said:
“I was in a bubble down there, I didn’t feel like a normal person. I didn’t even know what the campus looked like.
I was really closed off. I didn’t really hang out with my teammates.”
That’s not a gotcha. It’s just a reminder that the story around Lagway has shifted depending on when he’s telling it.
In March, he described himself as shut off from teammates long before the injury that wiped out all of last offseason. In the PicKell interview, though, he framed things more around the pain of missing time with “my guys.”
He also said, “I'm just excited to get out there with a group of guys that believe in me,” which gives the impression that he felt doubted in Gainesville. That doesn’t really match what was happening inside the building.
At this point, though, the past is the past. Florida fans don’t seem to be carrying much bitterness toward him, and Lagway’s line that “It's been quiet, and I'm thankful for that,” says plenty about the kind of environment he wants now. The bright lights of The Swamp clearly aren’t for everybody.
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