5:01 left in the second quarter. Florida Gators starting quarterback Graham Mertz is already out for the season, and his backup, five-star freshman DJ Lagway, is holding his left leg. Gators head coach Billy Napier calls on the walk-on freshman to lead his team against the No. 2 ranked team in the country (Georgia) in his first SEC game appearance of his career.
Aidan Warner went from a spring walk-on transfer recovering from an ACL tear to starting at quarterback in the SEC in half a year. But how did that happen?
Warner’s football journey began in Central Florida when his parents, both University of Florida Levin College of Law graduates, signed him up for Pop Warner after some of his friends started playing the sport.
“I asked my parents if they would let me, and they loved the idea of me being active and getting out and playing football,” Warner said. “So, when I was 5 years old, I picked it up. I made a bunch of really good friends who I played with from 5 to 14. And then once I got to high school, I mean, I just loved it. It was my whole life.”
He played for the Winter Park Wildcats in high school, appearing in his junior and senior years. During his junior year, Warner was recruited by Group of Five and Ivy League schools, where he ultimately chose to commit to Yale.
“At the time, Yale recruited me the most,” Warner said. “It was between FAU, Coastal Carolina and Arkansas State or Yale, Columbia, Brown and Dartmouth. And the level of education was just an obvious difference. I come from a family where we value education, so that was a big part of it.”
However, after Warner signed with the university, the quarterback coach who recruited him to Yale left the team. His replacement brought in a transfer quarterback, and Warner said it no longer felt like the place for him.
“I was still young enough to the point where I could enter the portal and go somewhere and have an opportunity to play,” Warner said. “It was a tough decision, but my family and I were able to get through it and it worked out.”
Once he entered the portal, he received scholarship offers from JMU and Arkansas State. He was also given offers to be a preferred walk-on at Minnesota, Miami and Florida, but Warner said he had a preferred option of his own.
“’I’ve always dreamed of being a Gator,” Warner said. “I’ve been a Gator fan my whole life. I was the biggest Tim Tebow fan as a kid, so even though it wasn’t a scholarship, just having an opportunity to come be on the team here was a crazy opportunity. I felt like I would take my chances and come here and try to earn a scholarship, which I was able to do.”
But his chance to compete for a roster spot was quickly turned upside down when, during his physical, Dr. Kevin Farmer felt something wrong with Warner’s knee. Aidan said he knew he had sprained his meniscus during his final practice at Yale, but an MRI revealed he had torn his ACL.
“That was really tough to come back from,” Warner said. “I’m a walk-on, I just had surgery, I’m done. I thought I don’t really have a career here.”
His mother, Debbie Warner, said her heart sank for Aidan when she learned of the injury. However, their worries were calmed when a Florida trainer called the Warner family.
“The trainer called us with Aidan to talk to us about the surgery,” Warner said. “We asked, ‘Does he get to stay? Does he get to be on the team?’ and the trainer said, ‘Oh, absolutely. They’re doing this for Aidan now. They want him there and they want to invest in him and do the surgery.’ So that made us feel a lot better like that they wanted him there as much as he wanted to be there.”
According to Aidan, he was able to recover and return to practice five months after the surgery. Warner said he rushed back to compete in fall camp, where he landed the third-string quarterback spot.
His first action as a Gator came late in a contest with Samford in 2024. With three minutes left in the game, Warner came in and replaced fellow freshman DJ Lagway. On his first collegiate drive, with his family in attendance, Warner kept the read option and rushed the ball into the end zone for his first touchdown at Florida.
“To see him score in The Swamp at night with fireworks going off was really great,” Debbie Warner said. “My parents, his grandparents, were there, and he’s very close to his grandfather and he said to us at the beginning of the season that he wanted to go to the Samford game because just in case Aidan had an opportunity. So, it was really special.”
Warner would get more action much sooner than expected, as starting quarterback Graham Mertz went down with an ACL tear of his own against Tennessee four games later. With Lagway promoted as the starter, Warner became the backup against Kentucky.
“I knew as soon as Graham went down in the Tennessee game that I was next up after DJ,” Warner said. “So for me, it was different though, because I hadn’t had a lot of preparation. I didn’t have the spring reps. I didn’t really have the fall camp reps. So my first time getting reps was when Graham got hurt.”
During their bye week following their win against the Wildcats, he took the second-string reps in practice. Warner said through these practices, he felt prepared coming in as the backup against their game in Jacksonville against Georgia.
The Gators started off the game well against the Bulldogs as they held a seven point lead after the two-minute timeout in the first half. Florida’s gameplan was quickly changed as Lagway went down and was carted off the field with a hamstring injury. Suddenly, Warner was sent onto the field against one of the top defenses in the country in a rivalry game.
“I like to say I was ready, as prepared as I could have been,” Warner said. “I knew that I was good enough to play and I knew that I could and I was in that situation for a reason, so, just take a deep breath and play football.”
On short notice, Warner led his offense to 10 points, but the Gators lost to the Bulldogs. With Lagway’s status in question for their next contest against No. 5 Texas, Warner practiced for what would become his first collegiate start. His family followed him to Austin for the game, an experience that his mother said was special to them.
“It was an amazing experience,” Debbie Warner said. “We flew out to Texas to be there for him. His brother came with us, too, so it was really a lot of fun.”
In his first start, Warner led the offense on three scoring drives but fell short against the Longhorns. After the game, Lagway returned and moved Warner back to the bench for the remainder of the season.
This season (2025), he served as the backup to Lagway once again, and Warner said supporting his teammates and being available for the team were his main priorities.
“I took all the one’s reps all spring, all fall camp pretty much,” Warner said. “So now it’s more a mindset of if they need me, I’m ready to play, but it’s also a lot of support, too. DJ’s one of my best friends and I’m here to support him all the time. We have a really tight quarterback room here.”
In addition to his passion for football, Warner has found a creative outlet in making custom shoes and cleats for fellow athletes.
“I was in seventh or eighth grade and I was with one of my friends, and we saw a pair of custom shoes, and he wanted to buy them,” Warner said. “But I said ‘I think we could make these.’ So from there, I got some stuff to do it in middle school, and I started doing it a little bit. When I got to high school, I started doing cleats, which were a hit because all my friends played football. It was at the point in sophomore year where I started doing cleats for my whole high school football team.”
Warner also shares his parents’ passion for law and is hoping to pursue a degree in law. Aidan said he hopes to be a double Gator and graduate from Florida’s law school like his parents.
“We love it, obviously, because we’re very interested in the law and it’s been a huge part of our lives,” Debbie Warner said. “With both of our sons, we told them growing up, they have to find whatever their passion is. We’re not those parents that tell kids what to do. For a long time, I didn’t think he was going to be interested in going to law school. And then for the last several years, he’s talked about it, and I think he’ll do a great job.”
Despite being lower on the depth chart, Warner said he is not considering transferring out of Florida. He referenced his reverence for Tebow and his fandom as reasons why he wants to stay.
“At the end of the day, it means a lot, not just as a player, but also as a fan because I want to see us win,” Warner said. “I wanna see us do good. When I get asked about entering the portal, being a Gator means something to me.”