Kadarius Toney stood with his back to the pale white wall. The lights flickered slightly inside the visiting locker room of Davis Wade Stadium. The inconsistent gleaming highlighted Toney’s necklace, a jewel-encrusted Superman logo.

It was a fitting effect, considering what Toney had just accomplished. His double pass — from quarterback Feleipe Franks to Toney and out to tight end Moral Stephens in the corner of the end zone — proved to be the game-winning score against Mississippi State on Saturday.

The play itself was rather unremarkable. Toney read the Bulldogs’ safety and acted accordingly. If he stayed back and covered the deep zone, Toney would take off toward the goal line.

But because of the frequency coach Dan Mullen had called receiver screens all game, that safety crept up, and Toney lobbed the ball just barely over the hastily retreating MSU linebacker.

The Gators had been practicing that call — nicknamed “Kodak” after the rap artist Kodak Black — throughout the offseason and the first month of the season.

“I was kinda relying on Coach because I knew he was gonna make the best call for the win,” Toney said. “... I just relied on him and had faith in him.”

Mullen said he hadn’t had a chance to call the play all season. The Gators, however, had practiced it ad nauseam in Gainesville without springing it on an opponent.

Toney said he got a little upset whenever he believed UF had the opportunity to run it but didn’t.

“We’d been going over it since summer and I was like, 'He ain't ever call it, he ain't ever call it,’ ” Toney recalled. “But when it came, I just had to have competitive excellence and just come through."

Now he hopes to keep that momentum going when No. 22 UF faces No. 5 LSU in the Swamp Saturday. Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. and the game will air on CBS.

Toney enters the game against the surging Tigers confident in his ability to pair with his head coach to make magical plays.

While Mullen waited weeks to finally call the Kodak play at Mississippi State, Toney said he wasn’t surprised the moment it was relayed to him on the field.

He is accustomed to be called on to make game-defining plays.

Toney spent his high school career playing quarterback at Blount High in Eight Mile, Ala. He passed for 2,894 yards and 32 touchdowns as a senior with an additional 894 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns on the ground. To say Toney feels comfortable with the ball in his hands is an understatement.

“I always ask for the ball because I feel like I can do like a lot for the team,” he said. “I just wanna win.”

That drive to succeed showed during the final high school game of his career at Blount. On a balmy Friday night in November 2016, his quarterfinal matchup against Park Crossing quickly turned into a free-for-all offensive shootout. Toney and the Blount High Leopards fell into an early 10-0 hole. The Leopards eventually clawed their way back into a tied game, thanks in large part to Toney’s 493 passing yards. He also ran for 108 yards and a pair of scores.

That’s where Toney’s magic ended. For all the things he can do, blocking the game-winning field goal isn’t in his repertoire. His Leopards lost 54-51 in a game that was widely considered one of the best playoff matchups in Alabama football at the time.

“I just knew that there were better things to come in the future,” Toney said. “I knew that wasn’t just the breaking point for the future or my career. I knew I didn’t like it. I had to take the losses, you know. I did all that I could.”

Toney said the loss motivated him. He played through some minor injuries with the help of his high school coach, who showed him videos of Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Byron Leftwich being hauled around the field by his linemen after suffering a leg injury. Toney said the biggest lesson he took from that experience was showing up to play, even if the circumstances looked terrible.

“Fight to the end, through injuries and all that,” he said. “When I’m needed, I’m gonna be there.”

Toney took the same spirit to Gainesville, where he said he immediately bought into Mullen’s system. It didn’t hurt that Toney saw Mullen’s offense thrive at Mississippi State.

By the time Toney took the field in Starkville, he was sure Mullen would call the type of play that would lead to a win in a hostile stadium.

“[I’ve] got faith in that man,” Toney said of Mullen. “That man works miracles out there.”