Gators head coach Billy Napier addresses questions about the direction of his program following Florida's 33-14 loss at Kentucky.
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00:00 >> And what's the path forward here, Mike?
00:02 >> Yeah, I mean, I think, look, reality is when you lose, okay,
00:07 there's always gonna be issues that come with that, right?
00:12 You lose as a result of not playing winning football, right?
00:17 So, but you also, when you do win, right, you get a lot of pat on the back.
00:22 So you win as a result of playing winning football, right?
00:26 So I think for me, let's not make this any more complicated than it is, right?
00:34 I mean, we lost the football game because they rushed for 9.2 a carry.
00:38 We rushed for 3.41 a carry.
00:41 We turned the ball over four times,
00:43 if you count the turnover on downs and the penalty in special teams.
00:46 They turned it over zero.
00:48 We lost the explosive battle.
00:51 We lost the hidden yardage battle.
00:53 And we lost the penalty battle, okay?
00:55 So we know what winning football looks like, and
01:00 certainly Saturday was not that, wasn't it, right?
01:04 So there's no sugar coating this.
01:05 There's no excuse.
01:06 All we can do is evaluate it for what it is and do better the next time.
01:13 So I'm not up here to make any excuses or talk about it.
01:18 I mean, there's nobody that wants to have more success than this group of players.
01:23 And ultimately, I feel responsibility to do a better job for them.
01:27 It's that simple.
01:28 >> Billy, just to follow up on that, what are the signs that you're seeing kind of
01:32 behind the scenes that this program is heading in the right direction,
01:35 that you're trending upward?
01:36 >> I mean, I'm on the inside, right?
01:42 I have relationships with the staff, with the players.
01:45 We're getting better at our process.
01:50 I think that we have young players that are getting experience,
01:54 that are growing and developing.
01:55 I think we have veteran players that have improved as people and as leaders.
02:00 And I think that we played good football at times.
02:04 Some of these questions you're asking, you weren't asking a couple weeks ago.
02:08 So ultimately, it is what it is, right?
02:13 We have to deal with the result.
02:16 So when we lose, we gotta come in here every weekend and
02:19 answer questions from the outside, right?
02:21 So nothing's changed here.
02:26 When we play well, we do what we're supposed to do.
02:29 We coach well, we're capable of winning games.
02:33 There's an old Brad Stevens quote, you're really close to being a very average team,
02:40 and you're really close to being a really good team.
02:43 And I feel that way about our football team.
02:45 I think if we're ready, we're capable, and we're executing,
02:50 we're playing with good communication, good fundamentals and techniques.
02:56 We have urgency, we have hunger about us, we play with discipline,
03:00 we can be in a very effective team.
03:03 If we don't have those things, we can be a very below average team as well.