Georgia defeated Florida 34-20 on Saturday afternoon in Jacksonville. Here is what Florida head coach Billy Napier had to say after his third straight loss to the Bulldogs.
"I'm proud of our team. Proud to be associated with that group in there. Obviously came up a little bit short today, but I do think the game kind of went the way we wanted it to. We made it ugly at times, but I do think we had our team in position at times to win the game."
On the difficulty after the injury to starting quarterback DJ Lagway: "Well, first of all, hats off to Aidan Warner. We're talking about a guy who didn't go through spring practice, really did a lot of two-spot work in training camp, won the backup job or won the three job at some point in training camp. Then two weeks ago started taking real reps with the second unit. So two weeks of work with the second unit. For him to be able to go operate today, obviously made some plays, made a handful of mistakes. They're a really good group on defense. We all understand that and know that, personnel and schematically. Yeah, it's apparent that there was some challenges there, but the guy made some plays. We literally tied it up. Didn't turn it over until late, threw it away when he needed to, leaned on the defense."
On Florida playing with confidence: "I think we have really impressive kids. I think we have some unbelievable human beings on our team. We don't have a distraction. We don't have one guy that's not compliant. We have no discipline issues. We got a group that shows up on time; they work. I think the leaders on our team have done a great job holding people accountable. It's becoming the expectation. Ultimately, when it starts to work and you play toe to toe with some of the better teams you start to believe. For the first time since I've been the head coach here we showed up and we believed we could beat that team. I think ultimately belief is probably the most powerful in the final value relative to what we teach. You got to have integrity. You got to be together. You got to have discipline. You got to have effort and toughness. If you do all a those things consistently, then the product starts to look the way it should look and there is a level of belief that comes with that. I think we have gotten to that point."
On if he feels "snake-bit" with injuries: "Yeah, no, I don't believe in this that. Always been injuries in this game. Every team in the country has injuries. One thing I can say is we built a roster that has some competitive depth and that's proved to be beneficial. You play in this league, the level of competition, the explosive players, height, length, and speed of the game, physicality of this game, you're always going to need depth. We've been fortunate to have it."
On the overall defensive performance: "It was exactly the way we wanted it to go. We affected the quarterback. We made it sloppy. Made it ugly. We limited the explosive plays. Made them go the distance. Were able to get some takeaways. We obviously need to capitalize on some of those short fields, but hats off to our defensive staff. They had a great plan and the players executed that plan. We played with the type of intangibles that you want your team to play with."
