Florida coach Billy Napier arrived at his postgame press conference Saturday night with little to lean on besides accountability. The No. 13 Gators fell to South Florida 18-16 on a walk-off field goal, a defeat marked by costly penalties, red-zone failures and a sputtering offense.
“Not good enough,” Napier said. “And it’s my responsibility.”
The loss immediately intensified the pressure on Napier, now 20-20 overall in his fourth season at the helm. Just a week earlier, Florida looked dominant in a 55-0 rout of Long Island. But against USF, the Gators reverted to familiar problems: undisciplined mistakes, poor execution and missed opportunities to close out the game. For a fan base expecting progress after an 8-5 finish last season, patience is running thin.
Napier spent much of the press conference acknowledging where things went wrong, stressing that responsibility ultimately falls on him and his staff. He cited penalties, stalled drives and miscues that allowed USF to hang around until the final possession.
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The timing makes the setback even more alarming. Florida is about to enter a brutal stretch on its schedule with No. 3 LSU, No. 5 Miami, No. 7 Texas and No. 19 Texas A&M looming. Instead of building momentum, the Gators are searching for answers to fundamental problems — discipline, consistency and execution — that should already be solved in Year 4 of Napier’s tenure.
Here is everything Napier said in his press conference after the loss.
Opening statement:
“Not good enough. And it’s my responsibility. I think when you evaluate the game, the red-zone missed opportunities caught up with us, and we let them hang around. Certainly, the penalties contributed to the game. I think we had over 100 yards in penalties. It extended their drives and it slowed down our drives. You add in the bad snap for the safety, and then you lose the explosive-play battle and you lose the turnover margin — you don’t deserve the right to win. We had seven possessions in the second half and punted six times. Ultimately, we let them hang around, they kick a field goal there, and then they take it down the field and kick a field goal to win it. So, I want to keep it short and sweet. I think we can do much better. We can coach better. We can play better. Obviously, I don’t like these any more than our fans do, or you do. We have to do much better. I think we have a group that will respond, and tomorrow will present that opportunity. I think that sums up the game.”
On the undisciplined actions by Florida:
“I think the procedural penalties — obviously, we can live with the technical penalties; there’s always going to be a handful of those. The ones that keep you up at night are the ones that are player decision-making penalties. So there’s going to be some ownership there on both ends. They’re under my leadership; it’s ultimately my responsibility. We need to eliminate the false starts, we need to eliminate the personal fouls. We did have a substitution penalty as well. Those are the ones, as coaches, we have to take responsibility for.”
On if that’s coaching or player accountability:
“No, I think that the players make mistakes — it’s part of the game. But I do think that ultimately it’s my responsibility. So I think it is coaching.”
On the challenge ahead with the schedule:
“Well, I don’t think there’s any question about it. This will be a challenge. It’ll be a challenge for every individual in the organization, player and staff. But I do think the game can teach you a lot, and I think that we’ll have our opportunity to respond. This group has been through some of these battles before, I’m hopeful that can help us. But, look, I’m more concerned with the football. There are a lot of positives in terms of the other stuff, the football’s got to get better. We’ve got to take ownership of the football.”
On the message to Florida fans:
“We’re thankful. It was an incredible. They were factor. There’s no excuse here. I’m not up here to make excuses.”
On clock management during USF’s game-winning drive:
“Well, we had two (timeouts). Ultimately, at that point, there’s going to be a field goal kicked. They have one (timeout), so they have an extra down. So regardless of when the timeouts get called, it’s going to end up about the same.”
On if the outside noise concerns him:
“We created it. We deserve it. If you play football like that, you’re going to be criticized. It comes with the territory. The only thing you can do is go get it fixed. That’s what we’ll start working on tomorrow.”
On what he said to Brendan Bett about the spitting penalty:
“Well, I haven’t had that conversation with him yet. We’ll take a good look at it, but it’s unacceptable. And I think we have a lot of players in that room as well that have the same belief that it’s unacceptable. When a guy does something like that, he’s compromising the team. He’s putting himself before the team and everything the game is about — you’re compromising it. So there will be lessons to be learned there. Yeah, it’s that simple.”
On the regression Florida had defensively and the 66-yard touchdown pass allowed:
“Well, the ball’s in the air, I think we’ve got two players breaking on the ball. I think there’s opportunity there. I think ultimately there there’s a quick substitution and we’ve got to get our call in. And I think that was the biggest issue is we didn’t necessarily have a call. They snapped it as quick as possible. So in general, there’s opportunity to make a play on the ball. We misjudged the ball a little bit, but ultimately I think that’s the thing that you’re going to evaluate.”
On if he thinks he is the right coach for Florida:
“Yeah, I think I’m more concerned with doing my job to help lead these young men. I think that’s a big-picture question, and I think right now it’s more about today. It’s more about what we do tomorrow, and I think that’s what we got to get consumed with. So I think I’m consumed with doing the best job I can do for the players, leading the staff in getting the football fixed, because ultimately that’s going to decide how far we go around here.”
On how much leeway QB DJ Lagway has with getting Florida into the right play:
“Yeah, I can take a better look at it. I’ll let you know on Monday. I’d like to watch the tape. But I do think that there’s a lot we can do better. There’s going to be ownership from staff and players here, but in general, I’ll be able to give you a better answer on Monday.”
On his confidence level that Florida will respond:
“Yeah, we won’t have that issue. We won’t have that problem. This group won’t splinter. There’s too much good in that room. That’s not the issue.”
On the play-calling:
“I think that there was a ton of missed opportunities in the game early. I think that we shot ourselves in the foot quite a bit. I think we played from behind the sticks. Penalties were a major issue. And then I think that we probably were — we didn’t get it done in the second half. We had seven possessions and six punts. So to me, when I think about it, I think about the second half. I think there’s some opportunities there to make some plays, but I also think we contribute to that as coaches, right? So I’d like to watch the tape before I comment on that. But in general, I think there’s a combination of both, if I would — that’s how I would say it.
On how costly it was to have two touchdowns called back on the same series:
“Yeah, I think the holding penalty was definitely a penalty. We grabbed the guy. I think the [offensive pass interference], you know, I think would be up for debate. We’ll see what that looks like when we turn it in. But I think the guy’s running the route, you know, there’s some — I mean, so — And again, those are huge plays in the game because they allow the opponent to hang around, right? So we’re in the red area a couple different times. We have two touchdowns called back. We have false start penalties in the red area. We’re forced to kick field goals. We got nine points to show for it at half. So we moved the ball. I think we had close to 220-something yards at halftime, right? So we had moved it up and down the field. We just didn’t score touchdowns.
“So look, we can sit here and talk about all these technical things. Man, it’s not good enough, okay? So we got work to do. You guys know it, I know it. Anybody that watched it knows it. We got to take ownership of it, and we got to go back to work. So that’s it.”
On opportunity to get a first down and end the game:
“That’s exactly what you needed to do at that point. And I think we got ourselves into a good play. We had a chance on third down to put the game away basically, right? So we had a matchup in the slot. We got a chance to make a play and the game’s essentially over at that point.
“But there’s a lot of individual plays, okay? It’s the summation of them all. We contributed too much to their success. The last thing I want to say is I don’t want to discredit South Florida, okay? I think they did a lot of good things out there. I have respect for how they play. Give them some credit for hanging around and finding a way to win the game, okay? But I do think that we had our opportunities to win the game tonight. We got to go get it done. So we got to clean up these things that are under our control.
“Two really good slot players. Both made a bunch of plays tonight. We tried like crazy to get them involved. We did. Obviously, the punt return was huge. We were able to capitalize on that. So those will be bright spots, but it’s hard to have any when you don’t get the results you want. So back to work here.”
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