Miami pass rusher Rueben Bain Jr. chomped on a piece of fried alligator following Saturday’s 26-7 win over Florida. It represents the Hurricanes’ fourth-straight victory as well as another dark mark on the resume of embattled Gator coach Billy Napier. Bain helped lead the Hurricanes to a dominating defensive effort after limiting Florida to just seven first downs, 141 total yards and an anemic 0-for-13 showing on third.
“I’m eating some barbecued gator from Gainesville man, Billy Napier’s finest,” Bain told 104.3 WQAM.
The fourth-ranked Hurricanes managed 116 yards and a touchdown on the ground from Mark Fletcher Jr., two scores from Marty Brown and a number of key defensive stops to beat the Gators for the ninth time in the teams’ last 11 meetings.
Napier had no answers for his team’s struggles offensively for the third straight game, another loss for Florida and disastrous performance from quarterback D.J. Lagway.
“Obviously not good enough on offense. We didn’t generate enough yards or points,” Napier said. “The first half was a trial of errors. Not many plays where we executed well at all. We had mental errors of protection on third down, and really struggled to stack any good plays together. You know, we had four three-and-outs and six punts in the first half.”
After throwing five interceptions last week against LSU, Lagway completed just 12 of 23 attempts for 61 yards. That yardage total was Florida’s lowest output since finishing with 119 against Alabama in 1999. The Gators managed just 32 yards of offense on their first six possessions before scoring their lone touchdown on a third-quarter possession.
“It was a good game, I thought they had at least one or two (third-down) conversions … can’t get much better than that,” Bain said. “I missed about three sacks on that last drive, so back to the drawing board for me, I really ain’t too happy.”
Florida’s coach entered the game needing to impress to alleviate pressure, but it didn’t happen. Facing criticism following a loss to South Florida, Napier stared adversity directly in the face and didn’t mince words.
“We created it,” Napier said after that home loss as an 18.5-point favorite. “We deserve it. If you play football like that, you’re going to be criticized. It comes with the territory, right? Only thing you can do is go get it fixed, and that’s what we’ll start working on tomorrow.”
The Gators host Texas next week and still have to play Texas A&M, Georgia, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Florida State — all teams ranked inside the top 20.
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