The Saturday night lights flickered in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, setting the good vibes for a Florida Gators beatdown over McNeese State, 49-7.
The team performed well enough to redeem the embarrassing loss to the No. 12 Utah Utes last Thursday and wiped the slate clean before the Tennessee Volunteers come knocking next week.
Napier said in his opening statement that the attitude of the players was an improvement compared to the post-game in Salt Lake City.
“I appreciate the response that we saw from the players after last week, which was obviously disappointing,” said Napier. “But I think the leadership on the team, we said it was going to be about the mindset, the effort, the attitude, and I think we had the right things early.”
“We’ll enjoy tonight, and when we wake up tomorrow we’ll get ready for the big one next week.”
Saturday’s victory ended head coach Billy Napier’s four-game losing streak dating back to the Florida State bout in Tallahassee last season, where the Gators were brutalized, 45-38.
Napier thought ending the streak was vital for his players and hopes the “noise” will become positive.
“One of the things about college football and I would say the University in Florida in particular is it gets noisy sometimes, good and bad,” Napier said.
“If it’s bad, then it gets loud, and if it’s good, it gets loud. I think the ability to stay consistent in your approach and evaluate things objectively is important, not only for myself and our staff but I think also for the players, and I think we’ve got some maturity in that locker room that helped do that.”
The second-year head coach showed appreciation for the much-improved Florida defense, who shut out the Cowboys through 45 minutes of action.
“Defense was ready to play, and I think we’ll continue to get better,” said Napier. “We’ve got a lot of young players out there playing, and I think those guys will get a little bit better, not only at game day but their routine during the week I think will be beneficial.”
The Gators made too many mistakes against Utah last Thursday, including a special teams foul where two players wearing the No. 3 jersey were on the field at the same time.
Florida looked like a whole new team Saturday night, making very few blunders in the rout of McNeese State.
“Certainly we had too many (mistakes) last week,” Napier said. “To come back and play cleaner I think was a positive. But we all understand we have to continue to improve, to evolve. Bigger challenges are coming.”
Napier is right.
The No. 9 Tennessee Volunteers travel to Gainesville next week after a dominant 30-13 win over Austin Peay on Saturday. The Florida Gators will use the momentum from their latest victory to charge forward and start a new win streak.
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