<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=12fO6A_0vjJ4jng00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=12fO6A_0vjJ4jng00" width="1021" height="580" ><figcaption>Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier during the second half as the Florida Gators host the #5 Florida State Seminoles in Gainesville, Florida. November 25th, 2023. Gator Country Photo by David Bowie.</figcaption></figure>Florida football is on a bye week, which means head coach Billy Napier doesn’t meet with the local media on Monday or Wednesday. Napier did participate in the SEC’s weekly teleconference, which took place on Wednesday morning. Napier discussed Florida’s running back room, missed tackles, and Gus Malzahn’s offense. Here’s everything Napier said on Wednesday. Opening Statement “We’ve had a chance to kind of evaluate the first four weeks. Really good practice yesterday, I think it’s important that we take a good look into the mirror and build plans for improvement this week for not only individual players, position groups, units, the entire team. I think we’ve got three practices this week – Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. We took a step forward Saturday against Mississippi State, and excited about the plans that we have in place to get better the next couple days here and we’ll turn the page when we get to the weekend.” Q. Is getting running backs Treyaun Webb, Jadan Baugh, and Ja’Kobi Jackson more touches part of the assessment during the bye week?“Obviously Montrell [Johnson] is coming back from the injury, so we’re trying to get him back into a rhythm there, but yeah, I think we’ve said that all throughout training camp and the offseason, we’ve felt really good about that running back room. I thought in particular, Saturday, Treyaun played really fast and physical, I thought Jadan was exceptional, and Ja’Kobi, you can see where he’s got some wiggle, can make you miss, very instinctive. It’s a good group, we’ve always been intentional about involving the running backs. Jadan Baugh is a little bit more unique in my opinion as a pass catcher, he’s a guy that we will definitely be building around for the future.” Q. On Graham Mertz playing within the offense more?“I think we played well around him; I think we protected him well, I thought we got really good play, and execution, and detail from the tight end, receiver, and running back rooms. I thought the staff had a really good plan and ultimately, he played about as good as you can play. I think he rushed one early there and I think he threw two incompletions the whole day. Graham is well deserving of the Manning Award recognition that he got this week, and I expect him to play at that level the rest of the way.”Q. How much of a focus has missed tackles been this week?“Part of the self-scout is to evaluate all the efficient plays ran against us. I think the alignment, assignment, and technique are the primary root of the cause, so I think we have to evaluate teaching, development, practice habits, I think ultimately that’s what we’ve done. The self-scout has revealed that, it’s alignment, it’s assignment, it’s technique, there’s very few schematic, very small percentage of the issues are schematic, it’s more just the overall alignment, assignment, and that technique – fundamental part. All hands-on deck to get those things fixed, and certainly tackling is a part of that.” Q. What is it about Guz Malzahn’s offense that stands out to you?“Gus is awesome. Ton of respect, big picture wise, just a good human being. My dad, my brothers are high school coaches, we’ve all been in the same network of people for a long time. Obviously the in-state rivalry with Alabama and Auburn. I worked for Todd Graham; Gus started his career up there. Ton of respect, Gus is a creative mind, he’s done high school coaching, I can still remember recruiting some of his high school players when I was a young assistant coach in Arkansas. I think overall, Gus is creative, has a really good football mind, he’s done a good job, he’s had a lot of different scenarios calling it as a head coach, he’s had different coordinators throughout the years. One thing about Gus’ teams, they’re always tough, they’re always physical, they’re always a conscious effort to run it, everything’s kind of built off the ability to run the ball both inside and on the perimeter, and all the three-level routes, just puts you in conflict. The quarterback is typically athletic and can make some plays, all the read elements in the run game are complementary. Gus is a good human being, I think he has a sincere care for players in terms of what football is about, long term, and yeah, just have a healthy respect for Gus, all my interactions with him have been first-class.” Q. Is there a key to stopping Malzahn’s offense?“First of all, getting aligned correctly and knowing your assignment, but I do think the eye-discipline portion and then there’s a pitch, quarterback dive element to a lot of the concepts. It’s assignment football, and then obviously the pass game that complements that, so you have to have really good eye-discipline, and you got to be on the same page.” </div></body>

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Everything Billy Napier said during Wednesday’s SEC Teleconference

Florida football is on a bye week, which means head coach Billy Napier doesn’t meet with the local media on Monday or Wednesday. Napier did participate in the SEC’s weekly teleconference, which took place on Wednesday morning. Napier discussed Florida’s running back room, missed tackles, and Gus Malzahn’s...