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Florida interim head coach Billy Gonzales, along with quarterback DJ Lagway and linebacker Myles Graham met with the media on Saturday evening to discuss the Gators’ 34-24 loss to No. 6 Ole Miss.
BILLY GONZALES
Opening statement…
“Just want to start off by saying these young men, they battled. I thought they played their hearts out, to be honest with you. I thought they battled. They went out on the football field; they’ve defined who they are all year long. They did it all week long. They’re going to continue to do it for the next couple games. They’re going to continue to battle. I’ve told you guys before, there’s no quit in this team. That’s not in their DNA. They’ve done a fantastic job from that standpoint. They’re competitors. I’m proud of them, we just came up short. I don’t think there’s one major area that you’re going to look at. Obviously, there’s some stats that we can take a look at and see where we’re at. But overall, I’m at a loss for words, because I really care about these young men – really care about these young men. They deserve to win. We just got to try to put it together and finish the way we need to on the last two games.”
On QB DJ Lagway’s performance…
“Stats-wise, just kind of going through, 16-for-31, 218 yards. He was playing really good. Put us in a position to where we were at, Obviously, we got to continue to make great decisions. But he did a really good job of putting us in position where we needed to be at the end of the game.”
On Lagway’s fourth-quarter interception…
“Obviously, was third down and we were in field-goal position coming off the sidelines. We’ve talked about this before: great players and competitors always want the ball in their hands. They want to be able to make the play. They want to give it everything they’ve got, and that’s who he is. That’s his DNA as well. But we’ve got to make great decisions. And again, I talked about that before. There’s a time to try to extend the play, but there’s also a time to understand you just got to be able to pull the ball down and run, or get the ball out of our hands at certain times. It’s a learning experience obviously, but we can’t throw back across our body especially when we’re coming back to the left.”
On Ole Miss RB Kewan Lacy’s night rushing the ball…
“I think he’s proven what kid of running back he’s been all year. He was close to 1,000 yards coming into the game. He had a really good game, ran for 224 yards and 31 carries, so they fed him. They gave him the ball. He did an excellent job. He made some people miss. We’ve got to do a better job of wrapping up and tackling. But I give him credit. He’s a fantastic football player.”
On how the game played out in the second half…
“They came out; they had a long drive. They got the ball back on the minus-25. They had a long drive. And if you take a look at that, it’s a freak play. We got them to a fourth-and-seven and quarterback throws the ball, it gets batted down, he catches his own pass and gets a first down. And then right after that, we gave up an explosive. I think that’s one thing we need to continue to harp with and continue to clean up is, we’ve got to eliminate the explosive plays. Explosive plays, we talk about it on the offensive side, what they can do for momentum for the offense. It puts points up. So, we’ve got to eliminate the explosive plays. We got into a fourth-and-one in big personnel. They got a first down, but all of a sudden, we kind of parlayed it into fourth-and-one on the one and we stopped them, which is a big-time stop for us. We got the ball back at 7:51 on the clock on the minus-one-yard line. Thought process when you get the ball back then is to try to get two first downs. Move the field position; play the battle of field position. We ended up popping a really nice pass to Tony [Livingston] for close to 44 yards. We got the ball out. Tommy [Doman] came in and punted the ball and completely flipped the field for us. So, we did a really good job of flipping the field. They got the ball back; we stopped them. We made them punt. And then, right here that second drive we had, we had a three-and-out. Which was critical, because we had to punt, they got the ball back, on a third-and-five they had another explosive play, they got down to a first-and-goal, had a TD run, took them up to 24-27. Then recapping, we drove down on a 10-play drive in the fourth quarter, put us in field-goal position, and that’s where we had the interception. So, they did a good job. They drove the ball down, used up some clock. Defense did a phenomenal job again; they had the goal-line stand. And then we were just on the minus-three-yard line and trying to move the ball a little…”
On adjustments Ole Miss made in the second half…
“We’ll go back and take a look at it, but like I said, when you’re getting the ball on the minus-three-yard line, it means the defense did a good job of stopping them. But again, you’re trying to get two first downs, try to change the field position and flip it. But obviously, we moved the ball. I mean, we had a 10-play drive in the fourth quarter. So we were moving the ball. We were in field-goal position. As far as moving it, yeah, I thought we did a decent job on that drive right there. On the next drive, we got the ball on the minus-three, like I said, so it’s a little tougher situation.”
DJ LAGWAY
On his performance against Ole Miss…
“I played okay. Didn’t make the plays when we needed to make them. I’ve been saying this whole year it starts with me and I got to do better.”
On what he saw on the fourth-quarter interception…
“I scrambled out. It was third and six or seven, scrambled out, had Aidan Mizell, he beat his defender. The guy in front of me, just made a good play and tipped it. Same for our defense, tips and overthrows, they got to get them, and they got it. And at the end of the day, you just got to keep going.”
On what was working for the offense in the first half and their explosive plays…
“I say just getting the ball to my playmakers. I finally got it over top of people. I’ve been waiting on that all season, so it was good to have some success on some shots and things like that. But, overall, none of that really matters. We didn’t come out with the win. This has just been emotionally draining, just this whole year, to be honest. All the way back to January. So it’s just been draining. But I’m going to continue to get better, continue to work and continue to strive for greatness.”
On how much he has been leaning on the people around him…
“So much. I just try to keep my family around me. Just being able to have great teammates that I have, to be able to keep me grounded and keep me uplifted and they’re the reason why I do it still.”
On how important the coaching staff has been to him …
“It’s been great, having just an amazing coaching staff that’s trusting and believing in me, especially through all of this. So I’m extremely thankful for everybody on the staff.”
On how this season’s adversity can help him moving forward…
“It’s been a whole lot. Put the early mornings in, the late nights. But you got to look at perspective, that’s what kind of gets me. Like six, seven months ago, I wasn’t even playing football, so I’m happy to be out there and just be able to play. Just playing with my guys and just being out there with them. But it’s hard when you don’t have success and that’s what you play the game for. But I’m going to continue to strive and continue to play with pride.”
On how the team will attempt to bounce back heading into Tennessee and Florida State…
“Like I said, it’s just every single day, just continue to strive for greatness, continue to get better at your craft. And that’s what I know my guys are going to continue to do, what I’m going to continue to do. I’m going to turn it up even more, keep turning it up. So each and every week, just hoping to get one percent better and that’s my goal.”
MYLES GRAHAM
On the Rebels’ success running the ball…
“It definitely wasn’t good enough, man, just missed tackles and missed assignments and bad eye discipline. Things like that led to a lot of rushing, and we really just beat ourselves in there. We shot ourselves in the foot and in the end, the rushing ended up contributing to the score.”
On being able to bounce back this week…
“Yeah, we bounced back, but feel like it wasn’t good enough. Offense gave us enough points on the board and we didn’t capitalize. We let them get down. We let them take too much time off the clock, run the ball and they had some explosives in that, and that led to what happened. So, we bounced back, but it wasn’t enough.”
On trying to contain Kewan Lacy throughout the game…
“Yeah, I mean, he’s a great player, but like I said, we shout ourselves in the foot and we got to do better. We’ve got to be more disciplined in our gaps, we’ve got to make more tackles and we’ve got to be more physical up front.”
On the fight in the team after coming off a hard loss at Kentucky…
“I thought we fought hard, but we didn’t fight hard enough. I feel like we bounced back, but we didn’t bounce back enough and that’s on us and that’s all on the defense. Offense came out there and they lit it up. So, you’ve got to capitalize and finish.”
On the momentum behind Jaylen Wood’s interception that translated into a touchdown…
“Yeah, he stepped up. Young guy stepped up and I’m proud of him as well. In that game, it’s a lot of momentum shifts. It’s a lot of stuff going on. It’s loud, and he stepped up and he helped the team.”
On how the team has learned and grown throughout the season…
“It’s a lot of losses, but it’s a lot to learn from as well. A lot of adversity, a lot of things to get better at, so we’ve got to look at ourselves in the mirror and do that.”
On their mindset going into back-to-back rivalry games in The Swamp to end the season…
“We’ve got to have pride about the Swamp, defend our house. We’ve got two rivals coming into The Swamp and we’ve got to step up and play our game. We got to put this behind us and move forward.”
LANE KIFFIN
BOX SCORE
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