Please Read: Welcome to the new-look Inside the Gators
- A couple of post game observations
- Instant Analysis: No. Florida Dominated by No. 25 Missouri
- No. 8 Florida – No. 25 Missouri Ole Miss Box Score
- No. 8 Florida vs No. 25 Missouri Game Thread
Florida Gators’ head coach Jon Sumrall, quarterback Aaron Philo, and linebacker Myles Graham met with the media after Saturday’s 45-17 loss to Missouri.
JON SUMRALL
Opening statement…
“Hats off to Missouri. They played really good today. We did not, and that was an earned loss by us. They’re a good football team. They didn’t need our help. They played really good and hats off to them, like I said, but we did not play to our standard. Embarrassing performance, in every phase. Starts with the coaching, starts with me. Told the guys in the locker room just now, I expect everyone to be a man, which means be accountable for your actions and own it. I’m going to start that way right now. I’m not going to point fingers at anybody, but we have to play a lot better. I’m sick to my freaking stomach with what we just did. Like livid. So, with that, we’ll open it up.”
On what occurred with S Bryce Thornton pregame…
“Had a little tweak that happened in pregame warmups, something that I haven’t really seen a whole lot of. Just went out there and was not right and warming up, felt something that didn’t feel good, lower body. Just kind of like a soft tissue thing which was hard to predict, because he practiced this week. Just went out in the warm-ups and was not himself and came over and told the trainers, hey I got something going on. As they examined him, it just wasn’t good enough to go.”
On the performance of the secondary…
“We haven’t played to the standard we need to play at a lot this year there. I haven’t hidden from that. It’s not just one guy, it’s been certain guys on different downs. There’s some times it’s coverage, discipline, detail and leverage. They beat us on the out and up. They beat us on a go ball. They’ve got 19 on the move on a lot of third downs and we didn’t play great technique on him. We knew that he was the move guy to motion to try to create space to get him open. There were a couple times we were going o bracket him, and we didn’t execute the call great, to be quite honest. But it’d be a really easy fix if it was just one guy. It’d be a really easy fix if it was just one thing. The problem is, right now, its different guys wearing the hat that maybe are giving something up. And then, different issues that are presenting that are, really, when you’re trying to plug one hole, another one opens. When you’re calling the game, Coach White, he can’t protect everybody. Somebody’s got to win a one-on-one down. There’s 11 guys on each side, and we have to win some one-on-ones out there on the perimeter, which we’re not doing enough of right now.”
On the inability to get the run game going…
“They did a really good job of playing with physicality. We missed some things, but I thought they swarmed well to the football. I don’t think the flow of the game really dictated us not getting the run game. They played good defense and we didn’t execute. But we still tried to commit to the run coming out of the half. When you’re in the third quarter and you’re down 17, it’s not like you can’t run the ball still. Now, in the fourth quarter, we get to a spot where you kind of had no choice, but that was something that they did really good tonight, and we did not execute well in the run game in a lot of different areas.”
On what bothered him most about the game…
“I can’t pin it down to one thing. Look, what bothered me was our lack of execution, our lack of discipline, our lack of detail. I did not feel this this week, but man, today, it’s like, guys, you get 12 regular-season opportunities, you can’t let one get away from you without giving your best, and the fact that we put less than our best out there, absolutely makes me freaking sick. I am freaking livid over the fact that we just did that. And I told the guys in the locker room, anybody that’s comfortable with that, come see me tonight, we ain’t moving forward like this. The score is the score. But it’s not just what we do, it’s how we do it. And how we just did what we did, is not acceptable, and will not be acceptable. I’m livid. I’m frustrated about so many things that I can’t pin it down to one thing.”
On what he can attribute the effort to and how he plans to address it…
“It’s a good question. I didn’t feel it this week. I made sure to show them all of the things that you try to show guys about not being casual or complacent. To continue to be urgent and tough and gritty and blue collar. I don’t know. I know there’s been a lot of pats on the back. I’ve tried to make sure they understand that that doesn’t matter. What matters is showing up every day and being at your best. I don’t know what to attribute to today. I don’t know that we’re a very mature team yet. And that’s not letting them off the hook, or letting me off the hook, but we have to grow up. We have got to be a more mature outfit, and you cannot play that way against anybody in this league and expect an outcome that’s going to be favorable, because it ain’t getting any easier. Every team you play in this league is going to be talented. Like I said, Missouri won. We earned the loss. They don’t need our help, but we beat ourselves at times tonight, too.”
AARON PHILO
On his performance today against Missouri…
“It wasn’t good enough. Definitely got to get back to work.”
On the offense as a whole and its productivity…
“We didn’t execute good enough. Way too many penalties that put us in bad situations. It’s just not good enough overall.”
On the run game and how it impacted the offense…
“At the end of the day, running or passing, we got to be able to move the ball down the field and that’s on me.”
On his confidence in the team responding the right way moving forward…
“Yeah, I’ve seen this team. I’ve seen us come together before, and I see us doing that same thing after this loss.”
On being down receivers at practice and how it impacted his preparation…
“No. At the end of the day, people have to step up. We still have to be able to execute the offense at a high level.”
MYLES GRAHAM
On the defensive performance…
“It is extremely disappointing. As a defense we, sometimes the offense has to lean on us. We did not get the job done. We cannot always depend on them to put up 40 or 50 points in a game. Sometimes, we have to keep us in the game. So, we take full accountability. I take full accountability. I did not play my best game at all. Nobody did. We have to respond and get it fixed.”
On how surprising the outcome was…
“I did not sense a performance like this coming. We got hit in the mouth. It’s football. Sometimes it happens but we will not let it define us or our season. It is not who we are. This is not the standard, and we will remember how this feels.”
On if the praise the previous week influenced the way the team played…
“They were just the better team tonight. It happens. We move on. We get a new week and another chance to respond and another chance to play. We look forward to that.”
On if maturity of a team is player led…
“Everything has to be player led if you want to win games in the SEC. Coach Sumrall always talks about if you want to win a championship, it has to be player led. We have to fix it.”
On whether there was a lack of energy tonight…
“I feel like we came out with good energy. I just feel like we did not execute, and if you don’t execute, no matter what the offense is, no matter what the defense is, you can’t win games. Not in this league. We just have to be better.”
On what challenge the Missouri offense posed…
“I cannot really put my finger on one thing. We did not do a good job on stopping anything, honestly. From the front to the back, and all of us, we did not play our game. We have no choice but to get it fixed and respond.”
On being without S Bryce Thornton…
“Bryce is a great player, and we would have loved to have him, but we have to have guys step up. Injuries are a part of the game, and we know that someone is going to have to step up at some point in the season. So, that is not an excuse to how the secondary played or how anybody played. We have to be better.”
Videos Courtesy GatorVision | Transcript Courtesy ASAP
0 comments