Billy Napier reveals how Florida plans to handle being 'pat on the back' after beating Utah

Florida is the toast of the country after being the only team to knock off a top-10 opponent in Week 1. The Gators are flying high heading into a showdown with No. 20 Kentucky in the Swamp this weekend. However, head coach Billy Napier could do without all the pats on the back. He’s ready to get back to practice in order to get even better by Saturday’s game.

At his press conference this week, Napier explained his process for evaluating games. That even with a win, there was plenty to fix from the Gators’ performance. So here was Napier at length discussing how to evaluate games regardless of the result.

Billy Napier on maintaining objective evaluation

“You got to operate in truth, right. Operate in truth, tell the truth. I think sometimes we hear the things we want to hear and we don’t hear some of the things we need to hear. So just remain objective. Evaluate it for exactly what it is. I think sometimes we get consumed with the results.

“Reality is we need to always evaluate, win or loss, independent of the result, what does the film look like? What can we do better? So, one of the things that we have refined over the last couple years is how we evaluate a game. How do we quality control a game, independent of the outcome? What do we do well? I think our staff knows what winning football looks like. We played winning football in a lot of areas on our team. But there’s some glaring areas where we need to get better. So it is what it is. You find a way to win and ultimately that’s what I’m proud of. The kids this group got some fight to them.”

CLICK HERE to subscribe for FREE to the On3 YouTube channel

“And I think we’re making progress when it comes to the human element. I think we’re getting somewhere there. The emotional component is all I was kind of driving at, too. You got young guys where that was an exhilarating experience. I’m hopeful we have a lot of those. But I think you’re right. I think that’s a big question.

“It’s like: how is this group of players and this staff going to handle everybody patting them on the back for the next week? I think that it’s one of the things about Florida. You’re in a state with 21 million people. You got a huge alumni network you got unbelievable passion. So when it’s good, it’s good. When it’s bad, it’s bad. So learning how to navigate that, ignore some of the subjective opinions and really call it what it is call a spade a spade. So that’s the sense I got from our team. That they know they can do much better.”