Everything Billy Gonzales said on the SEC teleconference for Kentucky week

Each week the SEC holds a teleconference for all 16 head coaches in the league. UF interim Billy Gonzales took his turn Wednesday to discuss the Kentucky coach, Wildcats coach Mark Stoops and more.

Here’s everything Gonzales said on the SEC Teleconference.

Billy Gonzales Q&A

Opening statement: 

BILLY GONZALES: “Just starting off, we’ve been back on the field for a couple of days now. Put the Georgia game behind us, getting ready for a tough Kentucky team on the road. We go up there, we play them at night, tough place to play. It’s gonna be a tough challenge, but I feel we’re ready to accept it and ready to go up there and play and accept the challenge, and the team’s been working hard this week.”

On his thoughts on Georgia vs. Mississippi State, having faced both teams: 

BILLY GONZALES: “Well, I think everything comes down to the fundamentals when you start talking about football. The ability to execute at a high level, you know, both teams have done a fantastic job offensively and defensively. They’ve both got their schemes, they’ve both got their coordinators in place and what they want to do. They’re playing to win. So at the end of the day, the execution is gonna be the No. 1 thing that they both gotta continue to be great at. And like I said, they both got really great players on both sides of the ball, and they both got really good coaching staff.”

On if he thinks Mississippi State or Georgia could win the game: 

BILLY GONZALES: “Well, I think in the SEC or really in any conference, the game could go any way based on whoever is showing up and playing the hardest. You know, at the end of the day, the most invested team usually walks out on top.”

On Kentucky’s win at Auburn: 

BILLY GONZALES: “It was a tough, hard-fought game,  and they showed a lot of grit all the way through. I thought they fought. They went on the road, you had to play in a tough environment and they prevailed. At the end of the day, they didn’t just hold on, they finished it when they needed to finish it, and they did a good job taking care of the ball, controlling the ball. They’ve done a good job of doing that all year long.”

On what the next step is for Florida to be on the winning side:

BILLY GONZALES: “Well, we talked about it with the football team the other day. We’re going to stay with the same thing that we’ve always talked about. We’ve got to continue to start fast. We got to continue to stay focused during the middle eight, and then we got to finish strong. I always talk about eliminating the human element with the team – part of that means failure is not an option. If you eliminate the human element, you’ve eliminated the failure in that capacity. So we talked about that the most invested team wins. That’s attention to details throughout the game; we’ve got to be locked in. Everybody’s got to be assignment sound. And then you got to trust one another. You got to be able to do your job, and you got to be able to trust your teammates to do their job. And then again, our leaders, our leaders, got to continue to be great leaders on the football field and continue to pull, along with our coaching staff.” 

On Florida running back KD Daniels:

BILLY GONZALES: “He’s explosive. I think he’d done a really good job. Obviously having a chance to see him participate over the year. He’s explosive, he’s got incredible work ethic, he’s got a great first step. We feel strong, we feel very strong about him. Obviously we feel strong about all the running backs that we have on the roster right now. But just like anything else I think it takes patience and it takes time for people to completely learn the system. We’ve had a really good stable of running backs here. Coach Juluke does an incredible job, he’s one of the best running back coaches I’ve ever been around as far as mentoring and developing players. We’ve had a really good running backs, and again, I always talk about the patience, patience will come, the patience means when it’s my time to go play the competitive excellence piece will kick in and you’re ready to make those plays, and I think that’s kind of what he’s done. He’s got a chance to get a year under his belt; he’s we went through the hard times and we’re extremely confident in him.”

On the challenge of facing a Mark Stoops team:

BILLY GONZALES: “First and foremost, I’ve got a ton of respect for coach Stoops. He’s the longest tenured coach in the SEC, he’s in his 13th year as a head coach. I have a ton of respect for him as a coach, but he’s done a great job recruiting players, and the most important piece, he’s done a great job developing them. If I take a look at his roster, I believe he’s got 19 players drafted over the last five years including two in the first round, four in the second round, so he’s done a fantastic job of recruiting to his system and developing. You talked about toughness, I think he’s tried to do a great job both offensively and defensively. What do they do well on the defensive side? I think they do a really good job of stopping the run game. I think they do a fantastic job from that standpoint. And then again on offense, what do they do well? I think they run the ball extremely well, they control the ball, they rank 22nd in the country in time of possession, they’ve got an experienced group up front, four of the five are returning starters up front. He’s always done a fantastic job both offensively and defensively, he’s developed a culture of toughness. It’s a tough place in play, it’s going to be at night, but like I said we’re excited to about the opportunity to go up and play with the football team we have here at the University of Florida. ”