What Billy Napier said after Florida’s narrow loss to Florida State

Billy Napier and Florida fell just short of pulling off one of the biggest upsets of the season Saturday night.

The Gators were within an arms reach of taking the lead over Florida State, but the Seminoles sealed the game with a touchdown in the final minutes on Saturday night.

Now Florida is out of bowl contention and has a long offseason ahead of it.

It’s not the first time this season that Florida has failed to close out a game down the stretch. It did the same thing against Missouri last week.

“We haven’t been able to finish. That’s the bottom line,” Napier said in his postgame press conference. “I think we’re learning how to do that.”

It was a disappointing season for Florida, and Napier knows that he has plenty of work to do to meet lofty expectations.

“Look, we have work to do,” Napier said. “Ultimately as a staff, we have to evaluate where we’re at from top to bottom, every inch of what we do.”

He’s looking for his returners to use what they learned this season to try and turn things around next year.

“We have to use this experience,” Napier said. “There’s a ton of players in that locker room that are gonna be back next year.”

It’s fair to say Florida is at one of its lowest points, but Napier is ready to learn and build off of this season and begin working to turn the program around.

“Ultimately we have to get up off the ground,” Napier said. “We have to learn from failure. We have work to do. Ultimately, as a staff we have to evaluate what we do.”