Head coach Urban Meyer and several members of the Gator Football team met with the media on Monday to revisit the team’s loss at Alabama on Saturday and preview this Saturday’s showdown against the LSU Tigers.
Head Coach Urban Meyer
On the plan to win:
“I’ll go through the plan to win. It failed miserably. We didn’t play well. If we play like that and have turnovers like that against a quality team in a tough environment, it looks much worse than obviously the score was. Our defense played admirable. They held a very potent offense to 273 (total yards). We had six missed tackles, which is fantastic. I thought if we could hold them to single-digit missed tackles we would win that game. However, we gave up touchdowns. Our red-zone defense was not good. Sudden change in third downs were not good. That’s part of a great defense, and we did not play great defense. We played admirable, which is I guess adequate. Turnovers, that was the difference in the game. We had four; they had zero. Red-zone we were one-of-four. That’s an area that was positive throughout the fall, and that was a major negative. Kicking game, we gave up our first punt return yardage of significance in probably six years. Maybe, I have to go back and check the records, but I think we gave up more on one punt return than we did in two years combined, which is an alarming stat, and that has to be corrected. Other than that, (on time of) possession we were fine. Third-down ratio, we weren’t very good.”
Junior QB John Brantley
On the loss to Alabama:
“Watched the tape yesterday and got what we needed out of it. (We had) practice last night and we’re moving forward. We had a lot of opportunities, but we need to end the drives. We did some good things, we did some bad things, but that’s the same with any game and we’re going to move forward.”
“Watched the tape yesterday and got what we needed out of it. (We had) practice last night and we’re moving forward. We had a lot of opportunities, but we need to end the drives. We did some good things, we did some bad things, but that’s the same with any game and we’re going to move forward.”
On LSU’s defense:
“They’re a tough defense, but after this past weekend, it’s going to give us good lead-in (for facing) their defense.”
“They’re a tough defense, but after this past weekend, it’s going to give us good lead-in (for facing) their defense.”
Senior SS Ahmad Black
On what he said to the team after playing Alabama:
“I basically told them that we have to come out and work. We lost and there’s nothing we can do about it right now, but we have to come out and get better every day. Hopefully we’ll get to see them again and if we don’t, then we don’t. The main thing is that we come out and play each game hard.”
“I basically told them that we have to come out and work. We lost and there’s nothing we can do about it right now, but we have to come out and get better every day. Hopefully we’ll get to see them again and if we don’t, then we don’t. The main thing is that we come out and play each game hard.”
On facing LSU:
“You don’t have to be pumped up to play LSU at night in The Swamp. You don’t need that for motivation. It’s another SEC game and we have a chance to either go downhill or uphill with that game, and we’re going to do our best to go up.”
