Florida To Welcome No. 9 Texas For Afternoon Game

Coming off their Week 5 bye week, the Florida Gators look to reset a disappointing start to the football season.

The Gators found themselves in a similar point last season — a 2-2 record with multitude of unanswered questions heading into the bye.

Now Florida will aim to reclaim some of that post bye week magic from a year ago, when the team finished 5-3 the rest of the way. Despite College Football Playoff  expectations coach Billy Napier’s team is 1-3 and faces the No. 9 Texas Longhorns (3-1) at 3:30 p.m. Saturday on ESPN as 7.5-point underdogs, according to Hard Rock Bet.

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“Well, I think the big thing here is we always have areas on our team where we need to improve from a football perspective, whether communication fundamentals, how teams are playing this, what adjustments we need to be making, and then getting plans for improvement for some of the individuals that we need to make progress,” Napier said during his Week 5 SEC teleconference. “So it also gives you an opportunity to introduce some material on future opponents, in particular Texas, Texas A&M and Mississippi State. It’s kind of the next three-game progression here.

“So we’ll take some time as a staff and get some things organized. So when we get to those weeks, we will be a little further ahead. I do think that it’s important to focus on the work, and I do think that the intangible parts of your team, leadership, amongst the players, to kind of be the change that you would want to see.”

Florida welcomes the Longhorns back to The Swamp for the first time since 1940. It is an important game for both teams as the Gators cannot afford to fall to 0-2 in such a competitive conference. Texas, which has played three Group of Five opponents since its 14-7 road loss to No. 1 Ohio State to open the season, opens SEC play this week.

This will be the fifth all-time meeting between the Gators and Longhorns, with Texas leading the series 3-0-1. A year ago, these two squared off for the first time as conference foes in Austin, Texas. The Longhorns blew Florida out of the building to win 49-17.

The Gators face one of the nation’s best defenses this week, one littered with NFL talent at all three levels. One of Texas’ best strengths is keeping opponents off the board, allowing an average of 7.75 points per game this season.

Florida’s offense has struggled all season to get going, averaging 11 points per game against FBS opponents. Napier addressed what the team needed to do during the bye week to help fix these issues.

“I think there’s a renewed emphasis on accountability. Obviously, we have to play better. Every position group is contributing to our issues, so I know obviously a lot is made of DJ (Lagway) and his situation, but I do think when we look at it from a big picture standpoint, we’ve got to play better around them,” Napier said. “And then, just some of the points of emphasis are eliminating negative plays. And I do think that first-down efficiency has contributed to some of our problems as well. But in general, I think we have to address that part of our team and there’s got to be some changes, and certainly that’s what we’re doing.”

Category: College Football, Feature Sports News, Gators Football, SEC