Billy Napier on Florida vs. Tennessee: 'I hope it's not a track meet'

The Florida Gators are getting ready to travel to Knoxville where they’ll take on the Tennessee Volunteers. It’s a game that head coach Billy Napier knows has the potential to become an offensive battle.

Even amid some struggles on the road for Tennessee this season, Napier knows that the Volunteers can be explosive and he’s hoping to avoid getting into a track meet.

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“I do think some of what you’re saying I would agree with, relative to home and away,” Billy Napier said. “In particular, the challenge of playing on the road in this league. That’s been the case for a lot of teams in our league, not just Tennessee. I think we would probably say the same. In general, I hope it’s not a track meet.”

Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel has made his name for having fast-paced and explosive offenses in his career. This season, the Volunteers have once again had that type of offense at home with Tennessee averaging 70 points per game played at Neyland Stadium, though those were both non-conference games and Tennessee is averaging just 19.5 points per game in SEC play.

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“I do think like, ultimately, when you play Tennessee, you know there will be an element of strategy, in regards to keeping up,” Napier said. “How do you do that? I think last year we were able to play complementary football in the game, and I think there is a component to that.”

One major challenge for Billy Napier is going to be finding a way to score against Tennessee’s defense, which he also credited as being a talented unit. Because of that, if the game becomes a track meet, it could be difficult to keep up.

“Points are a premium. You do what you got to do to score,” Napier said. “So, again, go back to what I said in the opening statement. This is not just an offensive football team. I think they are pretty good on defense, in my opinion, personnel, and I think in the kicking game their history there, they’ve had some success. So, they’re ranked and been highly regarded in the preseason for a lot of reasons. I think ultimately that’s what I see on tape.”

Steve Spurrier believes Florida now has ‘different expectations’ for Tennessee game

Former Florida head coach Steve Spurrier shared that he believes that Florida has different expectations for the Tennessee game now that the Gators were able to look good in a win over UCF and the Volunteers lost to Arkansas.

“The Gators really played well,” Spurrier said.

“I think our energy and our fight was the best I’ve seen all year. Defense really won the game for us. The offense played well the first half. Didn’t do much the second half. But the defense came to play, so that was encouraging. Now that Tennessee lost to Arkansas, we can go up there with a little different expectations.”