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Billy Napier discusses the Florida Gators' first fall scrimmage

Untitled designby:Nick de la Torre•08/15/22•

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Photo courtesy of UF Communications

With 21 days until the Florida Gators open the football season with Utah, they hit the scrimmage field for the first time in fall camp. The Gators’ will practice Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday again this week before holding a second scrimmage on Saturday afternoon.

Monday, Napier met with the media where the scrimmage was the main topic.

Gators Offense behind schedule on Saturday

“I think the offensive unit — first offensive unit — was the only team that didn’t meet the quota, didn’t meet the goal for the day. I think those are all very correctible, if that makes sense. Procedural-related. Outside of that, I thought it was pretty clean.”

What does Napier mean by “quota”?

In terms of the scrimmage, the first team offense had issues with penalties. The Gators had a full officiating crew on Saturday. They will have an SEC crew this Saturday for the second scrimmage. Napier was not thrilled with the penalties that the first-team offense created. So what is the quota? It’s discipline and penalty related.

“One penalty in every 30 plays and we’d like those to be technical and not discipline oriented.”

Napier has put an emphasis on penalties since he arrived at Florida. Saturday was a small misstep for the first scrimmage of camp.

Quarterback play

As Gators Online reported on Saturday, backup quarterback Jack Miller had a good scrimmage. When Napier was asked about the quarterbacks specifically, his answer was less than inspiring.

“I thought the defense did a good job of limiting explosive plays. I think that we didn’t score touchdowns in the red area. That was an objective that we didn’t meet on offense. The defense obviously contributed to that. Overall, we did turn it over a few times. So the quarterback efficiency wasn’t what we wanted it to be,” he said. “I think a lot of things contribute to that when you’re playing with a mixture of lineups, different positions, and different players. It can be better. That’s what I would say.” 

Turnovers

There were several turnovers in the scrimmage, including the final play. That’s something that the Gators will need to limit. As always, it’s hard to truly evaluate in camp and in a scrimmage setting. Is the offense performing poorly? Is the defense creating turnovers due to a good scheme or great plays? Napier broke it down.

“We threw it to the defense in a couple situations where it happens: third-and-long, two-minute, nothing alarming here. We get it. It’s going to happen. The good thing is our defense is creating some of that. We’re playing well, we’re affecting the quarterback, we’re playing well on the back end,” Napier said. “Part of our formula here is we’ve got to protect and affect. We’ve got to protect our quarterback and affect the other quarterback. You do that lots of different ways: you push the pocket, you tip balls, you hit the quarterback, you sack the quarterback, the element of disguise. There’s so much that goes into that. But it’s a big part of playing with the football. You create those passing downs, create those advantage opportunities for the defense. I think the interceptions from the other day happened in those situations.” 

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