What they said: Gators win their first SEC road game since 2020

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Down 24-20 at the break, the Gators outscored Texas A&M 21-0 in the second half to win their first SEC road game since 2020.

Florida is now above .500 and improved to 5-4 overall (2-4 SEC), while the Aggies dropped their fifth straight game to fall to 3-6 on the season (1-5 SEC).

Here’s what both teams had to say after the Gators’ 41-24 win over A&M.

Billy Napier on UF’s back-to-back strip sacks:

“I think one of their tackles was a little bit banged up. It’s a combination of things, right? It’s the coverage and the rush working together, make them hold the ball. We’ve covered them relatively well today. I know the short, intermediate stuff was tough, but we played tight coverage and I thought our guys accepted that challenge. We made him hold the ball and we affected the quarterback. We didn’t anticipate that kid [Haynes King] playing, but we’ve been talking all week about making it hard, getting them in passing downs and affecting the quarterback.”

Napier on a season-high 291 rushing yards:

“It’s a strength of our team. I think you’re starting to see a little bit of that identity we want to have. Our teams played that way in the past. We want to be a physical team. We want to win the line of scrimmage, play well on the edges, a cumulative effect to how we play. I think Anthony’s legs, the design today gave us a little bit of an extra advantage. And then certainly we threw it around enough to keep them off balance. Anthony made some critical plays. [Ja’Quavion] Fraziars stepped up to the plate today, huge plays in the game. Ricky [Pearsall] continues to be a very productive player. I thought we had a lot of guys step up.”

Anthony Richardson on his 60-yard TD run:

“We knew we were going to be able to pull reads because their ends like to crash and make tackles like they did today. That’s just something we talked about all week. That (60-yard touchdown play) was just pretty much a zone-read. Watch the end, if he crashes down, pull the ball and try to make something happen.”

Richardson on the defensive performance:

“Definitely proud of those guys. They get a lot of hate, backlash, you know. It’s hard to play defense. Half the time you don’t know what the offense is going to do. You’re just reacting to their plays and off of their personnel. A lot of credit to those guys for sticking through it, playing ball.”

Ventrell Miller on the second-half shutout:

“I think it just had to do with like the halftime speech from some of the coaches and players. We know we started off flat-footed, just taking ownership of that. We just got the boys motivated for the second half and everybody came out and did their job, and we showed them how the Florida Gators defense can play.”

Miller on getting an SEC win on the road:

“One of the boys just told me we ain’t had an SEC win on the road since Tennessee 2020, so it was definitely felt good for that. It’s always hard to win on the road, so going out there, I just like how everybody played the second half. I feel like that was more so what the halftime was about. Like I said, we came out flat. There wasn’t a lot of effort from the guys. We came in at halftime and everybody took accountability for that. We got that mindset in the second half that they don’t score, and we went out and executed that.”

Richardson if this win can be a turning point:

“Any point can really be a turning point in the season. After we lost a couple of games, we could have gone backwards. After winning a couple of games, we could have tried to go forward. We just try to trust the system and trust Coach Nape. He talked to us and let us know he had to make tough decisions, and we had nothing but respect for that. We can see it as a turning point, but we just gotta stay focus and keep learning.”

Jimbo Fisher on A&M’s scoreless second half:

“Couldn’t get the running game going. We got in the drop-back game, which was tough. They were able to run the football. That was the other thing. They were able to continue to run the football and move the clock. It’s a shame. We had a chance to be right there and just didn’t get it done.”

Fisher on momentum shifting to the Gators:

“It did because they started getting control of the line of scrimmage a little bit. Being able to run the ball on offense and us not being able to do it. Putting your line in a tough situation because then you get in the drop-back game. I don’t care who it is, that’s hard to do.”

Fisher on Richardson’s success running the ball:

“They had some of the quarterback run game, I believe, come out early on in the first half some. Scrambles, one big scramble I know that we had him and we lost contain. There’s one I think he scrambled and then he flipped the ball. We had that big stop right there, and he was able to make that. And we got out of the pocket. Then the guy had to come off the guy to make the tackle, and he got the flip play. I thought it was a big momentum play in the game, going down there.”

Edgerrin Cooper on Richardson’s scramble ability:

“He’s a great player. We tried to keep him contained as much as possible. He’s a very impactful player when he got out of the pocket. But stuff like that just happens.”