Florida closed on a four-game winning streak to give hope going into 2025.
As cynical as we here at Hail Florida Hail may be at times with Florida Football coach Billy Napier, we do have to admit it was impressive to see the Gators pull off a four-game winning streak to end the season, given the circumstances. Florida was coming off a thrashing at the hands of Texas to fall to 4-5 on the season and looked like a team that had quit in Austin.
As we know, Florida went on to beat LSU and Ole Miss to salvage the season and give hope of a potential playoff run in 2025.
Napier highlighted this week that the team philosophy helped spark Florida to finish strong.
Florida Gators Don’t Point Fingers
Speaking with Josh Pate in a one-on-one interview, Napier sat down for 45 minutes and spoke on a ton of areas surrounding the program. Among the first topics they got into was how the season ended for Florida.
Pate asked Napier how Florida managed to not let everything fly off the rails following the Texas loss. Napier said that accountability is key:
“You choose blame or accountability all the time. You get put in difficult situations, you face adversity, and that group didn’t point the finger. I mean, they literally had total ownership of the situation. They kind of got back-to-back, and they just went to work. And literally when we were in those difficult times, kind of coming out of that, it was literally one day at a time, you know.
We literally had a theme one week that was “One-Day Contract.” If we were doing a documentary on you today, at the end of the day, based off your work, would you get the call to come back the next day”?
The key for Florida heading into 2025 is whether or not the momentum the Gators had to close 2024 is going to carry over.
If it does, Florida could be a playoff team. If it doesn’t, Napier might not make it long enough to have another in-season turnaround.
Florida opens their season on August 30th against Long Island.
