Billy Napier praises Florida’s discipline, ‘unique’ penalty-free game against LIU
By Jake Faigus
Published:
The Florida Gators are ramped up in competition this week as a matchup against South Florida at home looms. The Gators dispatched Long Island, 55-0, in an easy Week 1 win. The Gators dominated on offense and defense in this game, but what made head coach Billy Napier most proud was the fact that the Gators committed zero penalties this season.
Napier mentioned it and praised his team when he spoke to the media during the SEC’s weekly teleconference.
“It was unique and definitely a tribute to our players and the hard work they put into playing with a little more discipline,” Napier said. “I think we’ve done a lot of rules education. We talked a lot about opening games of seasons and how those are three areas: tackling, undisciplined penalties, and obviously the ball security piece.”
Napier admitted it would be unlikely that the zero-penalty games would happen again, but he continued to emphasize that his team’s discipline was a strength.
“As the players improve and the matchups get more challenging, it’ll be more challenging to continue that trend, but I do think a lot of penalties are about discipline,” he said. “They’re about making good decisions within the game. We spent a ton of time coaching it, and I think it’s good to see the players be able to do that. Hopefully, we can do it. I doubt we’ll be able to do it much in the future; we’ll play some really talented teams.”
Napier’s praise also comes with the fact that Florida has not played in a game in which it committed zero penalties since 2021. Florida will encounter more gamesmanship and physicality in the SEC, but this is a great start and could set the tone for handling those bigger games.
