The Gators were dominated on both sides of the ball in their 45-17 loss to Missouri on Saturday. The Tigers outgained Florida 560-325 in the contest.
Team leaders linebacker Myles Graham and quarterback Aaron Philo met with the media postgame to recap the loss.
Here’s everything they had to say.
Jr. LB Myles Graham
On Florida’s defensive effort, how disappointing:
MYLES GRAHAM: “It’s extremely disappointing as a defense. Sometimes the offense leans on us, and we didn’t get the job done. We can’t always depend on them to put up 40, 50 points a game; sometimes we gotta keep us in the game. So, we take full accountability and I take full accountability. I didn’t play my best game at all, nobody did. We got to respond and get it fixed.”
On how surprising some of the elements of the game were:
MYLES GRAHAM: “Nah. I didn’t sense a performance kind of like this at all. We got hit in the mouth. It’s football. Sometimes it happens. But we’re not going to let this define us, let this define our season. This is not who we are, this is not the standard and we’ll remember how this feels.”
On if they would attribute the praise they’ve received to influencing the performance:
MYLES GRAHAM: “Nah. I mean, they were just [INAUDIBLE] football. It happens, move on. Next week, we have a new week; we get a new chance to respond, another chance to play. I’m looking forward to that.”
On if the energy was lacking early:
MYLES GRAHAM: “I feel like we came out with good energy. I just feel like we didn’t execute. If you don’t execute, no matter what the offense is or no matter what the defense is, you can’t win games. Not in this league. So, just got to be better.”
On what Graham thought the most challenging part of Mizzou was to guard:
MYLES GRAHAM: “Can’t really put my finger on one thing, honestly. We didn’t do a good job stopping anything, honestly. From the front to the back end, all of us, we didn’t play our game. We have no choice but to fix it.”
On need for improved maturity, is that player-led:
MYLES GRAHAM: “Yeah, I mean, everything has to be player-led if you want to win games in the SEC. Coach Sumrall always talks about it: if you want to win championships, the team has to be player-led. We gotta fix it.”
On Bryce Thornton being out:
MYLES GRAHAM: “I mean, yeah, Bryce is a great player and we’d love to have him, but we gotta have guys step up. Injuries are a part of the game, and we know that somebody’s gonna have to step up at some point in the season, so that’s not an excuse to how the secondary played or how anybody played.”
Jr. QB Aaron Philo
On Philo’s performance:
AARON PHILO: “Wasn’t good enough. Definitely got to go back to work.”
On the offensive performance as a whole:
AARON PHILO: “We didn’t execute good enough. Way too many penalties that put us in bad situations. It’s just not good enough at all.”
On not being able to establish Jadan Baugh and a run game:
AARON PHILO: “At the end of the day, running or passing, we’ve gotta be able to move the ball down the field, and that’s on me, so.”
On the confidence that this loss will galvanize the team:
AARON PHILO: “Yeah, I’ve seen this team, I’ve seen us come together before, and I see us doing the same thing after this loss.”
On Philo missing Duke Clark for a TD:
AARON PHILO: “Yeah, you can’t miss those. Can’t miss them.”
On being without a few WRs in practice and if that impacted offensive prep:
AARON PHILO: “No. At the end of the day, people gotta step up. We still need to be able to execute the offense at a high level.”