Tyreak Sapp will always be one of the first players to move on from a play quickly, no matter the outcome. However, all emotions ran high for Sapp and the Gators after Amari Burney’s game winning interception to knock off Utah in The Swamp Saturday night.
“Oh, man, it was like — it’s unexplainable. I was just so happy and just like one of those electrifying moments in football where you can’t really explain it with words,” Sapp said. “It’s all just reactions from there. I was so happy for Amari, and that was the crazy thing, it happened on my first game ever playing. One of the best parts about it is I contributed to that.”
With that being said, Kentucky will be in town this weekend to kick start SEC play. Sapp and the Gators understand that they can’t let emotions take over the task at hand.
“You got to understand you can’t be complacent. You’ve got to understand that there’s room for improvement, and the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement,” Sapp said on staying the course. “You’ve got to take that for what it is and move on to the next week and have laser beam focus on the next team and get ready for your next opponent.”
It’s still very early in the 2022 football season, and this team is far from satisfied.
“There’s a little validation, but we understand as a team there’s validation, yeah, we work for that. But we’ve got to understand there’s a lot more work to put in. We need to understand we can be a lot better and there’s a lot of things we can improve on, and we’re going to keep improving on those during the week, day in and day out,” Sapp said.
The Swamp was as loud as it could get Saturday evening. Both teams struggled with hearing certain calls and switches late in the football game.
Tyreak Sapp and the Gators don’t seem to be too worried about getting that cleaned up and fixing those tweaks.
“Yeah, we put that film to rest, and we’re going to get that cleaned up, making sure everybody is on the same page. Obviously, that was my first game ever in The Swamp, and I can tell you right now, The Swamp is real. You’ve got to buckle up and be ready for that,” Sapp said.
“I think we’re going to be better on the communication factor on things and just be a better team,” Sapp said. “Just playing team defense and understanding what we’ve got to do and our alignment just being in place.”
The Gators will head back to the film room this week in prep for the Wildcats. It’s not something Sapp and the defense look forward too, but it’s very much needed, and they understand that.
“It brings you down a little bit, but you accept that because you understand this is what you need and this is what it’s going to take for us to be better and us to improve throughout the weeks, throughout these games week in and week out, just being better against different opponents,” Sapp said.
There’s a bigger picture at Florida now, a different mentality that this football program has been itching for – a dog mentality.
“Wild dog mentality, the African wild dog, that’s a pack mentality. We have a pack mentality. We play for each other every game,” Sapp said on this team’s mentality. “We play every snap for each other. We would lay our lives on the line for each other each and every snap. We make sure we do that and make sure we hold ourselves to that standard.”
“They are building a tough, mean, nasty team ready to play anybody. Any type of high combatants, we’re ready for that. That’s what we’re trying to be,” Sapp said on what Napier and this staff are building.
It’s clear the focus has shifted rather quickly for this Gator football team. Kentucky rolls into town this weekend to start SEC play for both teams, and the Utah win is in the past.
“Yesterday. It happened for me yesterday. Yesterday evening when we came in, we came in new week, new everything,” Sapp said. “Just got to change your focus, got to get off your game day high and got to understand we’ve got a big-time formidable opponent coming in. High combatants. It’s a team we lost to last year. So, we’re just looking forward to putting our focus on them and getting ready for that team.”
“High combatants. They are combatants. It’s a war. This game is a war. They are combatants,” Sapp said on the meaning of combatants.
It’s revenge season. This team hasn’t forgotten about what happened in Lexington last year. It’s going to be a battlefield in The Swamp and the Gators will be ready.
In a huge football game, Billy Napier just got his first win in The Swamp against a great Utah football team. Kentucky will be yet another big test for Coach Napier and this team. The Gators will take on Kentucky in The Swamp this Saturday, Sept. 10th 7:00 PM ET.