The Florida Gators ended their two-year losing streak against rival FSU with a commanding 31-11 road victory. Their stifling defense forced multiple turnovers, delivering the win that players Tyreak Sapp and Shemar James had longed for after back-to-back losses to the Seminoles. Both Sapp and James emphasized the significance of this victory for Florida.
#94 Tyreak Sapp, Redshirt Junior EDGE
On what the win means to the team…
“It was like a relief, off my back. I’ve gone two years, two years losing to these guys. That’s a great group of guys that they put together, always find a way to put a team together. It’s always a challenge, it’s a rivalry game, we don’t like them and they don’t like us. So, for two years, this has been sitting on us, sitting on me and Shemar especially, because we were here to see it. It was just great to see the work that we’ve been putting in since the offseason. This is one of the best ways to end it.”
On the feeling in the locker room after this three-game win streak/turnaround…
“It’s gratifying, but it’s great to know that we earned it. I tell my guys, we don’t ‘deserve’ anything. We ‘earn’ everything that we have and everything that we get. Nobody gives us anything, because when people play the Florida Gators, they’re going to put their best foot forward and try to destroy us just because of who we are. We accept that challenge… week in and week out, we take that personally and go to work…”
#6 Shemar James, Junior Linebacker
On how he felt after the rivalry win…
“Happy, so happy, so happy y’all. Like [Tyreak Sapp] said, you know two losses in a row to these guys, and it was great to get that bad taste out of our mouth and come into their house and get the dub.”
On his fumble recovery and getting the ball back to the offense…
“Yeah, it felt great for myself, for the team. You know, that was just a big turning point in the game,just any big play on defense getting the ball back to the offense. And it was great like you said, I almost ran to the endzone with it but, the ref gave me a couple of choice words, but it was good. Yeah, I had to make sure we got it back.”
On the amount of forced and recovered fumbles the defense had…
“Yeah, I mean shoot we practice that in our takeover circuit throughout the week. We expect that. That’s kind of our standard, get the ball out, get it back to our offense. You know, we wanted to score on defense but we unfortunately couldn’t do that, but it’s coming.”
On The improvement in manufactured defensive pressures and coverages …
“Yeah, I think you kind of explained it well. Just guys being comfortable in the defense. Coach Roberts and Coach Armstrong, they kinda draw things to kind of get the quarterbacks looking this way and the pressure is coming from the other way. Like kind of disguising different coverages just to get to the quarterbacks. I think it’s just guys that got that confidence that can disguise very well and we hit a lot tonight.”
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