AUSTIN, Texas – On Thursday, embattled Florida coach Billy Napier received a vote of confidence from athletic director Scott Stricklin, who announced that Napier “will continue as head football coach of the Florida Gators,” citing the progress the Gators have made this season . .

On Saturday, a pumped-up Florida team got a reminder of how far it still has to go, losing 49-17 to No. 5 Texas in a game where the Gators trailed 42-0. Florida fell to 4-5 and 2-4 in the SEC.

“Overall, it got out of hand in the first half,” Napier said. “You look up and the game is over. We have to evaluate the effort. We have to evaluate the point-of-attack issues that we had, and we just have to play better.”

Napier spoke for the first time since Stricklin’s letter to fans, saying he wanted to take a “disciplined, steady approach”, asking fans to “continue to stand behind Billy and his committed team as we work together to build a championship program to build.”

Napier said after Saturday’s loss that he appreciated the opportunity to continue trying to right the program’s problems.

“First and foremost, I’m grateful for our players. We wouldn’t have made some of the progress that we’ve made over the last four, five, six weeks without a great group of players, the character there. The core of that group is their leadership,” said Napier. “I think if you look at the squad as a whole, we have a lot of young talent and I think they will continue to develop and learn. They are going through this experience and I think that will happen in prove useful in the future.”

Stricklin’s statement cited close losses to No. 7 Tennessee and No. 3 Georgia as reasons for optimism about the future of Napier’s young team. But this was not an outright defeat. The Gators’ halftime deficit was the largest in a Florida conference game in the past two decades.

Freshman quarterback DJ Lagway, who was carted off the field last week against Georgia after a hamstring injury, warmed up but was unable to play after the Gators lost starter Graham Mertz for the season with a knee injury. The Gators’ starter, Aidan Warner, is a former walk-on who transferred from Yale. He went 12 of 25 for 132 yards and two interceptions.

“Aidan fought really well today and did some good things for a guy making his first start against a really good defense, one of the better defenses in the country,” Napier said. “It was good to see him get the team moving a bit in the second half.”

Napier said Lagway said he felt as good as he had all week during pregame, but Napier decided he wasn’t quite ready to go.

“I think you run the risk of putting him there with a soft tissue injury,” Napier said. “He’s not quite ready yet, but we hope he has made some progress.”

Meanwhile, the Texas offense scorched the Gators’ defense for 562 yards, as Quinn Ewers completed 19 of 27 attempts for 333 yards and a career-high five touchdowns, while two more likely touchdown passes bounced out of receiver DeAndre Moore’s hands.

At halftime, the Longhorns had 353 yards on 35 plays, an average of 5.6 yards per carry, and a Texas offense that had struggled to break off big plays of late had 297 yards passing, as Ewers had one of its best games of the season.

“We didn’t impact the quarterback,” Napier said. “You look up and it’s 10 yards per play in the first half.”

Napier fell to 15-19 with the Gators in his third season at Florida, with home games against LSU and Ole Miss and a road trip to Florida State.

“You go into the game understanding that you’re playing with your third quarterback and you have to defend him, and we didn’t do that,” Napier said. “So we lost a little bit of our sting because of that.”

Despite the result, wide receiver Chimere Dike and linebacker Shemar James expressed what James called “relief” at Stricklin’s letter in support of Napier at the postgame press conference.

“I have complete confidence in him,” Dike said. “I think today was obviously tough for our team, but we’re going in the right direction. We have a lot of young guys who continue to improve and I’m excited to see him in the future of this program. “