It was an ugly affair for Florida football on Saturday night in Lexington, where the Kentucky Wildcats took the Gators behind the shed for a 38-7 whooping, giving them their fourth win in the past five years against the Orange and Blue.

Those days of dominance for UF are clearly over.

Nothing went well in this one — DJ Lagway’s performance was so poor under center that he was benched early in the second half and the defense got absolutely bowled over. After a valiant effort in Jacksonville last weekend against the Georgia Bulldogs, Saturday’s letdown was a full-forced punch to the stomach.

Following the game, Florida’s interim head coach Billy Gonzales took the stage at the press conference and shared his thoughts and feelings with the sports media. Take a look below at what he had to offer.

Billy Gonzales’ opening statement

“Obviously, it wasn’t anywhere close to what we wanted. Not acceptable in any terms to take a loss the way we did, so we’ve got to get back, we’ve got to get back and look at the film and evaluate where we’re at, so kind of go from there.”

On the decision to bench DJ Lagway

“Well, that was my decision. I think we had a rough first half, and I thought it might be good for him just to gather and look at it from a coach’s point of view from the sideline.

“But yeah, we need to play better all around, not just him, everybody needs to play a little bit better, not just him, and I’ll take the blame for everything. I think if you take a look at what we do and what we need to be and it’s unacceptable and I’m going to put myself up in front and say that’s on me.

“I’ll take the blame for this loss, 100%, so we’ve got to be better, and we’ve got to be better, I’ve got to be better, make sure these players continue forward.”

On if DJ Lagway is the starter next week vs. Ole Miss

“We’ll take a look at the film and obviously, we think he’s a very talented young man, but we’ll take a look at everything and move forward once we get back home.”

On how it unraveled

“Yeah, you get four, you have four turnovers in the first half, you’re not going to win the game. You’ve lost time, especially when you’re playing a team that takes up so much time of possession early on. We started off offensively, I thought we did a decent job coming out.

“We came back, started off moving the ball, then we had an interception. Obviously, the fourth drive we had a fumble, came back another interception, seventh drive another interception, so if you don’t take care of the ball, you’re not going to win the game; we did a poor job taking care of the ball.

They did a really good job rushing the ball, and obviously, we didn’t get off the field on third down, they didn’t punt at all. So like I said, I’ll take the blame for everything.”

On Tramell Jones’ appearance

“Yeah I think he came in and he did what he was supposed to do, having a chance to have a chance to try to move the ball, and we had penalties. You start moving the ball and you get a penalty and you get behind third and long again, you’re not going to be successful that way, so again, we’ve got to be better, and I keep saying it over and over,

“I want these players to continue to play hard. We’ve got to put them in better situations, but I’ll take the blame on this one. It’s not acceptable by any means, and that will come straight on me.”

On the defensive collapse

“We knew we had to tackle. We knew we had to wrap. I give a ton of credit to Kentucky. When you get put into a situation early on when you got the turnovers — I’m just trying to look at some of the drives now, written down – they were put in a bad situation early in the game.

“Going into halftime didn’t help with 24-7. Then they came back out and did a good job moving the ball, came out and scored. We need to get better. We need to get off the field on third downs. But we got to put them in better situations where they’re not in those situations. Again, that’s on me.”

Did Tank Hawkins opt out?

“Tank came up, very professional. He came out and asked if he could preserve his redshirt. Absolutely. I said I 100% honor it. So at this point, yes.”

On how to motivate this team

“I just told them we got to get ready. Don’t splinter. We’ve talk about persistence without exception. I just mentioned it again. When times get tough, people quit. And why do they quit? Because they start second-guessing themselves: Is this what I want to do? Is this the right thing to do? Is this where I need to be? So they veer off course.

“We talked about the without exception part. Without exception means listen I’ve got to focus. If I’m a competitor and I;m fighting to be better and I know at the end of the day what I’m doing can help me out later down the road, and continue to fight for my teammates and continue to fight for the school, the without exception part comes into play. Just talked to them. We’re not going to splinter. We can’t splinter.

“But anything from that standpoint, like I said, as far as motivation and leadership. Leadership comes from me, and I have to do a better job.”

Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as Bluesky, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.

This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Florida football’s Billy Gonzales on Week 11 loss at Kentucky Wildcats