Florida head coach Todd Golden made a bold declaration earlier this week, saying “we’re gonna beat ’em anyways” when asked about Alabama’s controversial addition of Charles Bediako.
After the Gators’ dominant win over Alabama on Sunday, Golden reflected on his previous comment, saying he knew it was going to be played up heading into the game.
“Well, I mean, I was thinking about that a lot last night actually. And as this was a big one-off ABC game, they were going to try to find different ways to stir it up,” Golden told reporters. “And, I thought when one of the Alabama beat writers talked to Nate about it on Friday, I thought his response, we’re very similar. He’s like, ‘Yeah, I understand where he’s coming from, like, he’s trying to kick our ass and we’re going to try to kick his ass. I don’t think that’s news to anybody.'”
Golden also poked fun at Alabama head coach Nate Oats after he suggested that Florida gets away with standing in the paint for too long.
“But with that being said, yeah, absolutely. To come out and impose our will the way we did and beat them on the glass. We scored 72 points in the paint,” he said. “I thought our guys were in there for one second, two seconds, then we scored, so taking advantage of our catches down there. The bigs were really, really good today.”
Florida has appeared to hit its stride after a less-than-ideal start to the 2025-26 campaign. The Gators stomped South Carolina on Wednesday before picking up their fourth ranked win since the start of SEC play.
Florida and Alabama won’t meet again during the regular season, but a meeting in the SEC Tournament could make for some more drama between the two head coaches.
