An Anatomy Of Total Gator Collapse: A Swamp Strewn With Broken Dreams

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Not even the passion of the HBC could help. (Chris Spears photo)

By Buddy Martin

Two weeks ago, Florida was unbeaten, ranked No. 8 and looking like a football team that had discovered something. An identity. A formula. Maybe even a future.

Now the Gators have disappeared from both the AP Top 25 and the Coaches Poll, and the rankings might be the least troubling thing that has vanished.

The running game is missing. The offensive imagination seems to have gone with it. The defense has become accommodating. And those offensive and defensive lines we were praising as the foundation of this team? Apparently, the foundation needs inspecting.

Missouri, 45-17. South Carolina, 38-19. Right before God, country and Steve Spurrier. At his Monday presser, Jon Sumrall looked composed after a fiery morning practice, somewhat revitalized and gritty while still looking for answers.

Whatever composure that Sumrall appeared to have lost – some of you were going by his body language – he had gotten back by his press conference on Monday and he made it very clear: nobody has been trying to tame him or change his sometimes salty language. He was scoffing at the notion and doubled down on his vow to never change his personality.

"Are you shitting me? Have I been reigned in? By who?" Sumrall said when asked if someone had asked him to tone it down. (So much for changing his language!)

He said he came here because the administration was okay with him being who he is and that was important to him.

As for the boos which we all heard, Sumrall said fans have the right to express their frustration and that he appreciates their passion.

Yes, he said the psyche of the team is important and the fact that he is spending most of his time at the moment with the bruised and battered defense suggested, perhaps, that’s one of the issues —but my words are not his — and he took a moment to re-declare that he is the coach of the WHOLE team.

Believe me, the warning light has gone on. It was not just a little stumble on the road to greatness. It was two straight Saturdays of getting beaten by a combined 47 points. And one of them was homecoming. Welcome back, alumni. Try not to look directly at the scoreboard.

Scott Stricklin looks back from the sideline in an orange and white striped shirt.

Somber sideline mood from Scott Stricklin. (Chris Spears photo)

Somebody explain this to me. Not with a speech about adversity. Not with a reminder that the SEC is tough. And please, not with that old coaching chestnut about watching the film. What, exactly, are we watching? Here’s what I cannot get past: How does a team go from looking so connected to looking so confused in two weeks?

Florida opened 4-0, averaging 53.5 points and 532.8 yards a game. The Gators flattened Ole Miss. Buster Faulkner’s offense looked imaginative, purposeful and difficult to defend. Now it looks difficult to explain.

Where are the answers that seemed to accompany every defensive adjustment? Where is the rhythm? Where is the sense that one play is setting up the next, rather than merely getting us to the next punt? Was that early brilliance the beginning of something sustainable — or something opponents figured out faster than Florida could counter? That is a question for Faulkner. And it deserves more than “we’ve got to execute better.” Execute what? Against which adjustment? And why has it stopped working?

One Hypothetical?

I’m not diagnosing a clubhouse malady just because everybody’s piling on. Maybe Stricklin caught heat from higher-ups over Sumrall’s post-Auburn “F-’Em” and the coach considered it petty — I dunno, that sounds unlikely after seeing Sumrall rankle. If so, yellow flags on both. But could something that minor trigger this tsunami?

The Gators look like they’ve caught a virus.

One Twitter/X commenter argued that Florida hired a coach to win games, not a bishop to police locker-room language. Fair point.

But the commenter also cautioned against blaming Stricklin, and I agree.

Frankly, I don’t know what’s gone wrong. Neither rumor nor frustration gives us license to pretend we know the answer.

Baugh Has Nowhere to Go

Then there is Jadan Baugh. For two weeks, defenses have bottled him up. If I didn’t know the difference, I would think he wasn’t physically fit. Against South Carolina, neither Baugh nor Duke Clark provided the running-game escape hatch Florida needed. But before we turn this into a referendum on the running backs, somebody needs to explain what is happening in front of them.

What Happened to the Backbone?

The most mystifying might be the two lines. Not long ago, we were talking about Florida’s offensive and defensive fronts as strengths. Now both look like places opponents can attack. How does that reversal happen so quickly? Were we too generous in our early assessments? Were the matchups favorable? Is somebody hurt? Are assignments breaking down? Have opponents found a weakness that was there all along? Are the holes disappearing because the blocking is failing?

Another hint: Sumrall outright says the O-line was outmanned. And from where I sit, fatigued.

Are defenses crowding the line because they no longer respect what Florida can do elsewhere? Have opponents identified tendencies the Gators have not corrected? Or is it some combination of all three? A running back cannot run through a hole that exists only on the grease board.

And when the ground game disappears, Aaron Philo gets handed the bill. His play has been erratic.

That needs saying. But so does this: Asking a quarterback to rescue an offense while defenders keep arriving in his lap is not much of a development plan.

How much of this is Philo? How much is protection? How much is the offense putting him in situations he is not handling well?

Those are different problems. They require different answers.

The same goes for coach Brad White’s defense. LaNorris Sellers delivered five touchdowns for South Carolina while Florida supplied too many missed tackles and broken coverages. The Gamecocks scored 38 points — their highest total ever in Gainesville.

That is not merely an offense having a bad afternoon and leaving the defense in difficult spots. The defense has its own questions to answer. Where is the resistance? Where is the discipline? Where is the unit that makes an opponent earn the next yard? And where are the adjustments?

And Why the Sudden Caution?

Sumrall has questions to answer, too. Why does the approach suddenly feel so conservative? Is that caution a response to the quarterback’s inconsistency? A loss of confidence in the blocking? An attempt to protect a defense that cannot get off the field? And if so, is the caution helping—or simply making an already struggling team easier to defend?

There is a difference between managing risk and managing yourself out of a ballgame. What happened to the confidence we thought we saw?

The Question Beneath the Questions

What I want to know is whether these are separate football problems — or symptoms of something larger. That does not mean there is a secret locker-room crisis. We have no basis to declare one. But when the running game, passing game, protection, defensive front, tackling and coaching confidence all seem to deteriorate together, asking about the team’s overall health is fair.

Is this a crisis of confidence? A communication problem? A failure to adjust? Did early success camouflage weaknesses that better-prepared opponents have now exposed? Or have two bad Saturdays started feeding on each other?

That is what Sumrall has to identify. Not just what went wrong on a particular play, but why so much is going wrong at once. That’s what Sumrall said he was working on. Florida does not need somebody to explain that losing is disappointing.

It needs a diagnosis. Because the most troubling thing about this collapse is not that the Gators have fallen out of the rankings. It is that, in two weeks, they have become a team we no longer recognize.

Photos by Chris Spears / Gator Bait Media.