Buddy Blog: A Gator Ass-Whipping, With Bowl Projections in the Ashes

Florida's sideline during the South Carolina game at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Oct. 10, 2026.

Photo by Chris Spears, GatorBait Media.

Trying to find two more wins is going to take patience and ibuprofen

By Buddy Martin

It wasn't the Grim Reaper. He generally has the courtesy to finish the job. South Carolina merely left Florida lying there with six games remaining and a fan base wondering whether the season came with a refund policy.

This was a good old-fashioned ass-whipping, delivered on a particularly bad Saturday for the Gators to discover they were the ones furnishing the ass.

A punch in the mouth? Too charitable. A punch in the mouth suggests you might still be standing afterward, perhaps considering a response.

This was a right cross, an uppercut, a gut punch and a kick in the family jewels. Apparently, South Carolina had purchased the deluxe package.

For the boxing crowd, think jab–cross–left hook. The classic 1–2–3: two straight shots followed by a hook that makes you reconsider your recreational interests.

Checkers, perhaps? Something with a chair.

Or the right cross–left hook–right cross, which dispenses with introductions and gets directly to the damage. Then the uppercut–left hook: one coming up, the other coming around, neither interested in your preseason expectations.

For the professional wrestling crowd, it was the Undertaker's Tombstone piledriver, minus the comforting knowledge that somebody had worked out the pre-arranged ending.

Feeling the pain yet? Somewhere between a root canal and an impacted wisdom tooth extraction, except the dentist usually lets you get numb first.

The Gators do, however, live to fight another day. Whether that constitutes good news depends on how much of Saturday you watched.

Nobody came for their souls. Just their Saturday, their remaining optimism and whatever was left in the blood pressure prescription.

Let's also keep the military history department out of this. Waterloo, Gettysburg, Antietam and Custer's Last Stand involved actual lives and actual catastrophe.

Florida lost a football game. Nobody lost an empire, although for a few hours the Gators appeared to have misplaced theirs.

Fans aren't much for perspective while their team is being flattened. "We played poorly" doesn't cover the emotional damages. Neither does "We have things to clean up," that dependable coaching phrase which can describe anything from a missed assignment to a condemned building.

What bothered me most wasn't simply that Florida lost. It was the manhandling. There's losing a fight, and there's having the other fellow move your furniture while you're still sitting in it.

Once the smoke cleared, I asked Loren Meadows, Franz Beard, Kevin Brockway and Paul Wilson what might still be salvaged from the ashes. Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Florida State remain. Could Florida get to six wins? Could it still find a bowl game?

This is what passes for ambition after a 4-0 start: asking whether December might bring an invitation somewhere.

The panel was considerably more optimistic than I was. Six wins remained achievable, they thought. Seven might still be possible.

The forecasts leaned toward three more victories, with Vanderbilt and Florida State the likeliest candidates. Some even put Texas in the discussion. Texas.

I admired the optimism. I just wasn't ready to co-sign the loan. I see two more wins and a 6-6 finish.

That would be better than letting the whole thing collapse, but let's not confuse getting out of the ditch with winning the Indianapolis 500.

Think Birmingham Bowl, but hope for TaxSlayer Gator Bowl. Actually, just hope for six wins right now because Florida could well lose four more in a row, which should be six straight losses, so keep your pain reliever handy — whisky or ibuprofen —through October and much of November.

After 4-0, six-and-six would be a salvage operation, not a parade. A bowl invitation wouldn't make Saturday disappear. It would simply give us another game in which to discuss how much work remains.

The most honest assessment, though, didn't come from our panel. It came from Jon Sumrall's 13-year-old son, Sam.

According to Zach Abolverdi's report of Monday's Gator Talk, Sumrall said Sam texted him after the South Carolina loss: "Dad, I don't know if this is forgivable."

No talk of execution. No promise to study the film. No assurance that everything the Gators wanted was still in front of them. Just the verdict. Thirteen years old, and already refusing to buy the postgame brochure. Like father, like son.