"Coach Dumbass" Owns Up To All His Team's Mistakes – Including The One He Made.
"In school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them. Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk." ― Robert T. Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad
By Buddy Martin
Quick now, how many times have we heard Jon Sumrall exhort his team not to beat itself. Do his players hear him? Well, yes. But hearing and doing are two different things.
As we saw again on Saturday in Atlanta, the sometimes spunky, sometimes scrappy Florida team gave good effort, which was negated by mistakes – sometimes downright stupid mistakes! But here's a little hope without the sales pitch. Here is where I refuse to bury these Gators.
There were plenty of reasons to quit at halftime. Down 24-0. Nothing working consistently. Another Georgia game headed toward that familiar place where Florida fans begin wondering why they didn't take up gardening. But they kept playing.
Brad White's defense, held together in places with baling wire and chewing gum, kept giving the offense another chance.
The Gators didn't surrender a touchdown in the second half. No, that doesn't mean Florida won the second half in any way worth putting on a commemorative T-shirt. Georgia had the lead and could afford to play accordingly. Still, there is a difference between getting beaten and surrendering.
These kids got beat, but I didn't see them surrender. That matters when you're trying to figure out whether a coach has something to build on or just something to clean up.
Sumrall didn't ask anybody to celebrate the effort. "I apologize to our fans. That wasn't what the Gator standard is," he said. "They should be pissed off. I hope they are. I am too. We're going to get this right."
Good. Because the fan base has the first part covered. Getting it right is the part everybody is waiting on.
Give Jones the football
For my money, Tramell Jones Jr. should start next Saturday. Not because he played mistake-free football. He didn't. The strip-sack was devastating, and the interception cost Florida another scoring opportunity. But he moved the offense. He supplied a little electricity to a unit that too often looked as if somebody had forgotten to pay the utility bill.
His legs give Florida an option when the blocking breaks down or the first read disappears.
Right now, this offense needs options considerably more than it needs another explanation. That isn't a declaration that Aaron Philo cannot play. Nor should it become an invitation to pile on a young quarterback who had one interception go through a receiver's hands.
Quarterback debates have a way of turning otherwise reasonable people into angry relatives arguing over the thermostat. You can prefer Jones without treating Philo like a defendant.
I prefer Jones. Let him prepare as the starter. Let him settle into the job. Then find out whether those flashes can become sustained drives instead of interesting little footnotes in another losing afternoon.
Accountability needs a scoreboard
Sumrall's willingness to own his mistake was refreshing. We have all heard coaches explain how a penalty was misunderstood, a situation was complicated or somebody somewhere failed to execute.
This one put the dunce cap on himself. Fine. But accountability cannot end with a memorable quote. Otherwise, it's just another entertaining press conference attached to an aggravating football game.
The coach has to stay where he belongs. The punt-return unit has to let the other fellow punt. The quarterbacks have to protect the ball. And the offense has to stop making the defense spend its afternoon cleaning up after it.
Georgia was good enough without Florida volunteering as the catering service. Now the Gators need one more victory to become bowl eligible.
That remains achievable. It also remains a modest ambition for a program whose fans remember when November conversations involved championships rather than qualifying for another December itinerary.
Nobody needs to apologize for wanting more. But disappointment doesn't require cruelty, either. These are young players trying to find their footing under a new coach.
They deserve honest criticism, not contempt. And their coach deserves time accompanied by evidence — not time accompanied exclusively by promises.
There was a little hope Saturday. Not enough to brighten the scoreboard. Enough to notice that a badly bruised team kept swinging. Now comes the difficult part. Keep the fight. Lose the foolishness.
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