Coaches and Fans Have Different Playbooks. So Have Another Round, Thirsty Gators.
Jon Sumrall reacts on the Florida sideline with an official in the foreground. Photo by Chris Spears, GatorBait Media
By Buddy Martin
Coaches fear success more than failure because failure at least keeps your attention.
Welcome aboard, all of you. Mind the gap and watch your step. There’s plenty of room on the bandwagon, but the paint is still wet.
A week ago, plenty of you couldn’t have named Florida’s starting left guard. Now you’re checking flights to the College Football Playoff. That’s fine by me. I’ve been in enough press boxes to know that in the SEC, faith isn’t a virtue. It’s a pharmaceutical.
Here’s what started all this: Florida is 4-0, 2-0 in the SEC and No. 8 in the AP poll after beating then-No. 4 Ole Miss 52-28 in The Swamp. That’s Florida’s highest ranking since 2020 and its first top-10 appearance since 2021.
Then Josh Pate, who can work up a crowd from a microphone better than most, said out loud what Gator people had been whispering. On his show this week, Pate argued that Florida’s ceiling is a national title. He also said a lot of the college football public is reluctant to tell the truth about the Gators because the program has broken hearts for so long. I’ll drink to that.
A national championship. In September. After four games.
Somewhere, Jon Sumrall just bit through a whistle.
The Starving Man’s Buffet
Let me defend the people who are about to get scolded, because they’ve earned it.
For more than 48 months, Gator Nation showed up. They came for coaching that would have embarrassed a Pop Warner booster club. They came for fourth-quarter collapses, for press conferences full of “process,” and for Saturdays that ended with 90,000 people walking down University Avenue looking like they were in a funeral procession, which in a way they were. The dream died a little every November, and they kept showing up anyway.
You don’t get to call a fan base like that “fickle” without also calling it “loyal.” In the SEC, those are the same thing.
Down here, football isn’t a pastime. It’s a family heirloom, passed down with the church pew, the tailgate spot and the grudge against Georgia. When a fan base that hungry finally sits down to a hot meal, don’t lecture it about portion control.
So yes, they woke up Sunday, saw that No. 8 next to Florida, and felt something they’d almost forgotten. Hope.
Karl Marx called religion the opium of the masses. He never sat in the south end zone of Florida Field. Hope is the stronger drug, and this fan base has been in withdrawal for four years.
What Scares the Coach
Now for the bad news, or at least the coach’s news.
Sumrall wants his team to “stay where their feet are planted.” He says it like a man who knows exactly what’s coming. Every coach who has won anything in this league knows that the most dangerous opponent isn’t on the schedule. It’s the press clippings and what’s next around the corner.
And look who’s next: No. 25 Missouri, 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Faurot Field in Columbia.
This is the kind of trip that ruins seasons. It’s not a marquee night game with a blimp overhead. It’s a ranked team in a stadium where a 20-year-old’s eyes are more likely to drift to the playoff projection on his phone than to the safety rotating late into the box.
Coaches fear success more than failure because failure at least keeps your attention.
A team that’s been told it’s a national-championship contender has to go relearn, every day, that it’s 4-0 and nothing more.
Sumrall’s job this week is to be the least fun person in Gainesville. From what I can tell, he’s overachieving, taking that job seriously.
A Word to the Faithful
So here’s my sermon, delivered in the spirit of my press box pals who try to maintain a modicum of objectivity and who never met a sacred cow they couldn’t barbecue:
Be careful with that tongue, friends. The same mouth that’s shouting “national champions” in October is the one that’ll be calling for heads in November if a ball bounces wrong in Columbia.
Early rankings are a false narrative printed in bold type. They’re cheap swagger that pollsters hand out like free samples at Publix.
Don’t build a shrine on a poll. And if it all goes sideways, don’t burn the shrine down and blame the people you were just carrying on your shoulders.
But brag while you can. Lord, brag while you can. You paid for this with four years of misery, cold hot dogs and halftime scores you had to look at twice to believe.
If you’ve got a Bulldog brother-in-law, call him. If there’s a Seminole at the office, leave the AP poll on his desk. Life is short, the SEC is cruel, and nobody hands out refunds on joy.
Different Playbooks
That’s the beauty of it. Coaches and fans have different playbooks, and they’re supposed to.
The coach’s playbook says one game at a time, eyes on the ball, stay where your feet are planted. The fan’s playbook says, “We’re back, baby!” and orders another round. Two things can’t be true at the same time. Both are correct.
The program needs Sumrall’s paranoia, and it needs the Gator Nation’s noise. One wins games in Columbia. The other fills the Swamp when it counts.
So come one, come all, bandwagon jumpers. There’s room up front. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
Just don’t tell the coach.
BTW, senior Knijeah Harris is the starting left guard for the Florida Gators.
More from Buddy Martin: watch The Buddy Martin Show live every night.
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