Florida Keeps Winning Big, and the Laundry Keeps Piling Up
The No. 8 Gators have outscored four opponents by nearly 31 points a game while drawing 35 flags for 357 yards, and the play-by-play says the bill has only been deferred, not paid.
By GatorBait Media Staff
Jon Sumrall showed his team what he calls the “not our standard” tape Monday, the busts and whiffs from a 24-point win over No. 4 Ole Miss. “You have to humble yourself,” he told them, “or you will be humbled,” as Buddy Martin reported in “Put Down the Poll.”
There is a second tape nobody has to cut. The officials already did.
Through four games, No. 8 Florida has been flagged 35 times for 357 yards, 89.3 a game, according to ESPN’s team statistics, and ESPN’s rankings put that total among the four highest in major college football. Only a handful of teams have given away more ground.
The Gators are 4-0 anyway. They have scored 214 points, allowed 91 and won by an average of 30.75 points. That is why the flags have been a footnote. Saturday at Memorial Stadium, where DraftKings lists Florida a 5.5-point favorite at 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC, a footnote becomes a plot.
Where the laundry comes from
GatorBait went through every Florida penalty in ESPN’s play-by-play for all four games. The 35 flags reconcile exactly with the box scores: 3 for 32 yards against FAU, 8 for 95 against Campbell, 16 for 138 at Auburn and 8 for 92 against Ole Miss.
By unit, 17 are on the offense, 10 on the defense and eight on special teams.
By type, holding leads with 12, more than a third of the total. Six were on the offensive line or receivers, four came on punts and punt returns, and two were defensive holds that handed opponents automatic first downs. After holding: four false starts, four unnecessary-roughness calls, three personal fouls, three delays of game, two pass-interference calls, two face masks, one roughing the passer, one ineligible man downfield, one unsportsmanlike conduct, one offside and one kick-catch interference.
By timing, the picture is less flattering than the usual “undisciplined” shorthand and more specific. Only eight of the 35 happened before the snap. Nineteen were live-ball fouls, holding and interference and face masks, the kind that come from technique and hand placement. Eight were dead-ball or conduct fouls, personal fouls and unnecessary roughness, the kind that come from temperament.
Fourteen of the 35 came on first down, when a drive is supposed to be gaining ground, not giving it back.
What they have cost
The honest answer is points, just not games.
Seven of the 11 touchdown drives Florida has allowed included a Gators penalty, and 53 of the 91 points allowed came on drives that included one. The defense has been flagged 10 times, and nine of those came with a first down attached, either automatic or tacked onto a play that had already moved the chains.
The sharpest example is the night in Auburn. With Florida leading 17-10 in the second quarter and Auburn facing third-and-6 at the Florida 17, Cormani McClain’s unnecessary-roughness call turned a 2-yard run into first-and-goal at the 7. Auburn tied it. Later, up 41-24, Florida had Auburn looking at third-and-4 after Ben Hanks III broke up a deep ball; a defensive-holding call made it first down instead, and Auburn went 90 yards and converted a 2-point try to make it 41-32. On the Tigers’ last touchdown drive, a Hanks pass breakup at the 2 was erased by an offside.
The offense has handed back more. Four plays have been wiped out by flags: a 42-yard Jadan Baugh run and an 11-yard Duke Clark run against Campbell, a 13-yard Vernell Brown III touchdown at Auburn and a 67-yard Brown touchdown against Ole Miss.
That last one is the drive to remember. Florida led Ole Miss 10-0 and faced third-and-2 at its 33 when Aaron Philo hit Brown for a 67-yard score. Bailey Stockton’s holding call brought it back, Philo took a delay of game on the replay, Florida punted on fourth-and-15 and Lagonza Hayward was called for kick-catch interference, giving Ole Miss the ball at the Florida 48. Jeramiah McCloud’s face mask on the first play moved it to the 17. Ole Miss kicked a field goal. In less than three minutes of game clock, one series went from a potential 17-0 lead to 10-3.
The Auburn trip was the full catalog. Florida’s first touchdown drive included a false start at the 8. Its 16-play, 75-yard second-quarter drive had Brown’s touchdown erased by a Bryce Lovett face mask, then a false start at the 8, an ineligible-man-downfield at the 15 and another false start at the 3 before it finally scored. Six Florida penalties that night came inside the Auburn 15. Just before halftime, with fourth-and-2 at the Auburn 5, Philo was flagged for delay of game and the Gators kicked a field goal from the 10.
Florida won 44-39. The margin, 5 points, is smaller than this week’s spread.
Why it matters more in Columbia
The Gators have been collecting yards from opponents too. Opponents have 30 penalties for 277 yards against them, and Florida’s 13 first downs by penalty are tied for fourth-most in FBS. In blowouts, the two columns wash.
They do not wash in a one-score game, and Florida’s last trip to Missouri is the proof. In 2023, Florida took a 31-30 lead on Trey Smack’s 35-yard field goal with 1:36 left. Missouri got to fourth-and-17 at its 33 with 38 seconds left and converted when Brady Cook found Luther Burden III for 27 yards. Harrison Mevis kicked a 30-yard field goal with five seconds left. Missouri 33, Florida 31. That afternoon Florida was flagged nine times for 48 yards, and Missouri seven times for 60.
Sumrall knows the history. “The last four trips we’ve gone to Missouri, we’ve lost three of them,” he said Monday, in the staff story “Pay the Toll.” “So if we think it’s gonna be a freaking cake walk, I don’t care if it’s homecoming or whatever, we’re in for a rude awakening.” He called Missouri’s offensive line the best Florida has faced.
That is the matchup the flags threaten most. An offensive line that wins the line of scrimmage does not need help; defensive holds and face masks are help. Nine of Florida’s 10 defensive penalties have come with a first down attached. On the other side, a Gators offense that has lived in the red zone at Auburn with false starts and a delay of game will be doing it against a crowd that sees to it the snap count is a rumor.
Sumrall’s answer is Tuesday, outdoors, all practice long. “It’s like you gotta pay the toll,” he said. “Get some dirt underneath your fingernails.”
The flags have not cost Florida a game. The numbers say that is because the Gators have been too good at everything else for 15 yards here and a wiped-out touchdown there to add up. On Saturday, in a stadium where the Gators have lost three of four, against a line their coach respects and a spread under a touchdown, the yellow laundry stops being a footnote and starts being the margin.
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