Hey Missouri, Don’t Show Me Anymore!

One of the few highlights in a day of lowlights. Emmanuel Oyebadejo on a sack. (UAA Photo by Hannah White)

The Kool-Aid’s empty — and Missouri left Florida holding the cup.

By Buddy Martin

I used to have a friend who always said, “Make sure the going up is worth the coming down.”

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

For four weeks, Florida football was living in the penthouse — unbeaten and, after the Ole Miss win, No. 8 in the country, the toast of the SEC, riding the Jon Sumrall Express and waving goodbye to all those miserable recent Saturdays.

Then came Missouri.

And now the streak is over, reality has moved back in and a little bit of Florida’s dignity apparently got left somewhere on the tarmac at Gainesville Regional.

I did it again. I drank the Kool-Aid.

Except this time I put whipped cream and nuts on it.

When will I ever learn?

Florida’s 45-17 collapse at Missouri was not merely a loss. It was a public service announcement for anyone who spent the week making College Football Playoff reservations after the Gators’ 4-0 start. Put the luggage back in the attic. Cancel the parade permit. And maybe stop calling Jadan Baugh the best running back in America until his offensive line can get him back to the line of scrimmage without needing a search warrant.

The Gators arrived in Columbia as the eighth-ranked team in the country and left as a 4-1 team with a 2-1 SEC record, carrying a 28-point bruise and several uncomfortable questions. Missouri, meanwhile, came in ranked No. 25 and looking for a way to erase a nine-game losing streak against ranked opponents.

Mission accomplished.

The Tigers did not just beat Florida. They drove over it, backed up, drove over it again and then threw a couple touchdown passes just to make sure nobody mistook the afternoon for a competitive football game. Missouri quarterback Austin Simmons completed 23 of 30 passes for 340 yards and two touchdowns, while Jamal Roberts treated Florida’s defense like an open invitation, rushing 24 times for 211 yards and three touchdowns.

And yes, Florida had problems on both sides of the football. But if you are looking for the main suspect, start with the defense, which had apparently decided to take a scenic tour of the Show-Me State while Simmons was busy throwing darts around Faurot Field.

Where was the defense?

Coach Sumrall warned everybody during the week that Florida had to remain humble, hungry and gritty. He was right about the humility part, anyway.

“Nobody in our building should be celebrating anything,” Sumrall had said. “If we are, then we’re totally off-base at how you find success over the long term.”

That quote looks a little different now, doesn’t it?

Florida wasn’t necessarily arrogant. It was just wildly unprepared for what happened when Missouri punched it squarely in the mouth and kept punching, working the cut and then some.

The Gators were down 20-10 at halftime, and the warning signs were flashing brighter than a roadside casino. Simmons had already thrown for 238 yards in the first half, completing 16 of 21 passes while Florida’s secondary played a generous version of “catch if you can.”

Then the second half began, Missouri drove right down the field and Roberts scored to make it 27-10.

At that point, the Gators didn’t so much need halftime adjustments as they needed the emergency broadcast system.

Simmons went over 300 yards midway through the third quarter. He had time, accuracy and receivers who seemed to have been issued Florida parking passes. The Gators generated too little pressure, surrendered explosive plays and watched a quarterback they had correctly identified as dangerous do exactly what dangerous quarterbacks do when nobody gets near them: dissect a defense.

The irony is that defensive coordinator Brad White had told us all week exactly what Simmons was capable of doing.

“Really smooth thrower of the football, easy delivery, can make the throws all over the field,” White said. “He prefers to be in the pocket and deliver strikes. That’s where he excels.”

Well, congratulations. The scouting report was perfect.

The execution, not so much.

White knew Simmons could throw. Florida knew Missouri had one of the league’s best offensive lines. Sumrall called it “the best offensive line we have played.” And yet the Gators spent Saturday allowing Simmons to operate from a clean pocket like he was working from a climate-controlled office suite.

One fellow on Twitter/X was ready to fire White by halftime. I laughed.

By the fourth quarter, I still wasn’t firing anybody — but I understood the emotional journey.

The most charitable thing one could say about Florida’s defense is that it had company. Safety Bryce Thornton was injured during pregame warmups, leaving the Gators thinner in the secondary. But injuries explain a problem; they do not explain 340 passing yards, 211 rushing yards for one running back, four unanswered touchdowns and a 45-point afternoon.

That is not a glitch. That is a collapse.

And then there was Baugh, Florida’s great hope, the guy Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz called “probably, right now, the best one in the country.”

For one week, Missouri made him look like a guy who had wandered into the wrong stadium.

Baugh had 13 yards on 12 carries. Thirteen. On twelve carries. That is a statistic so ugly it ought to come with a parental advisory label.

Missouri concentrated on taking away the nation’s second-leading rusher, and it succeeded with the efficiency of a bank vault.

Florida finished with only 42 rushing yards. Missouri rushed for 220. That tells the story better than any motivational speech ever could.

When Baugh cannot run, Florida loses one of its best defensive tools: possession. A healthy running game keeps an opponent’s quarterback standing next to his coach instead of standing in the pocket throwing touchdown passes. The Gators could not control the ball, could not establish rhythm and could not offer their defense the sort of relief it desperately needed.

Sumrall’s halftime diagnosis was clear enough.

“They’re really good in the box. They’re aggressive. They’re swarming the football,” he said. “We’ve got to create some plays on the perimeter if they’re going to load the box like they are and get the ball outside.”

Florida never solved it.

Offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner never found the wrinkle, counterpunch or escape hatch. With Vernell Brown III unavailable, the Gators’ receiving options shrank, and Missouri was free to load the box, suffocate Baugh and dare Florida to beat them another way. The result was a tired old SEC road-game formula: remove the star, win up front and let the visiting team panic itself into trouble.

Florida even failed on a fourth-down quarterback sneak, which is the sort of play that usually says, “We are tougher than you.”

On Saturday, it said, “Never mind.”

The Columbia curse continues

Nobody ever likes going to Columbia, Missouri. Florida especially seems to treat the place like a geographic curse.

Before the game, Sumrall noted Florida had lost three of its previous four trips to Missouri and warned that anybody expecting a cakewalk was “in for a rude awakening.”

Rude awakening? This was a 5 a.m. wake-up call delivered by a marching band with a jackhammer.

An Orlando Sentinel observer put it simply: “Don’t know what it is about this place.”

I do.

Ever hear of the Bermuda Triangle?

Florida has now made Missouri look like a place where rankings, confidence and defensive game plans disappear without a trace. The Gators came in believing their early surge had made them a legitimate SEC heavyweight. They left with a useful reminder: being good enough to beat Ole Miss in Gainesville and being good enough to handle a physical, motivated Missouri team on the road are two different diplomas.

And Florida flunked the road test.

Yes, there was one bright little flicker in the late wreckage: Tramell Jones Jr. got some work and threw a touchdown pass to TJ Abrams. Nice moment. Good for them.

But it was garbage time, and garbage time is where you go looking for individual consolation prizes after the team result has already been hauled to the curb.

The hard truth

I will not apologize for enjoying the 4-0 start. I will not apologize for buying into what Sumrall had built in a few short weeks. The wins were real. The excitement was real. And after all Florida football has put its fans through, there was nothing wrong with taking a long drink from the optimism fountain.

But Saturday reminded everybody that the SEC does not care about your vibes.

Florida still has plenty of football left. The season is not dead. The program is not broken. Sumrall has earned more than one ugly Saturday’s worth of trust.

Still, the Gators had better find some missing elements — quickly.

Maybe Sumrall should start with a search party at the airport and check whether the pass defense ever made it off the plane. Then he can look for a pass rush, some perimeter answers on offense and an identity that travels better than this one did.

Because Florida’s best running back in the country was held to 13 yards.

Because Missouri scored 35 unanswered points.

Because Austin Simmons looked like an All-American against a defense that had no answer.

Because the final score was Missouri 45, Florida 17.

And because the Kool-Aid is gone now.

Probably for the best.