The Swamp Gets Its Swagger Back And Welcomes The Folks From The Grove In Rude Fashion
The whole first half, it felt like Florida was about to break out and blow Ole Miss off the map.
By Buddy Martin
GAINESVILLE — It almost looked too easy.
For a while the Florida Gators played like good Southern hosts, with hospitality plus. “More Sweet tea sir?” “Excuse me for bumping you on that pass route – here, let me give myself a yellow flag!” “Sorry but we don’t really like you scoring those points, so let us introduce Mr. Jadan Baugh to you!”
They let the visitors from Mississippi hang around and get comfortable, maybe help themselves to a second plate. Then the Gators got plain ugly about it and ran the Rebels out of the house.
Final score: Florida 52, No. 4 Ole Miss 28. The unbeaten Rebels were tossed around like a rag doll, and the message went out loud and clear: football is serious bidness in Gainesville again under Jon Sumrall. Some might call it serious badness.
The No. 21 Gators are 4-0 and 2-0 in the SEC. They finished September unbeaten for the first time since 2019. After years of looking through the keyhole at the Land of the Giants, Florida just kicked the door open. If this keeps up, they'll have to make room for the Gators at the adults' table of college football. Maybe they belong there because maybe they are one.
And don't forget how some of the "experts" howled when Florida was installed as a 3-point favorite. You'd have thought somebody had called Trump a Democrat. Florida covered that spread by 21 points and didn't need to break a sweat to do it.
Baugh Joins Emmitt and Fred
It's time to say what the rest of the country is only starting to figure out. Jadan Baugh may be the best running back in America.
He was nothing short of magnificent: 142 yards and three touchdowns. That's his fifth straight 100-yard game, a streak only two other Gators have put together. One was Emmitt Smith, who did it twice in 1987 and '88. The other was Fred Taylor in 1997. When your name goes next to those two in the Florida record book, you're in the pantheon.
Baugh has also scored 11 touchdowns, the most by any SEC player through four games since the league expanded in 1992. Pick an era, pick a legend. Nobody in this conference has started this fast.
"I think this team is so gritty," Baugh said.
He'd know. He's the grit. He carried the load all day for a Florida ground game that piled up 302 rushing yards against a defense that came in thinking it was a contender.
Every Punch Answered
This wasn't supposed to.
The whole first half, it felt like Florida was about to break out and blow Ole Miss off the map. Even after the officials had clock problems in the first two minutes, right in the middle of a Gators drive, slowing Florida's tempo. The Gators still took the lead. Ole Miss kept answering.
That's because Trinidad Chambliss is a terrific football player. He came to town hailed as maybe the best player in the country, and he played like it. Twice in the third quarter he cut the lead to three. With 12 minutes left he threw yet another touchdown pass to make it 38-28, and you started wondering who'd blink first.
Florida didn't.
Every time No. 4 Ole Miss threw a punch, Florida punched back harder. After one of those three-point scares, Duke Clark answered with a 45-yard touchdown run. After the other, London Montgomery returned a kickoff 74 yards and nearly broke it all the way. Aaron Philo punched it in from a yard out to make it 38-21. The Gators scored touchdowns on their first five possessions of the second half, and Florida never led by fewer than 10 again.
That's the headline under the headline. These Gators proved they can stand their ground and take a punch. Florida teams of the recent past didn't always get back up.
Don't Forget the Cowboy
If Chambliss is maybe the best player in the country, what does that make Aaron Philo?
He wasn't at his sharpest early, but he was never bad, and he got better as the pressure went up. He finished 16 of 23 for 196 yards with a touchdown passing and another running. The numbers won't win him any beauty contests. The leadership might win Florida a few more big games. Philo just keeps being the cowboy he's been all season: tough, unbothered and in charge.
The Loudest Swamp
I've been coming to this place a long time. I don't carry a decibel meter, but I'll tell you the crowd was as loud as I've ever heard it. At one point it felt like the hair on your head was going to stand straight up. That's the Swamp we remember, and it's back.
Class Both Ways
Sumrall gave the Ole Miss quarterback his due.
"That's the most uncomfortable I've seen him look," Sumrall said of Chambliss. "He's kicked my butt twice as a head coach."
Not this time, Coach.
Here's the classiest scene of the day: Chambliss stood and waited through Sumrall's entire TV interview just to congratulate him. It's easy to see why Ole Miss fans love that young man.
Sumrall, being a coach, wasn't about to hand out any trophies.
"We're still not a finished product," he said. He's saving some coaching points for Monday, no doubt, and his defense will have to tighten up before it faces the next Chambliss.
But the rest of us don't have to be that careful. Florida now leads the all-time series with Ole Miss 14-13-1. The Gators are unbeaten, the running back is historic, the quarterback is a cowboy and the Swamp is roaring again.
The Land of the Giants had better set another place at the table.
Buddy Martin
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