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.

Loren Meadows and Ryan Urquhart broke down Florida’s trip to Auburn on the Florida Gator Lowdown, from the atmosphere at Jordan-Hare to the mentality the Gators need for their first major road test. Florida needs to embrace the villain role Urquhart’s sharpest point was about identity: Florida cannot go on the road hoping to survive the environment. He argued that Jon Sumrall’s team should lean into being the visiting villain and bring its own edge to Auburn. The Florida–Auburn predictions The show closed with Urquhart and Meadows putting their predictions on the record and laying out how they see the game unfolding at Jordan-Hare. Watch the full Florida Gator Lowdown episode on YouTube.

The unbeaten start is over. What Florida does with the next four weeks will decide whether Saturday in Columbia was a stumble or a warning. No. 25 Missouri beat No. 8 Florida 45-17 at Faurot Field, scoring 35 straight points after a 10-10 tie. The Gators fell to 4-1 and 2-1 in the SEC. Here is what the night exposed and what comes next. The trouble spots Stopping the run. Missouri ran for 220 yards, and Jamal Roberts accounted for 211 of them, with three touchdowns and an 80-yard run in the fourth quarter. Florida’s defense also gave up 340 passing yards to Austin Simmons. Missouri finished with 560 total yards. Running the ball. Florida managed 42 rushing yards. Jadan Baugh, who scored three times in the 52-28 win over Ole Miss a week earlier, never got loose, and that left Aaron Philo throwing from behind. Philo finished 21 of 34 for 197 yards and a touchdown. Third downs and flags. The Gators converted 6 of 16 third downs and were penalized eight times for 80 yards. The one positive in the box score: no turnovers. The road from here There is no soft landing. South Carolina comes to The Swamp on Saturday, Oct. 10. Florida goes to Texas on Oct. 17, then gets its open date before facing Georgia in Atlanta on Oct. 31 (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC). November brings Oklahoma at home on Nov. 7, a trip to Kentucky on Nov. 14 and Vanderbilt at home on Nov. 21. The regular season ends Friday, Nov. 27, at Florida State (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC). After the 4-0 start, Jon Sumrall said this week, “I’m not celebrating anything,” according to The Independent Florida Alligator. The Gators get their first chance to respond to a loss against South Carolina next week. Editor’s note: Statistics are from ESPN’s box score. Postgame quotes and analysis from Franz Beard and Buddy Martin are coming. Game story: “Roberts Runs Away With It: No. 25 Missouri Routs No. 8 Florida 45-17.”

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Austin Simmons threw two touchdown passes of more than 30 yards in the second quarter, and No. 25 Missouri led No. 8 Florida 20-10 at halftime Saturday at Faurot Field. Simmons was 16 of 21 for 238 yards in the half. His 47-yard strike to Donovan Olugbode broke a 3-3 tie with 10:06 left in the second quarter. After Florida answered, he found Caleb Goodie Sr. for a 31-yard score with 2:05 left, and Blake Craig added a 50-yard field goal with 3 seconds left before the break. The run game stalls The ground game that carried Florida to a 4-0 start has not shown up yet. Jadan Baugh has 12 yards on nine carries, and the Gators have 43 rushing yards as a team. Missouri has outgained Florida 270-169. Florida also came away empty on a fourth-down try early in the second quarter, turning it over on downs after a four-play drive. Philo keeps the Gators in range Aaron Philo is 14 of 20 for 126 yards, and his 12-yard touchdown pass to Dallas Wilson capped a seven-play, 68-yard drive that tied it 10-10 with 4:26 left in the half. Wilson has three catches for 45 yards. Florida opened the game with a 15-play, 73-yard march that ate 6:54 and ended in Patrick Durkin’s 20-yard field goal. Missouri’s Craig answered from 32 yards, and Missouri missed another field goal try earlier in the second quarter. Neither team has turned the ball over. Florida is 4 of 9 on third down. Florida, 4-0 and 2-0 in the SEC, has 30 minutes to keep its unbeaten season intact. Follow the second half live in the GatorBait Game Center. Editor’s note: Live update from the GatorBait desk. Stats from ESPN. Full postgame report to come.

COLUMBIA, Mo. — No. 8 Florida (4-0, 2-0 SEC) is at No. 25 Missouri (3-1, 0-1 SEC) today at 3:50 p.m. ET on ABC, with the Gators looking to stay unbeaten on Missouri's homecoming weekend at Faurot Field. Florida enters off back-to-back SEC road and home wins over Auburn and Ole Miss, the latter a 52-28 rout of a then-No. 4 team that gave the Gators their best start since 2019. Jon Sumrall was named the Dodd Trophy's inaugural Coach of the Month for September on the strength of that run. Availability Florida's Friday SEC availability report listed receiver Vernell Brown III as doubtful and Bailey Stockton as upgraded after both appeared on the injury report earlier in the week. The line Florida opened as a 4.5-point favorite, according to the AP; DraftKings had the Gators at 5.5 with an over/under of 56.5. Missouri leads the all-time series 7-6, and Florida is 2-4 on the road against the Tigers, with the last meeting going to Missouri, 33-31, in 2023. The Gators' offense leads the way at 53.5 points per game, second nationally, behind running back Jadan Baugh (600 yards, 11 touchdowns) and quarterback Aaron Philo. Editor's note: Live updates throughout the game, with a postgame story and presser coverage to follow.

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Florida’s top playmaker is not expected to play Saturday. Receiver Vernell Brown III is listed as doubtful on the SEC’s Friday availability report for No. 8 Florida’s game at No. 25 Missouri (3:50 p.m. ET, ABC). ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported the downgrade Friday. Brown hurt his right knee at the end of a 6-yard run in the second quarter of Florida’s 52-28 win over then-No. 4 Ole Miss on Sept. 26. Coach Jon Sumrall called it the “lowest-grade strain you could get” on Monday and said the timeline would come down to how Brown felt. What Florida is missing Brown leads the Gators (4-0, 2-0 SEC) with 17 catches for 271 yards and two touchdowns, according to ESPN. He also has 16 yards rushing on three carries. His two punt-return touchdowns this season leave a hole on special teams, too. Who steps in Eric Singleton Jr. is back. He returned against Ole Miss after missing two games with a sprained left ankle, caught one pass for 38 yards and drew a 15-yard pass-interference penalty that set up Aaron Philo’s 5-yard touchdown pass to Amir Jackson. Sumrall said Singleton would be full go in practice this week. Bailey Stockton, who took a hard hit across the middle against Ole Miss and was limited in practice with a sore back, is listed as probable on the SEC’s Friday report. What to watch Florida can run the ball, so the question is less whether it can score than whether it can stretch Missouri’s defense without its top deep threat. That answer starts with who lines up outside. The SEC’s final availability report is due about two hours before kickoff. We will update this story when it posts. Editor’s note: Live updates throughout the game, with a postgame story and presser coverage to follow.

Hey! No resting on your laurels, Scott Stricklin By Buddy Martin GatorBaitMedia.com Somewhere in Gainesville there’s a whistle with teeth marks in it. It belongs to Jon Sumrall, and it’s the only thing in Florida football that has taken a beating lately. Think back to where we were a month ago. If you’d said in August that the Gators would go into the first weekend of October ranked No. 8, with the ESPN wizards giving them a 61 percent chance of making the College Football Playoff if they win at Missouri, people would have checked you for heatstroke. Somebody would have taken your car keys. This was supposed to be a rebuilding year with a first-year coach. The pundits were picking against Florida and the locals weren’t doing much better. For two weeks the Gators couldn’t even get a vote in the polls. They were unranked and mostly ignored. Now look at them. Florida has played two SEC games and won both by a combined 29 points. One of those was not a close call against a so-so team. It was a dismantling of a then-No. 4 Ole Miss team at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Not an upset. A dismantling. Those two words don’t mean the same thing. So the computer, which is never wrong until it is, says beat Mizzou on Saturday at 3:30 and you’re better than a coin flip to make the playoff. Sixty-one percent. In August, Florida’s odds of a playoff spot were roughly the same as finding a parking space at The Swamp on game day. And it’s not just the Gator faithful, who would vote for a ham sandwich if it had a jersey on. Josh Pate is talking about it too, and he’s about as neutral as they come. He’s not just treating Florida as a playoff team. He’s treating them as a team with a real shot at the whole thing. National championship. Shhhhh! Say it slowly. Then go lie down. Yes, it’s early. Sumrall would be the first to tell you, probably while chewing on what’s left of that whistle. But this sport doesn’t move in slow seasons anymore. Between the portal, the expanded playoff and the fact that the old powers seem to lose to somebody every Saturday, things change fast. A team that nobody ranked in September can be talking about January by October. Welcome to the new world, where things move at warp speed. The Disrespect Gets Used Up Here’s the funny part. Sumrall built this thing on grievance, and grievance is starting to run low. For four games he motivated his team the old way: by reading them everything nobody believed about them. National media picked against them, the hometown press picked against them, and they spent two weeks with no number next to their name. Sumrall used every slight like he was stocking up for a hurricane. It worked. It worked a little too well. Now Florida has a top-10 ranking, a playoff percentage, and Josh Pate in its corner. Where does a coach find disrespect when people are complimenting his team? It’s hard to play the underdog when the oddsmakers keep moving you to the front of the line. My guess is that Sumrall will go back to his other favorite theme: we have a lot to fix. He’s not wrong. Florida hasn’t been perfect. But a team that wins two SEC games by 29 points while still having “a lot to fix” is the kind of problem other coaches would love to have. Why Columbia Matters That’s why Saturday is a real test. Missouri is ranked No. 25 and playing at home, and it’s exactly the kind of game a team that has started believing its press clippings tends to lose. It comes one week after the biggest win of the young Sumrall era, on the road, against a team that would love to be the next story at Florida’s expense. Win it, and the Ole Miss game stops looking like a lucky Saturday. It starts looking like the beginning of something real. The 61 percent becomes something people take seriously, and Florida goes from a nice story to a serious contender. Lose it, and everybody who picked against them in August goes right back to saying they were right all along. So that’s where we are. Five weeks ago the question was whether Florida could get to a bowl game. Now the question is whether Sumrall can find something to be mad about. He’ll find something. He always does. Just buy the man a new whistle.

Florida and Missouri have met only 13 times, and nobody mistakes this for Florida-Georgia. One photograph changed the mood. The Associated Press reports that the image, from Florida’s most recent loss in Columbia, shows former Gators defensive end Tyreak Sapp sitting on the sideline, legs splayed out, while Missouri players stood in front of him and one mocked him with a baby Gator chomp. Missouri won that game 33-31 on Nov. 18, 2023. Florida has lost three of its last four at Faurot Field. First-year coach Jon Sumrall made sure this team knows about it. Safety DJ Coleman told it this way, as quoted by the AP: “He brought that up today to us, and I feel like it’s going to be motivation, because we’re trying to make history this season, and I feel like this is a small piece of history that we can control right now.” The Gators (4-0, 2-0 SEC) arrive at No. 25 Missouri (3-1, 0-1) after a 52-28 rout of then-No. 4 Ole Miss. The AP notes Florida’s 28 touchdowns are one fewer than the team scored all of last season, and the offense ranks fifth nationally at 532.8 yards a game. Jadan Baugh has 600 rushing yards and a nation-leading 11 rushing touchdowns through four games. Missouri is coming off a 31-24 loss at Mississippi State in which it gave up a fourth-quarter lead, and the AP says the Tigers allowed five plays of at least 20 yards in that game. Quarterback Austin Simmons has 947 passing yards and 11 touchdowns, Jamal Roberts leads the ground game with 395 yards and three scores, and Cayden Lee leads the receivers with 412 yards and four touchdowns, according to ESPN. Florida listed leading receiver Vernell Brown III (17 catches, 271 yards) as doubtful on Friday’s SEC availability report, and Bailey Stockton was upgraded. Our full game day story has the rest. ESPN’s Matchup Predictor gave Florida a 70.1% chance of winning heading into kickoff. That is the number our Chomp Meter on the homepage opened with, and it will move with the game. Kickoff is set for 3:50 p.m. ET on ABC, per ESPN’s schedule. After a photo like that, the Gators say they have something to settle. Editor’s note: Follow the live score and win probability on the GatorBait homepage. Full postgame coverage to come. Sources: The Associated Press, ESPN. Photo: Chris Spears/GatorBait Media

A trip to Columbia can be tough but the Gators are equipped to travel and travel well. By Loren Meadows, GatorBaitMedia.com Football Analyst, Host of the Gator Lowdown with Loren Meadows Second early road test for Sumrall and the Gators (Chris Spears photo) Missouri Offense Key Players: #13 QB Austin Simmons (6-4, 220, Sr./Missouri), #20 RB Jamal Roberts (6-0, 216, Sr.), #19 WR Cayden Lee (5-11, 180, Sr./Ole Miss), #1 WR Donovan Olugbude (6-2, 210, So.) #70 LT Cayden Green (6-5, 324, Sr.), #56 C Dominic Giuduce (6-3, 305, 5th Yr.) Matchups to Watch: Missouri Receivers v. Florida Secondary, Florida Pass Rush v. Missouri Offensive Line The Florida Gators will certainly have their hands full when the Missouri offense takes the field. This a unit that is averages 263 yards per game through the air and 156 on the ground and has turned the ball over just two times this season with Simmons yet to throw an interception. To remind folks, Simmons was the starting quarterback at Ole Miss before an injury thrust Trinidad Chambliss in to the national spotlight. The big, physical lefty has found a happy home in the Missouri offense and despite the loss last week at Mississippi State threw for 295 yards and three touchdowns to continue his hot start. Simmons has two of the SEC’s best at his disposal at wide receiver as well. Missouri has always had receivers that don’t always get the hype but do their job well. They have that again in the duo of Cayden Lee, and Donovan Olugbude. Lee leads the team in receptions (27) while Olugbude leads the SEC in receiving touchdowns (5). Simmons and Lee have history from their Ole Miss days but the relationship with Olugbude has flourished quickly as well. Simmons is completing over 60% of his passes to both and will play a major role in attacking a Florida secondary that ranks 15th in the SEC against the pass yielding 248 yards per game. In the run game Missouri is still without All-American candidate Ahmad Hardy so they continue to lean on Jamal Roberts to keep teams honest. Missouri has one of the best left tackles in the game in Cayden Green and Center Dominic Giuduce was Preseason All-SEC pick as well. Florida has found success getting to the quarterback with three sacks per game and creating negative plays with close to seven tackles for loss. Brad White’s unit has come under fire for their lack of pass defense but many of the pass yards have come from the fact that they have been very stout against the run and with an offense that scores at a high clip have forced teams to throw it more than they may want to. Florida will look to force Simmons into uncanny turnovers and give its high-powered offense more opportunities to make plays and quiet Missouri’s homecoming crowd. Stops on defense have also allowed the Florida special teams to become an added weapons in the arsenal as the Gators continue to flip field position in the run game as well. Missouri Defense Key Players: #10 Edge Daedon Hopkins (6-6, 250, So.), #5 LB Nicholas Rodriguez (6-0, 225, Jr.), #15 Safety Santana Banner (6-3, 215, Sr.), #0 LB Robert Woodyard Jr. (6-0, 233, Jr./Auburn) Matchups to Watch: Florida Offensive Line v. Missouri Defensive Line, Baugh/Clark v. Missouri 8-Man Fronts The Missouri defense has been one of the SEC’s best through the first four weeks giving up just over 100 yards per game on the ground and just 19.3 points per contest. They have also forced six takeaways which ranks in the top half of the SEC. The pass rush has started to come on with Daedon Hopkins having a great start to his sophomore campaign with six sacks including 3.5 in Starkville last week. The reigning SEC Defensive Lineman of the Week has also registered six tackles for loss. At linebacker Missouri has two of the SEC’s best in Nicholas Rodriguez and Robert Woodyard Jr. Florida native Rodriguez leads the team in tackles and is the first Missouri player since 2019 to record 10-plus tackles in three straight games. Woodyard was a PFF All-SEC performer in 2026 at Auburn and has continued his continued to shine at his new local. With the Gators looking to impose their will on the ground Missouri will certainly stack the box early and lean on the two linebackers to clean up the mess and get Jaden Baugh and company on the ground. The question is if the Gators are forced to throw it at a high clip can Aaron Philo get the job done with 30-plus attempts but also can a shaky Missouri secondary hold up? The Gators are stocked with pass catchers but have yet to put that on full display. Kamario Taylor carved up Missouri for 308 yards last week and the defense is giving up 218 yards per game. They do have four interceptions with Woodyard grabbing one of those himself. Safety Santana Banner is a big physical hitter that also plays the ball well in the air. While the Gators could be without Vernell Brown III, receiver and former teammate of Woodyard at Auburn Eric Singleton was a full participant in practice this week and should be full go on Saturday. Singleton’s return could be key in the Florida passing game showing up big if Missouri is able to stifle Jaden Baugh with a heavy box. The Skinny: I will get straight to the point. Florida is a better football team than Missouri. Missouri while a tough place to play is not nearly as hostile as Auburn and certainly not at 2:30 pm local time. Florida is scoring 53.5 points per game and while the running game has been prominent, they have the ability to attack the defense with a varied number of personnel groupings and formations that challenge the eye discipline of the defense. It is not as simple as lining up eight in the box, you have to be aligned correctly and not allow your eyes to go hunting and fishing. Missouri is a physical football team on offense that will do it’s best to impose their will on the Florida defense. While there have been cracks, the Florida defense has stifled teams in the red zone forcing field goals and at times turnovers. While pundits may look for kinks in the entire rope, the revolution is real and the beast is waking up. Many will say that Florida never plays well at Missouri, my guess is Jon Sumrall could care less. Aaron Philo hasn’t had to carry the team through the air. Again he may never have to. What is certain is that unlike other coaches Sumrall has found a way to get his team up no matter where the battlefield lay, and Aaron Philo is as good a quarterback as Florida has seen since 2020. Throw in the best running back in the country and the return of its most accomplished pass catcher and you have the recipe to go 5-0. This team is great on offense, great on special teams, and good enough on defense. A shoot out favors the Gators and a slugfest does as well. The truth lies somewhere in between. Philo throws for three, Simmons throws it to the Gators once, and Baugh’s Heisman candidacy continues. Prediction: Florida 41 Missouri 27

Jadan Baugh celebrates a touchdown against Ole Miss. Photo: Hannah White / UAA Communications By Eddie Gilley When Florida meets Missouri on Saturday at 3:30 p.m., everyone in the stadium with a pulse knows that Florida will want to establish the run game. Led by Heisman hopeful Jadan Baugh, the Gators are averaging 260 rushing yards per game. Baugh is on pace to rush for 1,800 yards and 33 touchdowns for the season if he continues at the current rate. That would place him ahead of Mark Ingram and Reggie Bush, who both won the coveted trophy as two of the last three running backs to lift the image that Baugh strikes after touchdowns. His 33 touchdowns would surpass the 28 scored by Derrick Henry, who was the last running back to win the Heisman in 2015. All those numbers assume that he and the offensive line can continue the torrid pace of the first four games. But is that a reasonable assumption? Missouri is only giving up an average of 100 yards on the ground in each of its four games. The Tigers are led by former Auburn linebacker Robert Woodyard Jr. and Nicholas Rodriguez, another linebacker from Miami. Another Auburn transfer who supports the run defense well is safety Kensley Louidor-Faustin, who is also a Florida native from Naples. Neither of the players from Florida will need additional motivation to perform well on Saturday, but I’m sure they will want to prove why they shouldn’t have been allowed to leave the state. Which unit will be able to impose its will on Saturday? Can the Missouri defense keep Baugh bottled up? Can the Florida offensive line continue to open holes against the front seven of the Tigers? How committed will Buster Faulkner be to the run-first strategy that has been so successful for the first four games? Some of those answers will be dictated by the flow of the game. Can the Florida defense slow down Austin Simmons and the Missouri passing game? The Tigers are only averaging 263 yards per game in the air, but Simmons has thrown 11 touchdowns and zero interceptions. The Gators are giving up 248 yards to passes, but in fairness, most of the teams have been behind early and throwing just to stay in the game! Florida has managed to intercept the ball four times and created four more fumbles to rank 12th overall and third in the SEC. Something has to give on Saturday. Will it be the Missouri or Florida defense? Each team will try to do it a different way. Florida wants to run the ball; Missouri has had more success through the air. Missouri’s opponents are 9-6 on the year. The Gators’ opponents have lost to no one other than the Gators. The only team with a winning record on the year beat Missouri last week in Starkville. The Bulldogs lit up the secondary of the Tigers. In the end, the key to the game may well be Aaron Philo and the talented receivers at UF. Success from them early will open the run game later. That’s a formula Coach Spurrier used with great success for the Orange and Blue. It just might be the roadmap to get away with a win in Columbia on Saturday. Time will tell which unit gives up the most in the end!

Florida head coach Jon Sumrall has been named the inaugural Dodd Trophy Coach of the Month for September, the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation and Peach Bowl, Inc. announced Friday. Sumrall was selected from the previous month's weekly Dodd Trophy Coach of the Week winners, a group that also included Tony Elliott of Virginia, Joe Harasymiak of UMass, Eric Morris of Oklahoma State and Will Stein of Kentucky. Four games into his first season in Gainesville, Sumrall has the Gators off to their first 4-0 start since 2019 and their highest AP Poll ranking since 2020. Two of those wins came against SEC opponents — a 44-39 shootout at Auburn and a 52-28 rout of then-No. 4 Ole Miss, Florida's highest-ranked victory since beating No. 3 Ole Miss at the Swamp in 2015. The Gators' offense has carried the fast start, averaging 53.5 points per game. Sumrall's 214 points scored through four games as head coach is a program record, 50 points ahead of the previous best start. Running back Jadan Baugh has already topped his 2025 touchdown total with 11 scores this season, averaging 7.2 yards per carry, while quarterback Aaron Philo has thrown for seven touchdowns and run for three more. “The Gators' landmark win over No. 4 Ole Miss caught the eyes of the nation, but Coach Sumrall's team displayed excellence throughout all of September,” Dodd Trophy Coach of the Year Foundation chairman Jim Terry said. “Florida has combined a newly implemented system with much of the on-field talent that showed promise a year ago. We look forward to seeing what new heights this team can reach.” “It is no small feat for a coach to stand out above his peers as the best in the nation in his first month with a new program,” Peach Bowl, Inc. president and CEO David Epps said. “Coach Sumrall has impressed us all with how quickly he has made Florida a model program, both on and off the field.” The Dodd Trophy, established to honor the FBS head coach whose program best represents the award's three pillars of scholarship, leadership and integrity, will name its 2026 season winner in Atlanta during Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl week. A panel of past winners, national media, a Dodd family member and a College Football Hall of Fame member selects the finalists. Florida plays at No. 25 Missouri on Saturday, Oct. 3, looking to stay unbeaten.

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. Florida’s full 2026 roster and schedule More from Buddy Martin: watch The Buddy Martin Show live Monday, Wednesday and Thursday at 9 p.m. ET.