Make no mistake about it: the Florida Gators got embarrassed on Saturday afternoon, getting blown out 45-17 by the Missouri Tigers. The game was 10- 10 at one point in the first half, but Missouri dominated the middle eight, scoring 17 points, leading the Tigers to a big win. This coming one game after a 52-28 blowout over the Ole Miss Rebels adds an element of concern.

The game had plenty of disappointing moments, including the trenches getting obliterated on both sides of the ball, and star running back Jadan Baugh only getting 13 yards on 12 carries. We can point to multiple areas of the team when it comes to who to blame for the loss. The reality is less about blaming each player, but understanding that head coach Jon Sumrall called this exact scenario.

Jon Sumrall warned of this exact thing

All season long, Sumrall has talked about how he’s warned his team about not getting too overconfident. He said so after the game against the Campbell Fighting Camels in Week 2.

“If we play like we did in the second half, we’re about to have a real rude awakening, and we have got a lot of improvement to do,” said Sumrall after the game. “While I’m really happy to be 1-0 this week, I’m not real pleased with where we are from a maturity standpoint and executing at a really high level all the time because what we’re about to walk into in conference play, we will get absolutely embarrassed if we don’t improve a ton. So a lot, a lot to be excited about, but a lot to work on.”

That sounds like a perfect manifestation of what we saw on Saturday afternoon. The Gators didn’t play like they wanted to be there, and the biggest signal was how they played in the trenches. They struggled on both sides of the trenches, and it was the biggest factor why they ended up losing on Saturday afternoon.

Throughout the year, Sumrall has made a point of not dwelling in the past, and also not getting too far over your skis. He emphasized that on Monday.

“Goes back to a little bit of what you know we talked about in week two: be where your feet are. Like, man, just be in the moment. You get one opportunity this week. Last week we had an opportunity. It’s gone forever. Told our team this morning, I don’t want to hear anybody talk about that game the rest of the year. If we get to the end of the season and after our last game, we want to talk about what happened in that game. Great, but I don’t ever want to hear about it the rest of the year,” said Sumrall.

“If anybody brings it up in our building about what happened last week, I’m going to be like livid because we have no control over that anymore; it’s gone. If it hadn’t gone our way. We’d have no control over it. It’d be gone. Move on. And so, really, all I’m worried about is how do we get ready to play the best we can play this week? And so that’s sort of the focus.”

After seeing the team get their first top-10 ranking since 2021, the Gators got a major wake-up call. How will they respond? If they are anything like their head coach, it’s going to be a massive one. Needless to say, I wouldn’t want to be at practice this week.