Image Credit: UAA
Despite entering Ben Hill Griffin Stadium with one of the worst offenses in the nation and an interim offensive coordinator only 10 weeks into his collegiate coaching career, the Oklahoma Sooners never trailed Saturday night in a thorough 23-7 win over the No. 24 Florida Gators. Looking listless on offense and lacking aggressiveness on defense, Florida never had momentum despite hosting Oklahoma for the first time; even the night-game atmosphere in The Swamp was not enough to give UF any semblance of an edge.
The Sooners scored the first 10 points of the game and never looked back, Gator Chomping in celebration every quarter without the hosts doing anything about it. They dominated in every category as the Gators were unable to get off the field or sustain drives when they did create opportunities.
OU had run 39 more plays at one point late in the fourth quarter. It ultimately ran 26 more plays (73-47), outgained UF by 148 yards (351-203) and dominated time of possession by 15:40 (37:50-22:10).
Oklahoma effectively ended the contest with a 20-play, 89-yard touchdown drive that took 12:45 off the clock, mostly of it coming in the fourth quarter. It was a microcosm of Florida’s ineptitude but also the exhaustion of its defense, given that the offense could not move the ball for most of the game.
The Gators have now dropped four of their last five games after starting the season 4-0. While Florida has played three of the best defenses in the nation during that stretch, it has completely imploded after a hot start to Year 1 under head coach Jon Sumrall, who now has serious questions to answer on both sides of the ball after UF has combined to score just 15 points in the last eight quarters.
“Regret that our performance did not match; our fans were amazing, creating a fantastic homefield advantage. … I don’t have a whole lot of words that are going to make any of this right. … We have to go back to work. What we’ve been doing is not working good enough,” said Sumrall, who admitted he is angry and disappointed but will not whine and complain about it.
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Where do the Gators go from here?
It’s tough to say.
Sumrall and offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner cannot start sophomore quarterback Tramell Jones Jr. again after this performance. Jones was a total non-factor, completing 10 of 22 passes for 133 yards with two interceptions. While opening the game with him was likely the right move, not moving to junior QB Aaron Philo after halftime was a questionable decision, especially considering Faulkner clearly did not trust Jones, as he stopped calling passing plays in the third quarter despite Florida trailing by a touchdown.
“I wanted to give him the full game,” Sumrall said of keeping Jones in the game.
Running backs junior Jadan Baugh and sophomore Duke Clark flashed on occasion, combining for 63 yards and a touchdown on 14 touches, but they barely got any space to run behind an offensive line that neither blocked for them nor stopped OU’s ferocious pass rush from getting after Jones. Only four pass catchers touched the ball in the game.
Defensive coordinator Brad White failed to adjust to an offense run by former NFL tight end Jason Witten, who was elevated into a play-calling role less than three months into his college coaching career after Oklahoma’s offense played so poorly that head coach Brent Venables fired his offensive coordinator.
Witten had little issue with White’s defense, with notable scoring drives of 10 plays (5:29) and 15 plays (7:11) in the first quarter before the 20-play embarrassment (12:45) that ended the game early in the fourth. Florida was the 23rd game Oklahoma played since joining the SEC, but the first defense that allowed it to score on its first two drives of a game.
“They found ways to get third-and-shorts, fourth-and-shorts and just convert and keep converting. … We didn’t have a real good awareness or feel for what that looked like and how they were going to call it,” Sumrall said. “… They were just looking to keep getting enough yards to convert, nothing down the field as much. Situationally, there’s a couple things I’d like to do differently as a coach there.”
Sumrall and Faulkner need to look inward, too. Choosing not to kick a field goal — after the Gators’ second-best offensive drive of the game — when down six points in the third quarter was an extremely questionable decision. Both were severely outcoached by Venables, and Faulkner’s play-calling was mind-numbing at times, including a strange, persistent desire to choose designed QB runs in key third-down situations despite UF’s faulty offensive line.
“I felt like we were down 13-7 and it was going to take 14 points, at least, [to win]. We hadn’t been down in the red zone enough to feel real confident that we were going to get a bunch more trips. The analytics that we use … said [go on] fourth-and-3 or -4 there. Just did not know how many more opportunities we were going to get in the red zone. … We needed to try and get a touchdown there,” Sumrall explained.
Florida’s discipline was somewhat improved, but not until after senior offensive lineman Caden Jones committed consecutive third-down holding penalties on the same series, wiping out conversions of 18 and 16 yards in the first quarter. (Sumrall seriously disagreed with one of the calls. It did not help that officials missed a blatant facemask and two clear defensive pass interference penalties on Oklahoma that would have assisted the UF early.)
Odds & ends
Florida fell to 1-2 all-time against Oklahoma, 0-1 in regular-season play … the Gators lost to a team playing its first game in The Swamp for the first time in 49 such contests … UF is now 7-15 playing in November over the last 5+ seasons … Florida’s defesne failed to force a turnover for the fourth time in the last 32 games … UF has allowed opponents to score 21+ points in 17 of the last 18 games dating back to the 2025 season … the Gators are 0-4 this season when scoring 21 points or fewer … Florida is 1-4 this season when tied or trailing at halftime or after the third quarter … UF is 3-2 at home and 3-2 against unranked opponents under Sumrall … the Gators have scored in 482 consecutive games, an NCAA record
What it means
Florida was embarrassed, again, on Saturday night. What stood out most was the team’s lack of energy and motivation, which is antithetical to the way Sumrall presents himself and what everyone said about his teams when he took the job.
Lack of talent can be explained. Lack of passion cannot. And it’s clear the Gators do not have a bounce-back quality, at least not this season. The game felt like it was over as soon as the Sooners took a 10-0 lead in the first quarter. It was as if UF was bleeding out from there, its lone touchdown only a temporary tourniquet for the inevitable.
Not having sophomore wide receiver Vernell Brown III has clearly imploded the offense, but the unit should not be predicated on one player, especially when it proved it can beat quality opponents (Texas) without him on the field. Sophomore WR Dallas Wilson is not as impactful as expected, and senior WR transfer Eric Singleton Jr. has been a total non-factor.
“Right now, we’re stalling. There’s not a whole lot of things that we’re making look easy,” said Sumrall, explaining that this is the same offense that was dominating opponents earlier this season. “… We’re making some things harder than they need to be at times. I don’t really have an explanation for it right here, right now.”
He continued: “Offensively, I just don’t see us finding our rhythm and our footing. That’s what’s so frustrating is we’re unable to really hang our hat on, ‘What is our identity?’ … Right now, we feel a little bit lost. … There’s going to be tough games, but you have to be able to know, ‘Hey, this is what we’re good at. This is how we’re going to hang in the game.’ Right now, we don’t have that identity clear enough offensively, which is frustrating.”
The offense might have gotten going at some point if it had a normal amount of opportunities to possess the ball. Florida’s defense could not get off the field, giving Oklahoma a 39-play advantage late in the fourth quarter. That said, Gators only had three drives of more than four plays, including one in garbage time at the end of the game.
This was Florida’s worst performance of the season, and it came against a beatable opponent in a raucous home environment. The Gators not leveling up, despite being placed in the College Football Playoff Rankings on Tuesday and having a legitimate chance to make the field as a three-loss SEC team, is seriously concerning. If they could not get up for this game, when will they?
“While I’m pissed off, I’m also maybe more hungry right now than ever to get this right, and that’s not going to change. When things are going really, really bad, your toughness gets challenged – mental toughness – and we have to respond,” Sumrall explained. “You’re either built for this, or you’re not. And I’m a competitor. I’m going to challenge our guys every day to keep bringing it.
“We’re not where I want us to be. I don’t think we’re where anyone wants us to be. Failure’s not fatal unless you allow it to be. That doesn’t mean I’m OK with failing forever. We’ve got to get this right. We’ve got to stop the train going the wrong direction and make it go back the right way. But we have to, more importantly for the long-term build of what we’re trying to get done, we’ve got to grow and keep responding when things aren’t going good.”
What’s next?
After playing just its third home game against an SEC opponent this season, Florida will be back on the road next week visiting No. 6 Kentucky, which will see its ranking drop after a 34-6 loss to No. 13 Tennessee on Saturday. The game will kick off either at 6:15 p.m. or 7 p.m. ET and air on ESPN. The Gators, which once dominated the series, have lost four of the last five games to the Wildcats, including a 31-point loss last season. UF will play at UK for the second straight year; it has lost three straight in Lexington, Kentucky.
