Florida coach Jon Sumrall shares a word with Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz before his team's loss to the Tigers on Saturday at Memorial Stadium in Columbia, Mo. (Photo: UAA Communications)
No. 8 Gators Humbled, Now What?
Sunday, October 4, 2026 | Football, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
COLUMBIA, Mo. — It was like someone smearing mustard on the bright white shirt you just bought. Or letting your buddy take your new Corvette for a spin and driving it into a ditch.
Take your pick. Come up with your own analogy. That is how Florida's visit to Missouri went on Saturday.
"I'm sick to my frickin' stomach with what we just did," head coach Jon Sumrall said. "Like livid."
The No. 8-ranked Gators got whacked 45-17 by No. 25 Missouri, a harsh return to reality after last week's feel-good win over No. 4 Ole Miss at The Swamp.
The Gators got outmuscled at the line of scrimmage. Their secondary, after losing veteran safety Bryce Thornton to an injury during pregame warm-ups, stopped traffic about as well as a free toll booth on the Florida Turnpike.
If you really want to know how bad it was, consider this: Star running back Jadan Baugh finished with 13 yards on 12 carries.
That is not a typo.
Receiver Dallas Wilson plays around with the Missouri crowd after his touchdown catch on Saturday. (Photo: Hannah White/UAA Communications)
Missouri's defense bottled up Baugh, who entered the game with five consecutive 100-yard outings, from the opening drive to set the tone on a glorious afternoon that had the homecoming crowd at Memorial Stadium even heckling Florida's cheerleaders at the end.
Missouri had 560 yards of offense while limiting UF to 325. Tigers quarterback Austin Simmons passed for 340 yards and two scores. Tailback Jamal Roberts rushed for 211 yards and three touchdowns. Florida was penalized eight times for 80 yards.
After Gators quarterback Aaron Philo connected with Dallas Wilson for a 12-yard touchdown pass with 4:26 left before halftime — tying the score at 10-all — Missouri scored the next 35 points before backup quarterback Tramell Jones Jr. hit TJ Abrams for a 42-yard touchdown throw with 47 seconds left in the game.
The mood on the visiting sideline had long since turned gloomy.
"It is extremely disappointing," junior linebacker Myles Graham said. "I did not sense a performance like this coming. We got hit in the mouth. It's football. Sometimes it happens, but we will not let it define us or our season. It is not who we are."
That is a question many will ask in the coming days.
Who are the Gators?
A week ago, they were a team on the rise, jumping 13 spots in the AP Top 25. They were off to their best start in seven years, and national and state media considered them officially back.
Is Saturday's disappointing loss a reason to ring the alarm? Or was it just a bad day at the office?
Sumrall, after his first loss as Florida's coach, intends to find out before the Gators face South Carolina next weekend.
The straightforward Sumrall didn't mince words in his postgame press conference.
"Embarrassing performance, in every phase," he said. "Starts with the coaching, starts with me. Told the guys in the locker room just now, I expect everyone to be a man, which means be accountable for your actions and own it. I'm going to start that way right now. I'm not going to point fingers at anybody, but we have to play a lot better."
During Florida's surge to start the season, Sumrall cautioned that the Gators had to play better in the secondary. He also said Missouri was the most physical team Florida had faced so far and that it presented a challenge.
The result proved that while the Gators may end up having a fine season in the end, they are not good enough just to show up and expect to win.
"We have to grow up," Sumrall said. "We have got to be just a more mature outfit. You cannot play that way against anybody in this league and expect an outcome that's going to be favorable because it ain't getting any easier."
It didn't help that Thornton was unavailable Saturday and veteran cornerback Dijon Johnson, battling an ankle injury, left the game. That forced the Gators to rely on several young players more than usual, with Alfonzo Allen Jr. and Lagonza Hayward earning starts, and cornerback J'Vari Flowers taking plenty of reps behind starters Cormani McClain and Ben Hanks III.
But the personnel changes didn't solve the problem. Simmons found open receivers all day, finishing 23 of 30.
"We haven't played to the standard we need to play at a lot this year there," Sumrall said of the secondary. "I haven't hidden from that. It's not just one guy. There's some times it's coverage, discipline, detail and leverage. It'd be a really easy fix if it was just one guy. It'd be a really easy fix if it was just one thing.
"When you're calling the game, Coach [Brad] White, he can't protect everybody. Somebody's got to win a one-on-one down. There's 11 guys on each side, and we have to win some one-on-ones out there on the perimeter, which we're not doing enough of right now."
With Baugh shut down, Philo threw a career-high 34 passes. He completed 21 for 197 yards and was sacked three times. That was hardly enough on a day when the Tigers roared to beat the Gators for the third consecutive time at home.
"I've seen this team," Philo said. "I've seen us come together before, and I see us doing that same thing after this loss."
Philo believes in this team. Graham believes in this team. Sumrall believes in this team.
Saturday, though, the Gators looked nothing like the team that had raced to 4-0 and climbed to No. 8 in the country.
Maybe Missouri exposed a bad matchup. Maybe the injuries caught up with the Gators. Maybe this was nothing more than one awful afternoon.
Florida will have plenty of time to answer those questions.
What happens next will tell us far more about the Gators than what happened Saturday.
Sumrall knows that.
But first, he could use a bottle of Tums.
"The fact that we put less than our best out there absolutely makes me freaking sick," he said. "I am freaking livid over the fact that we just did that. The score is the score, but it's not just what we do; it's how we do it. And how we just did what we did is not acceptable — and will not be acceptable."
