Bryce Lovett, No. 53, was named SEC Offensive Lineman of the Week for his performance in the win over Ole Miss. (Photo: /UAA Communications)
Gators Seek To Leave Their Missouri History Behind
Wednesday, September 30, 2026 | Football, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Since their first meeting 60 years ago, Florida and Missouri have produced some strange chapters. That inaugural meeting, in the 1965 Sugar Bowl, took place at Tulane Stadium, just steps from where Gators head coach Jon Sumrall roamed the sideline the past two years.
Florida trailed 20-0 in the third quarter before quarterback Steve Spurrier heated up, completing 16 of 23 for 198 yards – in the fourth quarter. The most completions in an entire game in any Sugar Bowl up to that point was 17, set by Davey O'Brien in 1939.
In the end, Spurrier passed for 352 yards and two touchdowns, but Coach Ray Graves elected to go for two after every score – the Gators failed to convert any of them – and UF's comeback bid fell short, 20-18, with Spurrier still the only Sugar Bowl MVP from the losing team.
"Looking back on it,'' Spurrier said, "I wish we had done something different."
Understandably, Sumrall's message this week has been to shove the past away – Florida's recent success and its past failures against the Tigers.
"If you're going on the past, it might mess up your future,'' receiver Dallas Wilson said.
Of course, that Sugar Bowl clash remained the only game between the schools until 2012 when Missouri joined the Southeastern Conference and became a regular on Florida's schedule. They have split their 12 meetings as SEC rivals, and for the Gators, some of those losses have been ugly (36-17 in 2013; 42-13 in 2014; 45-16 in 2017; 38-17 in 2018).
Meanwhile, Tulane demolished the old stadium in 1980, but in 2014, the Green Wave unveiled Yulman Stadium, their new on-campus home built on the edges of where Tulane Stadium once stood. Sumrall celebrated a conference championship in his final game there a season ago.
In Sumrall's first season at Florida, the Gators are suddenly being mentioned as a potential SEC champion, but the 44-year-old coach has only Missouri on his mind. The No. 8-ranked Gators (4-0, 2-0) face their latest test on the road against No. 25 Missouri (3-1, 0-1) on Saturday afternoon at Memorial Stadium.
"You don't hang a banner or get celebrated for where you're ranked between game 4 and 5 in college football," Sumrall said. "The rankings mean absolutely nothing. And anybody that's feeling really good about us being ranked wherever we're ranked, it means nothing to me. It really doesn't mean anything until after the last game is played."
The Gators are off to a 4-0 start under first-year head coach Jon Sumrall. (Photo: Mia Tunon/UAA Communications)
Coming off an impressive 52-28 win over then-No. 4 Ole Miss last week, the Gators rocketed from 21st to eighth in the AP Top 25. Florida's surge has captivated college football. Jadan Baugh was named Doak Walker National Running Back of the Week, Bryce Lovett SEC Offensive Player of the Week, and London Montgomery SEC Special Teams Player of the Week.
Florida fans haven't been this giddy since 2019 during Dan Mullen's second season when the Gators went 11-2 and beat Virginia in the Orange Bowl.
But in another memorable loss against Missouri, Mullen's fate was sealed in 2021 when the Gators lost in overtime at Memorial Stadium. Two years later, Florida's defense surrendered a fourth-and-17 on Missouri's game-winning drive, handing the Gators their fourth consecutive loss in Billy Napier's second season.
"We can't get complacent,'' Gators safety DJ Coleman said. "We played pretty decently last week. But there's still room to grow. I feel like if we take those steps, we can show a lot of growth."
Missouri suffered its first loss of the season a week ago at Mississippi State as Bulldogs quarterback Kamario Taylor threw for 360 yards and three touchdowns to outduel Tigers newcomer Austin Simmons, a former Gators commit who transferred to Missouri from Ole Miss after last season. Simmons threw for 295 yards and three scores, but Missouri's defense could not slow down the Bulldogs in the fourth quarter.
The Gators have not won at Missouri in seven years, the last time they started 4-0 and won their first two SEC games. They don't expect it to be easy Saturday.
"I think it's an underrated environment," defensive coordinator Brad White said. "That's sort of a misnomer. I think it's underrated in terms of — especially with all the new construction they've done. It's just a hard place to play."
Playing behind an offensive line that Sumrall considers the best the Gators have faced, Simmons has thrown for 947 yards, 11 touchdowns and no interceptions. Jamal Roberts has rushed for 395 yards and three scores for a Tigers offense averaging 418.8 yards per game.
Defensively, linebacker Nicholas Rodriguez is among the SEC leaders with 39 tackles, and sophomore edge rusher Daeden Hopkins has a team-high 6.5 tackles for loss. Missouri ranks ninth in the SEC in total defense (318.5 ypg).
Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz, whose name surfaced as a potential target to replace Napier after last season before Florida hired Sumrall, spent the week urging his team not to get sidetracked by its first loss.
"This day and age, we want to be really quick to write people off and write chapters of a story or finality or obituaries or whatever, based off of one thing,'' Drinkwitz told reporters. "Seasons are long seasons. It's not always going to go your way. This is a really, really good football team we've got coming in here. So, we got to speed up the response, and we got to have a bounce-back factor, for sure."
The Gators also are trying to avoid a letdown after earning their first win over a team ranked fourth or higher in 11 years. Florida has scored 40 or more points in four straight games and ranks second nationally in scoring offense (53.5 ppg) and fifth in total offense (532.8 ypg).
"Relative to what you could get, we got great news after the imaging and everything," Sumrall said. "It's really going to be as much about pain tolerance and confidence with him being ready to go. But medically there's nothing that's going to hold him back other than his own readiness."
Florida's trip to Missouri is the program's latest opportunity to take another huge step forward under Sumrall. The Gators won at Auburn two weeks ago. They handled Ole Miss impressively at home a week ago.
They know nothing gets easier, even as Missouri fans toss barbs about Florida as the Tigers' homecoming opponent.
"If we think it's going to be a freaking cakewalk, I don't care if it's homecoming or whatever, we're in for a rude awakening," Sumrall said. "We've got to get ready to play a really good football team on the road in a place that's not gone well for us a lot recently. So, I'm really worried about that. I don't care who their homecoming king, or queen, or any of that is."
The message seems to be registering.
"We're just not going to listen to the noise,'' Lovett said.
Probably a good idea. Florida already has enough history with Missouri.
