COLUMBIA, Mo. — David Reese is soft-spoken. The bruising linebacker takes time when answering questions and is always positive. He’s repeatedly gone to bat for his teammates and his team.
Saturday he had a different message.
“I just wanna say one thing. We loved every single one of our coaches that’s been through here. It’s unfortunate what’s happened to them. I hate the way we represented our coaches like that today with this game,” Reese said. “Those guys really care for us and gave us a real good gameplan to do what we had to do. It’s sometimes disappointing when everybody doesn’t want to come together and just play for each other. That’s sad to see. We’ve still got a lot to play for. Me personally and our defense we want to play for those guys. We can’t have appearances like we just had today. That’s unacceptable.”
The issue Saturday wasn’t just a 45-16 shellacking, it was the effort that Florida didn’t play with. It was, at least from the outside looking in, the first time Florida has appeared to give up, roll over, pack it in and call it quits in the middle of a game.
Not everyone, certainly, but as a whole Florida came out for the second half with little to no enthusiasm or passion for the game.
“I don’t know. Far as this game, we didn’t come out as one. We didn’t have the energy we needed,” Reese said. “We didn’t play together. We didn’t play as a unit. I don’t know. It just wasn’t as personal to us as it should have been.”
It’s hard to fathom why it wouldn’t be personal to every player in the locker room. After an embarrassing result last weekend in Jacksonville the players learned of Jim McElwain’s departure on social media. They all spoke of keeping their focus despite the coaching change. To a man every player that spoke with the media talked about getting to a bowl game and how important that was to them and to the program. Then Saturday they showed that those were just words filled with hot air and no meaning.
“Today’s game wasn’t representative of the University of Florida,” Shannon bluntly stated after the game.
The problem is, at least currently, that is the state of the football program.
The Gators are 3-5. A coaching change will almost assuredly cause more draft eligible players to leave and you have to worry about those players making business decisions the rest of the season.
Florida had been to 22 consecutive bowl games before missing the postseason in 2013. They’re on the precipice of doing it twice now in the span of five seasons.
Reese didn’t like what he saw on Saturday and he called it out. That’s good to see and hear but the Gators need to hear it from him. Florida players and coaches insist that they have leaders on the team, they won’t publically name who they are, but insist they’re there.
Can you name one?
It’s an issue of leadership on the sideline and in the locker room. The players that have earned that role on the field aren’t outspoken guys. Florida needs somebody to grab their teammates facemask and let them know that quitting isn’t acceptable. It’s not in Reese’s normal character to be that guy but maybe Saturday is the push he needed.
“There’s only so much you can do. It’s just sometimes the character of an individual … sometimes it’s a little bit overwhelming,” Reese said. “But you have to focus on the task at hand, the game at hand, we’re going to hit it hard at practice and try to get everybody that wants to be on board on board. That’s something we didn’t have. If you want to be a Gator, let’s be Gators.”