Don’t get me wrong. Don’t take this the wrong way.
I’m typing this about an hour after the game went final, so I’m still a bit high on adrenaline and joy. I reserve the right to go back on this at any time.
But.
Florida’s win over Ole Miss reminded me of a past Gator game. One from 2019, the last time the Gators started a season 4-0.
The game is the 2019 LSU game, only in this comparison, Florida was LSU and Ole Miss was Florida.
I know, I know. But.
LSU won that game by a similar final score, 42-28. UF did a better job keeping up with the better team in that one than Ole Miss did today (yesterday, by the time you’re reading this). The Gators even took a 28-21 lead on the first possession after halftime on the Tigers.
Keeping up required near-perfection, however, and the Gators couldn’t be perfect. They didn’t score again, in fact, after taking that lead. A hold and a sack killed the next drive. Dan Mullen made the subsequent series an Emory Jones drive, and it went three yards in three plays. Then Kyle Trask threw an end zone interception, and LSU closed it out with a goal line stand with under a minute to go.
It was a close game, but the Tigers could finish their drives and the Gators couldn’t.
And so it was in this classic of a game too: the Gators could finish their drives, and the Rebels couldn’t. At least, so it was after the first quarter.
UF stopped itself twice in the opening period. Aaron Philo appeared to be a bit too amped up after a Gator defense 4th down stop yielded a short field, and he missed on three passes in a row to result in a field goal attempt. They were good play calls, guys were open, but the quarterback had a bit too much juice. And then UF turned it over on downs itself after pressure in Philo’s face caused him to barely miss an open Amir Jackson on 4th & 1. It was a good play by the Rebel defense, but it also easily could’ve been a conversion as it played out.
But hey, LSU missed a field goal and punted in the first quarter against the Gators in 2019 too.
After that, almost the only thing that stopped Florida against Ole Miss was the clock. UF did have one more punt after a hold negated a long Vernell Brown III touchdown reception (which wouldn’t have gone anywhere without the hold) and a delay of game on 3rd down. But after that, Florida only punted after running it three times to burn clock when taking over with 1:05 to go in the first half. They didn’t score when icing the game at the end; aw shucks.
So really, in seven possessions after the first quarter when Florida tried to score, they got touchdowns in six of them. There was almost nothing that the Rebels could do to slow down the Gator offense, much less stop it.
Ole Miss scored all of its 28 points after going scoreless in the first. They stayed in it for quite a while, and they too got a touchdown on the first possession after the half to cut the lead to 17-14. They did answer Florida’s ensuing touchdown with one of their own to cut the lead to three again at 24-21. They were still very much in it when the fourth quarter began.
However, just like in 2019, the better team put a touchdown on the board late in the third quarter to take the momentum back. And also like in 2019, the weaker team self destructed down the stretch. UF in 2019 did it with penalties, a drive with Jones instead of Trask, and a pick.
This weekend, Ole Miss’s offense did it with a protection failure that led to a strip-sack, a personal foul penalty, and an interception. Don’t get me wrong, the Florida defense helped out with some canny plays. It wasn’t solely the Rebels melting down, just like it wasn’t solely the Gators melting down late in ’19.
There are some real big differences, of course. Philo is not Joe Burrow. That’s no slight to him, certainly, to say he’s not on par with maybe the best quarterback season we’ve ever seen.
LSU was slanted towards pass in its production, with 293 yards through the air to 218 on the ground. UF was the opposite, with a whopping 302 rushing yards against 196 passing yards. LSU’s passing was also almost entirely to two guys, with Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson each snagging more than 120 yards. UF was so balanced in passing targets that Eric Singleton led the team in receiving yards with 38 on a single reception.
Enough getting lost in details, though. The bottom line is that in both contests, two quality teams played. One had an essentially unstoppable offense. The other put up a valiant effort but just wasn’t good enough to keep up.
Then, it was 2019 LSU winning. Now, it was 2026 Florida victorious.
Florida is the team with the nigh unstoppable offense. I think I giggled just writing that.
Now, there is a lot of football left to be played. The ’19 Gators also had a better defense than this year’s Rebels do. UF also needs to prove it has the mental toughness not to suffer a letdown at Missouri next week, and the real tests of the offense will come with Texas, Georgia, and Oklahoma in succession. Well, maybe Oklahoma. It is hard on a defense when it’s the only half of a team worth a darn.
I feel like sincerely comparing this year’s team to 2019 LSU is as much getting ahead of myself as I should do for the day, so I’ll sign off here. It is so, so great to see Florida have such a good offense after struggling so much in the last half-decade. What a win. Go Gators.