No. 21 Florida Stuns No. 4 Ole Miss, Rolls to 4-0

Florida hasn’t beaten a top-five team since 2018. That changed Saturday, and it wasn’t close.

In front of 90,683 success-starved fans standing shoulder-to-shoulder at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, No. 21 Florida dazed and downed No. 4 Ole Miss with a 52-28 knockout, earning the Gators’ first win over a top-five opponent since beating No. 5 LSU in 2018 and improving to 4-0 for the first time since 2019.

The win was built on the ground. Jadan Baugh and Duke Clark combined for 268 rushing yards on 41 carries (part of a team effort that finished with 302 rushing yards) and Florida’s defense held Heisman Trophy candidate Trinidad Chambliss’ offense to its lowest point total of the season, even as the Gators’ recurring penalty problem reared its head again in the second quarter.

“It’s not asleep, but it ain’t fully awake yet,” Gators coach Jon Sumrall said of Florida’s reviving program. “It’s being stirred up a little bit. So we’re going to get there. … I promise you, I didn’t come here for us to be average.”

Florida (4-0, 2-0 SEC) wasted no time setting the tone, capping its opening drive with an eight-play march that ended in Baugh’s 4-yard touchdown run to take a 7-0 lead. The defense carried that energy into Ole Miss’s first offensive possession, stuffing the Rebels (3-1, 1-1) on fourth-and-1 to give the Gators offense a short field to set up Patrick Durkin’s 49-yard field goal.

Two offensive possessions later, penalties started piling up as the Gators finished with eight for 92 yards. Three penalties in four plays — a delay-of-game call on Aaron Philo, a holding penalty on Bailey Stockton that wiped out a 68-yard touchdown run by Vernell Brown III and a kick-catch interference flag — stalled a Florida drive that had all the makings of another score.

The defense picked up the slack again, forcing a fourth-and-11 and limiting Ole Miss to a field goal, its first points of the day to make it 10-3.

“We’ve got to keep our foot on the gas, moving forward, keep practicing hard and keep grinding, moving on week by week,” Philo said.

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Stockton was helped off the field after absorbing a hard hit on the ensuing drive, drawing a targeting penalty that handed Florida an automatic first down. Baugh converted the extra chance into a 2-yard touchdown run to push the lead to 17-3.

Baugh’s performance ended with 29 carries, 142 yards and three touchdowns. With his fifth straight game recording over 100 rushing yards, he entered a club occupied only by Emmitt Smith and Fred Taylor.

“It means so much to me, but it means so much to them as well,” Baugh said. “Having somebody on the team that could potentially win this award, that means the world to them.”

Ole Miss got one more chance before the break, answering with a field goal after the Gators’ defense forced back-to-back incomplete passes from Chambliss, trimming it to 17-6 at the half.

Ole Miss came out of the locker room with life. Chambliss, who finished the day 25-of-34 for 298 yards, a touchdown and an interception and a fumble, connected on a 49-yard pass to set up his own 4-yard touchdown run, and the Rebels converted the two-point try to make it 17-14. Florida answered quickly, needing only four plays before Clark broke free for a 45-yard touchdown run to make it 24-14 during a career day with a game-high 126 yards on 12 carries.

Ole Miss wouldn’t go away, though, grinding out a 14-play, 74-yard drive capped by Chambliss’ second rushing touchdown of the day, a 10-yard scamper that gave him 44 yards on seven carries on the ground and cut the lead back to 24-21.

Florida’s offense stayed just as explosive. Amir Jackson hauled in a 23-yard pass from Philo, who finished 16-of-23 for 196 yards and a touchdown. After a 2-yard Baugh run and a 1-yard Philo sneak, the Gators had another score in just three plays and 1:25 for a 31-21 lead.

The defense delivered again on the next series, with Jayden Woods forcing a fumble on a sack of Chambliss and Myles Graham recovered to hand the offense the ball back at Florida’s 43 with 2:47 left in the third quarter.

“Really proud of our guys,” Sumrall said. “Still have a lot to clean up. But the responses tonight, I thought we started fast. I thought we got off the field on third down early in the game defensively when maybe some momentum wasn’t going our way in the third quarter.”

As the game moved into the fourth, The Swamp broke into its traditional “Won’t Back Down” chant, and Florida kept the pressure on. Dallas Wilson opened the scoring in the final period with a 6-yard touchdown run for a 38-21 lead. Ole Miss answered one more time, with a blown coverage on a pass to Deuce Alexander going for a touchdown to cut it to 38-28 in the Rebels’ last real push of the game.

Florida shut the door from there. Clark ripped off a 44-yard run to set up a short field, and Philo found Jackson for the score to make it 45-28 with 9:19 remaining. With 4:47 left, Philo hit Eric Singleton in his first game since the opening drive against Florida Atlantic for a 38-yard gain, and Baugh punched in a 2-yard touchdown to cap the scoring at 52-28.

Florida’s string of four consecutive games with 40 or more points is the first time a Gators team has reached the mark since 2008’s National Championship-winning squad did so in seven contests in a row. Looking back further, the last time a UF team opened the season with four straight performances of 40 or more points was in 2001.

“I like the direction we’re headed,” Sumrall said. “I’m not like Eeyore, and mad at life. I just want us to be the best we can be all the time. I’m just driven to be good.”

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