Florida Admits It Stinks, and That Ought to Worry Somebody
Written by Jarvis Prime on October 21, 2026
GEORGIA MONEYBALL — Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Jon Sumrall's Gators won at Texas and responded with the most dangerous kind of honesty, and Georgia has ten days to decide whether to believe him.
ALBANY, GA — · By the RFA Sports Desk
Jon Sumrall may have just given us the finest piece of coaching candor to come out of Gainesville in a generation. His Florida Gators had gone into Austin and beaten No. 7 Texas, 27-24. Instead of handing out cigars, he told his team, Sports Illustrated's All Gators reported, "We still suck. We just sucked less." That is either the humblest thing a Florida coach has ever said or the most dangerous, and I lean toward dangerous. A man who says his team stinks right after a big road win is not being modest. He is saving some of the work for later.
The record does back him up. Florida lost to Missouri by 17. It lost at home to an unranked South Carolina by 19. Then it fell behind Texas 17-3 and looked like a team packing early for the bye week. Instead it came back and won. Afterward, linebacker Myles Graham offered a line that ought to be taped above every locker in Athens: "We haven't played a full game yet." A team that hasn't played a full game and still wins at Texas has room to grow, and ten days is plenty of time to grow some.
A team that hasn't played a full game and still wins at Texas has room to grow, and ten days is plenty of time to grow some.
Over in Athens, Kirby Smart is poor-mouthing too, and he has more evidence than he would like. At his bye-week press conference, Smart told reporters that "it seems that we're more beat up than we've been in the past." KJ Bolden's right leg is still the big question in the secondary, and Smart would only say they are "hopeful to get him back." He also listed what needs fixing: red-zone defense, missed tackles, and failing to pin opponents inside their 10. That is not a coach blowing smoke. That is a coach who just lost to Auburn on a field goal as time expired.
The bookmakers have never once been moved by a coach's modesty, and neither man has impressed them. Georgia is a 12.5-point favorite, the same number DraftKings posted back in the summer, and the total is 53.5. Our own Georgia Moneyball machine sees it closer: Georgia 30, Florida 21, with Georgia winning 70 percent of simulations but covering only 41.7 percent of the time. ESPN's FPI is cheerier at 82.7 percent. In plain English, Georgia should win, and the machine suspects the Gators will make it a good deal more uncomfortable than the number says.
If Sumrall needs proof that sucking less can work, last weekend supplied plenty. Tennessee held Alabama to 54 rushing yards and won 26-10, the Tide's second straight loss. Ohio State ended Indiana's 22-game winning streak, 19-15. BYU knocked off No. 2 Notre Dame, 28-24. Smart said this week that "anybody can beat anybody on a given Saturday," and for once a coaching cliché had the box scores to back it up. Georgia is still the SEC favorite at plus-135, but the people setting those odds don't have to play Florida, Ole Miss, Missouri and South Carolina.
This year the game moves to Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Saturday, October 31, at 3:30 on ABC. It is the first time since 1995 that it won't be played in Jacksonville. That puts it on Halloween, under a roof, about 70 miles from Athens. Of all the costumes Florida could wear, a team that knows it isn't any good is the scariest. Georgia had better hope the Gators keep believing their coach, and that nobody gets around to telling them he might be wrong.
The Notebook
- COUNTDOWN: Ten days to Georgia and Florida, Saturday, October 31, 3:30 p.m. on ABC from Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The first SEC availability report for the game is due Wednesday, October 28.
- IRISH CLOCK TROUBLE: BYU beat No. 2 Notre Dame, 28-24, handing the Irish their first loss. The Big 12 acknowledged that one more second should have been put back on the clock, which would have given Notre Dame another shot from the 8-yard line.
- BUILDING THE WALL: Georgia picked up a commitment from Koehn Dial, a 6-foot-6, 295-pound offensive tackle in the class of 2028 from Franklin, Tennessee, Saturday Down South reported.
Written in the tradition of Lewis Grizzard, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1946–1994.
Hear the desk read tonights report on Radio Free Albany, WPFQ 96.7.
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