Jadan Baugh has wasted no time making himself impossible to ignore.
After bursting 53 yards for a touchdown in Florida’s win at Auburn last week, the junior running back reached the back of the end zone and struck the Heisman pose. At the moment, the celebration fits. Baugh is sitting atop the national rushing touchdowns race with eight and ranks second in rushing yards with 458, all while Florida has opened the season with three straight 100-yard games from its lead back.
His production has put him in an entirely different conversation. DraftKings lists him at +6000 on the Heisman odds sheet, and first-year Gators coach Jon Sumrall isn’t interested in dampening the mood.
"I'm not going to take the fun away," first-year Gators coach Jon Sumrall said Monday. "Growing up as a kid, you said, 'I want to go play football,' not work football.
Now it's our livelihood, and it's our job, but I want him to enjoy it. I think that's a way now for him to celebrate and have fun with it."
Florida’s 21st-ranked team now gets a chance to keep building that momentum Saturday against No. 4 Ole Miss, with the Gators slight favorites at home. A win would move Florida within one victory of matching last season’s total, and it would give Baugh and the program an even bigger national spotlight under Sumrall.
Baugh’s decision to stay in Gainesville through the coaching change from Billy Napier to Sumrall already looks like a major one. He finished third in the SEC last season with 1,170 rushing yards, but on a 4-8 team that faded from the national picture, he never quite broke through the way his talent suggested he could.
With the transfer portal looming, he would have had plenty of options. Instead, Sumrall made keeping him a priority, and the early returns have been loud.
The numbers are eye-catching across the board. Among players with at least 30 rushing attempts, Baugh’s 55.6% tackle avoidance rate leads the country.
South Carolina’s Matt Fuller is next among SEC running backs at 34.2%. Baugh also ranks No. 4 nationally at 8.5 yards per carry, is No. 2 with 33 tackles avoided, and sits No. 4 with 267 yards after contact.
He’s the only FBS player averaging at least 7.5 yards per carry and 150 yards per game.
At 6-foot-1 and 225 pounds, he gives Florida a bruising runner who can also make defenders miss in space. He can lower his shoulder or snap off a cut and leave a tackler reaching for air.
"He's been very impressive with making people miss," Sumrall said. "Some of them have been by maybe a movement, but some of them have been by running through them, too."
That Auburn touchdown came at exactly the right moment. Florida had faced a critical fourth-and-1, and a failure there would have handed the ball back to Auburn’s offense near midfield with the Tigers threatening to trim the lead to one score. Instead, Baugh found the crease and turned it into a backbreaking run.
Florida’s approach set it up. The Gators leaned on Auburn for most of the game and nearly doubled the Tigers in time of possession.
With Duke Clark and Evan Pryor combining for 14 carries as well, Baugh was fresh enough in the second half to punish a defense that had already been worn down. He finished the job in the fourth quarter.
"The more carries, the better he plays," Sumrall said. "He's been a little bit more decisive on sticking the foot in the ground and getting vertical at times.
I think he sees it better as the game goes, too. I think physically he gets better, but I also think vision-wise of seeing what's there.
Once he gets more carries, you feel him naturally finding a groove in the run game and seeing things clear."
Florida’s offense has been rolling behind that ground game. The Gators have scored at least 42 points in each of their first three games for the first time since 2007, the season Tim Tebow quarterbacked the team.
That year also produced the last Florida Heisman winner. Nearly 20 years later, the Gators have another offensive centerpiece who looks right at home making the pose.
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