Florida fans got a painfully familiar reminder last night as their former coach’s first loss at JMU unfolded in a way that felt awfully close to the end of his run in Gainesville.
JMU had entered the game 7-0 before falling to App State in overtime, and the loss arrived with a sequence that Gator fans have seen before in all the wrong ways. With 1:02 left in the first half, two timeouts and the ball, JMU ran the clock out.
Tied 21-21 in the fourth quarter, the Dukes lined up for a field goal, then took an illegal snap penalty that pushed the kick back five yards. Later, down 31-24, JMU got stopped on third down and then lost even more yardage when a player was flagged for a personal foul.
Still trailing by seven, JMU held the ball at midfield for a minute before eventually scoring a touchdown with four seconds left. The Dukes then passed on a two-point try, went to overtime, got the ball first and dialed up a trick play that fooled no one.
The coach at the center of it all is still not being named here. Around these parts, he’s simply The Man in the Black Polo.
Before kickoff, he appeared on Sirius XM radio and said this about his exit from Florida:
“I joke around that Florida did me a favor and fired me midseason. So I got the second half of the season to kind of really do a deep dive into that entire four-year process, what we learned from that, and where can we improve?”
That line landed differently after the way Saturday night played out.
The frustration from Florida fans has been building around the idea that the last four years were being framed as an administration issue rather than a coaching issue. There are fair complaints to be made about the administration, but this loss gave those fans another reason to push back on that storyline. JMU’s first defeat under The Man in the Black Polo looked a lot like the kind of game management that haunted Florida far too often.
It also echoed Florida’s 2024 loss to Tennessee, when the Gators scored late, lined up for a strange two-point play, backed off, and then lost in overtime after missing a field goal.
JMU had a halftime lead and still lost. Florida fans have seen that movie before.
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Florida's Title Push Comes With Massive Pressure Now
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The valuation attached to the roster is reportedly above $25 million, with only Louisville and Kentucky spending more on their mens basketball teams. Haugh is expected to be the highest earner in mens college basketball, which underscores how much pressure now comes with Floridas title push. For a program trying to stay among the national heavyweights, the dollars are no longer just a backdrop - they are part of the expectation. [Read more 🡒]