Florida’s interior defense took the hit everyone could see Saturday night, and the absence of Jeramiah McCloud was a big reason why.
With McCloud suspended ahead of the matchup for “conduct detrimental to the team,” the Gators were pushed around in the middle during a 23-7 loss to Oklahoma in the Swamp. John Mateer and the Sooners turned the game into a trench battle, piling up 10 third-down conversions and stringing together drive after drive that wore Florida down.
The numbers told the story. Oklahoma managed only 144 rushing yards, but that didn’t stop it from controlling the short-yardage moments that mattered most. The Sooners converted six of seven third-down tries of four yards or fewer, repeatedly finding answers when Florida needed a stop.
Florida tried to patch the hole by rotating in five different linemen, but none of them finished with a PFF grade above 62. Without McCloud, the Gators never looked settled inside, and the defense spent too much of the night chasing the game instead of dictating it.
“I thought they did a nice job of staying on schedule, something I talked about us not having done recently and put themselves in more manageable third downs. Their quarterback run game was effective,” Sumrall said of Oklahoma's attack.
“... They had answers.”
That was the theme all night for Florida: Oklahoma kept finding the right answer, especially in the tight spaces where games like this are decided. The Gators’ inability to win up front became the difference in a low-scoring matchup where every possession carried weight.
“Defensively you have to continually respond and in a game like that, their defense outplayed our offense. I thought our defense did some good things, but we got outplayed by their defense,” Sumrall said.
“... They found ways to get third-and-shorts, fourth-and-shorts and just convert and keep converting.”
Now the bigger question is what comes next for McCloud. His future with the program is still unresolved, and Sumrall is scheduled to meet with the former four-star on Sunday as the two work toward a more definitive decision. Sumrall will speak at his weekly press conference Monday and is expected to provide an update then.
After the loss, he made it clear the door is still open.
“I love Jeramiah," Sumrall said after Saturday's loss. "I love every guy on our football team.
My heart is for every individual young man on our team. There’s certain things, standards, that you have to live by and do to be part of the team.
Jeramiah just had a couple things that had occurred that at some point there has to be accountability.”
He also said he hopes McCloud can still return for Florida’s final three games of the regular season.
"It's going to be more on his mindset than mine because I'm not changing," he said. "We're not going to bend the rules or change the ground rules for anybody.”
In the meantime, Florida may have to keep leaning on younger, less proven options in the middle. True freshman Stive-Bentley Keumajou-Yondui appears to be the name gaining the most traction, and his workload has been climbing. Against Oklahoma, he played a career-high 14 snaps in McCloud’s place.
Earlier in the year, defense coordinator Brad White described what has helped Keumajou-Yondui earn that opportunity.
‘"He's a high-energy player and he's got twitch inside. He's got strength and twitch and energy, and so it's been good to get again a young guy filtered in there and developing, and continue to see his role expand," defense coordinator Brad White said on Keumajou-Yondui earlier in the year.
“... Like any young players, the devil's in the details.
The more detailed we can get with him, but he's bright. He picks up things quickly.
He wants to be good, and so he'll put the time in. He'll be in the building extra.
So he's a young man that obviously didn't get here til late and has been able to pick up the game fast, but the effort and the strength and the twitch is really what's helped him get on the field.”
With McCloud’s status still unsettled, Keumajou-Yondui’s role could keep growing. And after a night that exposed just how thin Florida is inside, the Gators are left searching for answers in the middle.
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