Jadan Baugh keeps making the case louder, and Florida keeps riding it.
On a day when the Gators needed a big-time answer, Baugh delivered another one of those performances that turns a good running back into a headline. He piled up 162 yards and three touchdowns, pushing his season totals to 458 rushing yards - second-most in the FBS - and eight touchdowns, which leads the FBS. Florida’s 3-0 start is its first since 2019, and Baugh has been the engine behind it.
His latest explosion at Auburn was the kind of outing that can start a real Heisman conversation. He ran for 150 yards and three scores on 20 carries, and his damage came in the biggest moments. A 33-yard touchdown on the opening drive of the third quarter stretched Florida’s lead to 10, and a 53-yard score on fourth-and-one in the fourth quarter effectively put the game away.
Baugh also forced 13 missed tackles, the most in college football in Week Three according to PFF.
That kind of production is nothing new for him. After last season’s 1,170 yards and eight touchdowns, Baugh became Florida’s first 1,000-yard rusher in a decade and established himself as one of the program’s best backs in recent memory. Now he’s threatening even bigger territory, with a shot at becoming the first back-to-back 1,000-yard rusher in school history.
He’s already nearly halfway there. And with his fourth straight 100-yard rushing game - a stretch that includes the 266-yard performance against FSU to close the 2025 season - he joined Fred Taylor, Errict Rhett and Emmitt Smith as the only players in Florida history to do that.
The numbers are starting to stack up fast. Baugh now has 2,301 career rushing yards, which ranks 13th in program history, and 23 rushing touchdowns, which ranks 10th.
That climb matters to him, especially with Taylor in his corner. Baugh calls him “Uncle Fred,” and he made it clear how much that connection means.
“Being able to put my name up there with him and a couple other guys, I feel like that's an honor,” Baugh said. “Those guys paved the way for me."
His decision to stay in Gainesville after drawing interest from other Power Four schools, including Texas, is looking better by the week. CBS Sports’ Chris Hummer detailed that offseason with Baugh’s father, Corey Bryant, who framed the choice in stark terms.
“You can go to Texas and have a great year, but it'd be just a great year," Bryant said of his conversations with Baugh. "If you stay at Florida and have another great year, you'll go down as one of the best running backs to ever come through the place.
You'll always have a home in Gainesville. You'd put yourself in the same conversation as Emmitt Smith and Tim Tebow."
Baugh is starting to move into that neighborhood.
Even the rough spots didn’t slow him down for long. A rare first-quarter drop ended up in an Auburn defender’s hands and led to a Tigers field goal, but Baugh answered quickly after a conversation with head coach Jon Sumrall.
“Jadan Baugh did a great job responding,” Sumrall said. “That’s, really unfortunate play, should have caught the ball, bad, bad, bad play. I grabbed him and I said ‘Hey, around here, when something bad happens, we say good, and when something good happens, we say good’, and so I went over to him after the play and I said ‘Hey, good, you got a chance to redeem yourself now, go make another play next time’.
“I didn’t like it, but that’s our mindset: when something bad happens, we say good.”
Florida assistant AD of recruiting strategy Katie Doeker got some credit for the “Jadan-Hare Stadium” line, but Baugh earned the joke with his performance. He has become the centerpiece of Florida’s early surge, and with each 100-yard day, the Heisman case gets harder to ignore.
The bigger question now is how far he can carry it - and whether the season ends with him as a finalist.
In Other News...
Florida Ole Miss Just Got Even Bigger In Gainesville
Gainesville is getting the full national spotlight before Ole Miss visits in Week 4, with SEC Network announcing that SEC Nation will broadcast live from campus on Saturday morning. The pregame show starts at 9 a.m. ET and will feature Tim Tebow along with the rest of the crew, setting the stage for a marquee SEC matchup that has already drawn plenty of attention.
The timing only adds to the buzz around a game that pits No. 4 Ole Miss against No. 21 Florida in the late afternoon window on ABC. For the Gators, the visit from SEC Nation is another sign that this one has the feel of a bigger moment than a typical conference game, with the buildup stretching well beyond kickoff at 3:30 p.m. ET. [Read more 🡒]
Kahleil Jackson Earned A Florida Moment Fans Wont Forget
Kahleil Jackson delivered one of those flash-point moments Florida fans will remember from the Auburn game, when the wide receiver stepped into a trick-play role and uncorked a 48-yard pass to tight end Amir Jackson. The play helped set up a field goal and had been in the playbook for two weeks before Florida finally found the right look to call it, with the defenses alignment giving the Gators the opening they wanted.
For Jackson, the moment carried extra weight because it came after a long stretch of recovery from previous injuries, and Florida coach Jon Sumrall also pointed to the play as a reflection of how the staff and players had prepared for the opportunity. It was the kind of sequence that can change the feel of a game in a hurry, and it added another layer to a season already marked by Jackson trying to get back to form and back into the spotlight. [Read more 🡒]
Florida Still Faces One Real Danger In This Calmer Ole Miss Week
The buildup to Floridas meeting with Ole Miss feels a little different this time around. After a year that brought plenty of noise around coaching changes and a much sharper edge between fan bases, the conversation has settled into something closer to a normal game-week hum. There is still history here, and there is still plenty for both sides to care about, but the social media temperature has cooled enough that the Gators can approach this one with less off-field static than they faced a season ago.
Even so, calm does not mean safe. Florida is the favorite, and that alone is enough to make this the kind of matchup that can turn tricky if the Gators are not locked in from the opening kickoff. Ole Miss has the profile of a trap game opponent, especially in a conference schedule where one flat stretch can change the feel of a season, and Floridas real concern is not the chatter around the matchup so much as what happens if the focus slips once the game starts. [Read more 🡒]