Florida head coach Jon Sumrall didn’t need long to make his point about Saturday’s matchup with Ole Miss. The oddsmakers may have installed the No. 21 Gators as a 3.5-point favorite, but Sumrall wasn’t buying it.
"There's a lot of good drugs out there," Sumrall quipped when informed that oddsmakers have made Florida a 3.5-point favorite.
That reaction came with a clear message underneath it: Florida has plenty of work to do before it can feel good about facing a No. 4 Ole Miss team that just knocked off LSU 32-24 at home in the week’s biggest game. The Gators, meanwhile, are coming off a wild 44-39 win at Auburn.
"If we don't do a lot of self-improvement, we have no shot this week," Sumrall said. "I didn't even know the favored deal, but whoever's doing that, man, I don't know.
Watch the tape. They've got the best quarterback in college football, I think. ...
They've got a lot of great weapons. We've got a lot to work on ourselves."
Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss was central to that statement. Against LSU, he went 33 of 48 for 363 yards, two touchdowns and one interception, and also scored on the ground. His performance earned him AP Player of the Week honors.
Both teams enter the game at 3-0, giving Florida its best start since 2019. Ole Miss climbed from No. 8 into the AP Poll’s top five, while Florida is close to cracking the top 20 after starting the year unranked.
Sumrall kept circling back to the same theme: Florida has to improve fast if it wants to keep pace.
"If we wanna win this week, we gotta get a lot better," Sumrall said. "Last week's performance will not cut it against the outfit we're getting ready to play.
"We need great home-field advantage Saturday. I think we'll have an awesome crowd. I can't wait to see our fan base, but our guys gotta get ready to play a lot better football, or we will be really disappointed in the outcome this week."
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