Jon Sumrall found out Monday that his 3-0 Florida Gators are favored to beat 3-0 Ole Miss on Saturday. He did not take the news well.
The Reaction
“Who’s got us favored against these guys?” Sumrall asked at his weekly press conference. Informed it was the Vegas point spread, he answered: “There’s a lot of good drugs out there, huh?”
He was not finished. “And so I didn’t even know the favorite deal, but whoever’s doing that, man, I don’t know. They haven’t watched tape. They got the best quarterback in college football I think.”
That last sentence is the one that matters. Sumrall is not being modest about his own team. He is telling everyone that Trinidad Chambliss is a problem.
The Numbers Support Him
Ole Miss is ranked No. 4 in the AP poll after climbing four spots. Florida is No. 21, ranked for the first time under Sumrall after being unranked all season.
The Rebels got there by beating then-No. 7 LSU 32-24 on Friday in Lane Kiffin’s return to Oxford. Chambliss threw for 363 yards and two touchdowns and added the go-ahead 14-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter.
Florida opened as a 1.5-point favorite and the line has since moved to around 3.5. A No. 21 team laying points to a No. 4 team is unusual, even at home.
Florida’s 3-0 Deserves a Closer Look
The Gators beat Florida Atlantic 66-21 and Campbell 52-3 at home, then won 44-39 at Auburn while committing 16 penalties.
Beating Auburn at Jordan-Hare is a real result. Winning 44-39 with 16 flags is also the profile of a team that has not been fully tested.
Kiffin Left, and Ole Miss Got Better
The subplot here is excellent. Lane Kiffin left Ole Miss for LSU on Nov. 30, the same day Florida hired Sumrall. Ole Miss promoted defensive coordinator Pete Golding to head coach.
Golding’s team then beat Kiffin’s LSU squad by eight in Oxford on Friday. Ole Miss is 3-0 and ranked No. 4. LSU is 2-1 and fell to No. 10.
Sumrall, for what it is worth, coached linebackers at Ole Miss in 2018.
Sumrall Has Earned the Benefit of the Doubt
The 44-year-old went 23-4 in two years at Troy with back-to-back Sun Belt titles, then 20-8 at Tulane, including an 11-3 season in 2025 that produced an American Conference championship and the first College Football Playoff berth in school history.
Florida hired him to replace Billy Napier on a six-year, $44.7 million deal. He has won his first three games and he is publicly telling oddsmakers they are wrong about his team.
The Schedule Is Why He Is Nervous
Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC is the start of the worst month any team in the country will face. After Ole Miss, Florida goes to No. 19 Missouri, hosts South Carolina, travels to No. 1 Texas, then plays No. 2 Georgia in Atlanta.
Four ranked opponents in five games, three of them in the top five. Sumrall knows exactly what is in front of him, which is probably why he is not interested in being anybody’s favorite.
One thing to watch: Ole Miss running back Kewan Lacy left the LSU game in the second half and is a game-time decision.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.