All offseason, we painted a picture of Florida’s week three matchup against Auburn being the litmus test that Jon Sumrall had to pass. For as much as we can paint a picture that Sumrall has an uphill climb with his rebuild in Gainesville, tonight’s game against Auburn was as much of an apples-to-apples comparison as Florida was going to get all season long.
So while there are things on the defensive side are still up for debate, Sumrall’s choices on offense paid massive dividends on Saturday as the Gators did the thing that would have doomed them this time last year under the previous regime,
Florida winds up with a better offense than Auburn
If we are being honest, if one had said prior to the game that Florida was going to give up 39 points, we here at Hail Florida Hail would have assumed that Florida would have lost and it wouldn’t have been close.
Keep in mind that in the blowout against Miami in 2024, the Hurricanes scored 41 points. So with that in mind, the fact that Florida gave up as many points as they did, and yet the game was never in doubt, is a testament to the new offensive era Florida finds itself in.
Florida punter Alec Clark punted just once in this game.
Once. We used to seek approval from our respective deity for days like this.
And yet, the reason why this win is not as cathartic as it should be is that Florida’s defense gave up those pre mentioned 39 points.
So the juxtaposition of a night like tonight is who made who- Buster Faulkner or Jon Sumrall?
For the purpose of the 2026 season, all we know is that Florida is 3-0 for the first time since 2019. All the tough-guy talk that Auburn fans had all week about stopping Florida went by the wayside the instant that Jadan Baugh got the ball, and Tiger fans realized what Gator fans had been telling them all week.
We said all offseason that Auburn was a litmus test for Florida.
Fair being fair, the test was passed.
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