GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Ole Miss coach Pete Golding got straight to the point after a 52-28 loss to Florida on Saturday, describing the game as an "old-fashioned butt whupping" while questioning whether he had enough players with a "burning in your gut" to fix their problems.
A week after an emotional 32-24 win over LSU and former coach Lane Kiffin, the No. 4 Rebels entered the Florida game as the underdogs -- and they played like it. Florida physically dominated up front, rushing for 302 yards, while holding Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss in check. Chambliss threw for 298 passing yards but had two turnovers, including a crucial fumble late in the third quarter as Ole Miss tried to cut into the lead.
In the end, Florida looked like the top-five team. Ole Miss now has an open date to fix its myriad issues.
"I don't want them to get this taste out of their mouth," Golding said. "That's what I told them. I never got the taste out of my mouth from Miami walking off the field [in last year's CFP semifinal loss]. Part of the problem sometimes is we move on too fast. The sun's going to come up tomorrow and it's a new day, but it's a new day to go get better at what we don't do well. You better have that burning in your gut to go fix something. I think we have guys like that. We don't have enough guys like that right now.
"That was kind of the challenge right there. We get to choose. That's the beautiful thing about this game. You get to choose whether you're going to go all in and do things right or not."
Golding headed into the season feeling good about the defense, but it has struggled to contain the run through its first four games. Florida finished with two players rushing for at least 100 yards, Jadan Baugh and Duke Clark, and Golding said his team's inability to tackle properly was particularly frustrating.
This season, Baugh has 11 rushing touchdowns, tied with Najee Harris (2020) and Leonard Fournette (2015) for the most through four games by an SEC player since conference expansion in 1992.
"We had a lot of guys trying to ankle bite, diving at ankles and all those things," Golding said. "I addressed the manhood at halftime a little bit. There was a lack of courage in my opinion, at times, that we were picking and choosing. That's an elite back, and he's a big back, and you've got to go chest-to-chest with him whether you like it or not."
Linebacker Keaton Thomas said of the halftime speech, "I think some guys took it, and other guys didn't, and I think that showed in the second half. I'm going to make it evident, too, to call guys out and let them know that, if you don't want this, then you shouldn't have come here."
The offense struggled without running back Kewan Lacy, who missed the game because of a left shoulder injury he suffered last week against LSU. Golding refused to use that as an excuse, saying, "I am not putting this game on Kewan Lacy at all."
"We came with 74 dudes," Golding said. "That is plenty of guys. This is not an excuse of who played and who did not play. We are a team, and it is always going to be the next-man-up mentality."
Ole Miss finally got something going on offense in the second half, closing the gap to three points multiple times after scoring touchdowns on its first two drives of the third quarter. But Chambliss was sacked and fumbled with the Rebels trailing 31-21, and Florida converted the turnover into a touchdown to essentially seal the win.
The Gators scored touchdowns on five straight possessions in the second half. The only time they didn't score was on the final drive, when they ran out the clock to close the game.
Chambliss has more turnovers this season (five) than he had all last season (three).
"I'm super confident in our team," Chambliss said. "Florida, they were a good team. I feel like if we were playing our best ball, things might have been different, but that didn't happen today. But the confidence in my team has never changed. I still got the utmost confidence in my team. I feel like we can still compete for an SEC championship, in the national championship, but now, we just got to go another week and focus on one game at a time."
The Gators, meanwhile, appear resurgent under first-year coach Jon Sumrall.
Florida has scored 40 or more points in its first four games for the first time since 2001, when Steve Spurrier was the coach. Sumrall became the first coach in SEC history to score 200-plus points in his first four games.
After the game, though, he said, "We have not arrived."
"I like the direction we're headed," Sumrall said. "I'm not Eeyore, mad at life. I just want us to be the best we can be all the time."
Baugh described the confidence with which the offense is playing, a far cry from its offensive struggles under former coach Billy Napier.
"If we stay where our feet are and focus on the task at hand, I don't feel like nobody in the world can stop us," Baugh said.