No. 4 Ole Miss Football suffered a significant loss to No. 21 Florida on the road Saturday afternoon. The Week 4 loss is indicative of a larger issue: They have yet to play a complete game of football from the first quarter to the fourth quarter and have not shown much fight outside of LSU.
Head coach Pete Golding spoke about the various issues Ole Miss faced on Saturday night in a postgame press conference.
“That was an old-fashioned butt whooping right there, man. (I) thought in all three phases, especially in the first half, (we) just couldn’t really get anything going offensively,” Golding said. “Third (downs were) a struggle. Defensively, losing leverage, having missed tackles, explosives in the run game, in the pass game. (I) didn’t think we executed really well on special teams either.”
Quarterback Trinidad Chambliss and the offense came alive in the third quarter, until right guard Patrick Kutas left the game with an injury from an unnecessary roughness call. Troy Everett replaced him and the Rebels immediately gave up a sack fumble that effectively ended the game.
Prior to the third, Ole Miss only managed six points on 148 yards. Chambliss only had 88 pass yards. Offensive coordinator John David Baker seemingly took Chambliss out of the equation. The Heisman hopeful was squeezed into short, minimal-gain throws and only ran the ball one time.
When Chambliss was finally released in the second half, he scored two touchdowns on the ground, one through the air and willed the Rebels back into the game. Ole Miss had a real chance to take the lead in the second half, which makes the outcome even more disappointing.
“It (was) as bad of a first half as you can potentially have,” Golding said. “Then we go out in the second half and score on the first possession. Get it (the deficit) down to three points. … We just could never get a stop on defense.”
Unfortunately, the Ole Miss defense killed any chance of a comeback with dismal play.
Gator running back Jadan Baugh ran all over the Rebels, totaling 142 yards and three touchdowns. Golding’s defense never found an answer for Baugh. They simply could not bring the six-foot-one-inch, 225 pound tailback down.
The Rebels looked like a real threat in Week 3 against LSU. While they did not play a complete game, at least the offense and defense played well at the same time, allowing Ole Miss to take a sizable lead.
Every time Chambliss got the Rebels a little closer to catching the Gators, the defense, amazingly, found new ways to give Florida yards. The Ole Miss defense truly had it all: missed tackles, surrendered explosive plays and penalties.
Saturday’s game was frightening. The Rebel defense was supposed to be revitalized, a squad that could match 2024’s defense, but the 2026 edition does not give off the impression of a team destined for greatness.
The loss was reminiscent of Ole Miss’ loss to Georgia in Athens, Ga., last year. This time, however, the Rebel offense did not get started until the second half. Still, the defense looked very similar.
Things got worse and worse. Late into the fourth, instead of looking like the game in Georgia in 2025, it was starting to look more like Georgia in 2023, when the Rebels lost 52-17.
Interestingly, the Rebels elected to allow the Gators to return kickoffs, instead of kicking the ball into the back of the end zone. This strategy allowed Florida to get outstanding field position on its first two drives of the second half, including a 74-yard return. The Gators converted on both chances with touchdowns.
Moreover, kicker Lucas Carneiro had what could be identified as an onside kick; however, the Rebels never had a chance to recover the kick. Plus, there was 12 minutes left in the game. The Gators got the ball at their own 35-yard line, and they scored again.
“(Carneiro) definitely didn’t hit it like he has been hitting it from a kickoff standpoint,” Golding said. “The one in the fourth quarter was a bloop, but that was by design, not to go out of bounds obviously, but to give us a chance if they bobbled it around or not.”
All three phases of the Rebel game showed significant issues on Saturday. At one point, there was confusion amongst the offense about what down it was. They stayed on the field in the shadow of their own goalline facing fourth-and-24, before the coaching staff was able to get the correct unit on the field.
To cap off the dreadful, crushing afternoon, Chambliss got too greedy looking for a garbage-time touchdown and threw an interception.
It would have been nice if the Rebels went into the bye week with a win, but they will have two weeks to regroup and get ready for their Week 6 matchup in Nashville against Vanderbilt.
